Sinner Mango Ride Report

Ride Report from 1st Commute to work April 3rd 2012

OK Brief ride report-rode to work on Tuesday for 6am start after receiving the Mango previous afternoon at 4pm. PaulM very kindly came to my place to film, help unpack and setup the Mango-thanks Paul, much appreciated.

Set up felt ok initially, but decided after a while that I wasn't getting maximum power to the pedals and they needed to be moved forward. Couldn't do anything about it then, so this report is from a slightly compromised sitting position in the Mango.

It is obviously much faster on the flats and downhills, the uphill coming home to my house was slow-9kph, but I am hoping with the pedal adjustment, that will improve a bit. I only do it at 12kph on the trike.

First impressions are fast, twitchy at speed, greater turning circle which may require some re routing on my work commute, some clearance issues on badly constructed path/road interfaces.  It's hard to know initially how fast to go into a corner, but experience will help. Certainly taking the racing line where able maintains one's speed nicely. Slower to accelerate from a stop but in no time at all I was above my trike/bike speed.  This all sounds a bit negative, its not, its just a completely different way of riding and takes some getting used to.

The electronics are great, headlight, cockpit lights, fog lights, hazard lights, turn indicators, stop lights, horn... it all actually gives me the horn just thinking about it!!  No agro from cars as yet, in fact while waiting for the airport roundabout lights, a female passenger wound down her window and wanted to know all about it, she thought it was cool!! (first day out!!) . I find in traffic on a flat or downhill, I am very happy to take the lane as I'm only 15-20kph below the limit anyway, so feel quite confident in traffic-so far.

After consulting just about everyone on the planet who has a Mango regarding body fit, I adjusted the pedals forward yesterday afternoon. Due to being on a night shift, I was only able to go for a short ride up and down the street but it felt much better and seemed like more power available, so I will give it a longer ride after tonight's night shift-weekend off, yippee!!

An interesting aside, a few times, I was thinking despondently "Gee, I not going very fast", then looking at the computer i was doing 28-30kph where on the trike I'd be doing 20kph on a good day, "Mmm so not so bad after all!". So some comparison speeds, my downhill just after start 50 trike, 47 Mango (on the brakes, quite a turn, didn't want to overcook it, Robinson Rd eastbound trike 28-30 mango 38-40, airport drive trike 28-30 mango 35-40. Due to computer operator error, no comparitive AVS yet. My airport commute on the trike is about 22-23kph on bike time. I'm fairly confident I could do say 28kph AVS in the Mango. Will see next week-worked out the computer now!!

Overall summary, very fast, very comfortable, a lot to learn, but more importantly a lot of fun and it is a seriously viable individual transport option to a car. A extremely well engineered product, its now up to me to shed some ballast and fine tune the engine to maximise the capabilities of this machine!!