I was riding around the block with my wife and daughter and came to the conclusion that I needed to have a cool cruising bike to ride. The old mountain bike just isn't cutting it anymore. I kind of wanted something like a Phat Cycles stretch but it ended turning out a little longer. I bought 5 old womens bikes from an auction for $20 just for parts and I had a bunch of CrMo tubing laying around so the torch and welder came out and this is what I have come up with so far.
Started with a piece of 1.125 .045 wall CrMo tube and a torch for the down tube. I tried to match the radius of the front wheel to help with looks.
After bending the down tube and turnong out a new bottom bracket on the lathe I set a chalk line on the floor and made marks for wheelbase, seat post, and gooseneck placement. A tape line was made to figure out backbone shape and another tube was attacked with the torch to match the tape line. After the tubes were welded to the bottom bracket it went into the jig I use to build minibikes to locate the gooseneck.
After the front forks were on the frame was flipped in the jig so the rear triangles could be started. The triangles are made from .875 .032 wall CrMo and bent with heat as well.
Welded on some tabs for the rear wheel and fabbed some temp front forks until I can finish modifying the actual forks from the triple trees. The forks and trees are from an old 80cc dirt bike. The tires for now are 27x1 1/4 but I think I will be swapping them out for 26's. The parts bikes all had three speed rear hubs so I have a couple of sizes of rims to choose from.
The bars were just hacked on there to test ride it last night ( which was at 1:30 last night with a flashlight in hand ) and will be swapped out for something shiny later. Any suggestions are welcomed and comments appreciated.
Started with a piece of 1.125 .045 wall CrMo tube and a torch for the down tube. I tried to match the radius of the front wheel to help with looks.
After bending the down tube and turnong out a new bottom bracket on the lathe I set a chalk line on the floor and made marks for wheelbase, seat post, and gooseneck placement. A tape line was made to figure out backbone shape and another tube was attacked with the torch to match the tape line. After the tubes were welded to the bottom bracket it went into the jig I use to build minibikes to locate the gooseneck.
After the front forks were on the frame was flipped in the jig so the rear triangles could be started. The triangles are made from .875 .032 wall CrMo and bent with heat as well.
Welded on some tabs for the rear wheel and fabbed some temp front forks until I can finish modifying the actual forks from the triple trees. The forks and trees are from an old 80cc dirt bike. The tires for now are 27x1 1/4 but I think I will be swapping them out for 26's. The parts bikes all had three speed rear hubs so I have a couple of sizes of rims to choose from.
The bars were just hacked on there to test ride it last night ( which was at 1:30 last night with a flashlight in hand ) and will be swapped out for something shiny later. Any suggestions are welcomed and comments appreciated.
