T.D. Ward of Rods & Rides Motorcycle Company in St. Louis, Missouri, is one of those guys. Oh I’m sure he could do a regular old trike conversion for you, but the way he rolls he probably wouldn’t on sheer principal. The good news about one of T.D.’s trikes is that you get to keep your old bike as is. What? Yup, like all things T.D., it starts with a bunch of heavy-duty tubing and finishes with a ground-up award winning build, not a regular old trike add-on rear end conversion. What you end up with is a trike unlike just about anything out there that I know of. This shouldn’t come as a surprise if you’ve read the recent article featured on Barnett’s Magazine Online, but this baby is as different from that one as you could possibly get. 

 

  This dual-chain driven ode to rat rods takes triking to a whole new different level with a surprisingly narrow track in spite of the super wide-ass rubber poking out from the back of the wide forward-facing fenders. How well does it work? I don’t have a clue other than this video of another R&R trike doing burnouts, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if it worked better than a two-wheeler wearing a similarly –sized rear tire or just as T.D. intended. Either way, it’s an imposing custom and something that makes you want to take it for a spin just to see what it’d be like. I can’t say I get the same feeling looking at a Lehman (or whatever make) Ultra Classic trike conversion. Hey, this is America in the 21^st Century so there’s something for everybody and what you like is your own damn business. It just so happens I like looking at this trike more than analyzing whether there’s enough trunk space or wind protection or audio on board for two-up triking.

 

  There’s a strange juxtaposition of rat and bling in T.D.’s trike aptly named Ol’ Rat with the rat aspect winning out over bling. Sure the chromed springer, the highly-polished 107-inch Ultima, and the chromed spoke wheels bring the bling, but the faux-patina finish balances things out towards the rat rod side of things without looking cheesy in any way. There’s just enough rat on board to grab your eye and hold it. That’s a fine line to dance, but T.D.’s got a good eye as to when to add or subtract and he pulls it off nicely for me anyway.

 

   You probably noticed the bars have no controls other than the obligatory throttle and that simplifies things tremendously on top. The hydraulic foot clutch and Tiki god knob on the hand shifter see to that. If ever there was a time to try out a foot clutch and hand shifter, it’s aboard a trike. No fear of tipping over at a stop or start and it just makes sense plus it’s a lot of fun. Frankly, I think I’d want that even if I had a ‘normal’ trike and there’s no reason I can think of for not doing it to any trike. The front brake lever is a no-show as all the braking happens out back and if it’s set up good enough to stomp on, those fat ass rear tires should handle anything you throw at it.

 

   All in all, this looks like another Rods & Rides inside-the-park home run (the most exciting kind) and that’s not a big surprise to me. T.D.’s one of the more prolific builders out there from what I’ve seen on his web site (http://www.rodsandridesbytd.com/) so he’s bound to drag me in with something unpredictably wild.