New Idlers?

The Aids Life Cycle is pretty much an endurance ride - to me anyway. My max so far is 57 miles/day. The ride maxes out at over 100miles/day. I have a lot to prepare for. I've heard of idler's breaking down which worries me a bit. The best maintenance is preventive maintenance? Sounds like something a salesperson would say. I can't help but to think there some truth to it. If the "rule" applies to cars, it probably does to trikes too.

My buddy at BROL lead me to the Rebike. They make an SL-II line that works with the KMX. $65 a pop though. Ouch. That's $65 x 3 idlers = $195. That's 28% of the cost of the entire trike!


I'll probably end up buying the stock ones as backup at $20/each. That's like a 3 for 1 deal.

After some further investigation, I came across a review from my fellow friends at Recumbent Journal. In short, the Rebike SL-68 idler is more noisy than both the Terratrike and stock versions. Idlers with teeth tend to be quieter b/c they widen the diameter of the idler and therefore deflect the chain at a shallower angle. As for whether or not this applies to the SL-II version, I have no clue. The review was done a year ago. Perhaps Rebike has made changes since? Highly doubtful, but I'd like to think there's a possibility.