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Tricumbent Raven

If I could own only one cycle, this would be the one.

Tricumbent Raven by gregraven

Unfortunately, all roads are not as trike-friendly as I might wish, so I'm now doing most of my riding on the very nice 30th-Anniversary Lightning P-38.

The Tricumbent Raven is no longer being made, but you can still buy a trike called the Tricumbent from Just Two Bikes. I have no idea how similar or dissimilar the two iterations are. I'm pretty certain that William Mason designed the Tricumbent Raven, while James M. Muellner claims to have designed the Tricumbent.

James Muellner of Just Two Bikes responds

Hi Greg:

Was just reviewing some of the information on your site and came upon the comment about the Raven and Tricumbent designs. It sounds like we have some differences about who did what. It definitely was not a negative relationship. I also loved the Raven design and when I wanted to buy one I was told they were no longer produced. So after some discussion with Bill Mason I bought his design and names and a couple of trikes. Since they were produced to fit the rider’s size it caused me some problems to sell them easily. I merely redesigned the frame to be adjustable and made a second model that could be packed into a suitcase.

Another problem arose with the use of the name Raven. Someone else owned that name and we had to change the name.

I definitely do not want to take anything from Bill Mason regarding his design. In fact I just donated his prototype to the Deke Slayton Memorial Space and Bicycle Museum so his work is not forgotten. When I finish riding the Raven I have I will most likely donate that one to them also. In fact I am planning on riding that original trike to northern Minnesota — actually Elly, MN — on May 18, 2010, and back as a self-contained bike trip. A friend of mine, Don Mooney, is riding the redesigned version along with me. The main advantage he will have is that with the adjustability I designed into it, his weight will be more on the front wheel. I added a rear carrier to both of them and that causes the rear wheels to act as a pivot so the more weight we put into the packs the less pressure is on the front wheel. The older design can cause the front wheel to spin under these conditions. Not a big deal, but it was part of our design considerations.

Hope this clarifies the issue a little.

Thanks,

James M. Muellner
Just Two Bikes