Deposit on GTR

 

This is the ad on Gumtree that I noticed yesterday.  An old original Greenspeed GTR which I understand was THE touring model out it's time and has earned a reputation as a hard working,  long lasting trike. 

I read a fantastic tutorial online on how to restore this exact model and it's pretty straightforward and affordable.  But it looks like it won't need much attention.  I believe that because it is a rigid frame, ie: non folding, that it's had little use.  The current owner has ridden it once in 5 years,  I think he said.  

That tutorial also showed how 2.5" little fats can be fitted.  A good option for the t future.  

One guy, responding to the tutorial I think,  wrote that he rode his GTR over 75 000 kilometres.  He regularly "got air" at the local ramp and committed and did Redux tours on her, and only decommissioned her when she "fell off the roof of [his] car"! Ye gads!

So I've made a deposit and hope to do a run out to collect her in the next few days. 

POST SCRIPT: Sadly, and as soon as I saw the GTR something seemed amiss,  but I couldn't immediately putt my finger on it.  

Something felt awry? I asked Rich the Seller about boom adjustment: ""Does it have no boom adjustment?". 

Rich: "What's that?"

I said:" To adjust the boom for rider height".

Rich: Leans immediately towards it,  saying "Yeh.  It's there". 

I: "Oh,  ok.  There's not much adjustment left on it though,  and it looks really long". I say,  my feet nowhere near fitting me. 

 We then mucked around trying to reduce just 2cm of  length, Rich seemed strangely familiar with the mechanism? Anyway, we retracted it all of a centimetre with great effort but were still more than 10cm too long. I said: "this must be an XD model.  It's very long.  Rich said he was "5'11" but I have really long legs". This is when I felt really suss about this bike and Rich. 

I measured the x measurement, which should be from base of seat to pedal in its most distant position. My x was 100cm. I measured only to the pedal fulcrum and it was 100cm, so I was a crank length short. A crank is usually 17cm.  

The following day I asked a local biker mechanic about it. He recommended a cutcutter braze job ... by a bloke of Killen in Newtown,  Sydney.   Killen's  rates, posted online, were $350, plus $55 postage. 

So the trike purchase is effectively quashed :( in fact I could probably doctor up a home repair,  but my dealings with Rich had turned me right of that trike.  I suspect it had been to long for him (check the image above), and he is trying to dump it in a newbie triker. Caveat emptor!