5 day build...

[Lindsay97]

Hey all I'm a last minute guy and in typical fashion I've got a lot of work to do before Tuesday morning. I am building a festival bike with a taxi theme that has a trailer bike on the rear to take people around the festival.

I have collected all the things I need for the build and torn the bikes but apart from that and a bit of sanding there's still a lot to do.

The front bike is a 16" kids bike with a cool older looking frame and the rear is a cheap trailer bike ( also known as a tag-along). It will be attached to the rear of the other bike using an old 1" threaded fork and stem. The fork being attached to the rear axle and the stem attaching to the top of the sissy bar.

The bars are 300mm rise by 880mm wide apehangers (front and back). I have 2 banana seats and sissy bars as well as a couple of air horns so should look pretty funky.

My worry is that the front of the trailer bike will sit lower than normal due to the small wheel size of the front bike. I'm thinking I might have to swap the cranks out as the front is 30mm shorter in the arms. This will also give me more power and a higher ratio for the front bike.

With my time restriction this will be a rough build but will either be rebuilt after or will use some of the parts for a future build.

Got a very quick half mock up to give a general idea will add more photos as I go.

 

[Lindsay97]

Got all the black bit sanded and painted today. Some of the bits must have been chrome plated once apon a time and someone just sprayed over it with white paint. Went to work with the 80grit sandpaper but still a bit rough. The old fork has a ton of rust so the paint probably won't hold up.

Working out a few kinks in the attachment. Will have to make some schims for the stem to sissy bar attachment as well as the trailer bike to fork attachment. Had to stretch the fork to fit over the rear axle, frame and sissy bar, thought it would be harder. Just stood on one leg and pulled up on the other.

Onto prepping the frames now and hopefully can get them painted tomorrow after work. Need to get some grease to repack bearings and some rim tape for the single wall rims.

Rear rim on trailer bike is missing a spoke and is quite wobbly so I did my best to get it a bit straighter and tensioned the spokes a bit but being a 20" should hold up(hopefully). Got a maxxis hookworm on my old Moongoose that will suit the front tires better.

The festival is in a very double g prone area so am going to need some serious puncture protection. We have blue too at work that I've never tried but a customer swears by it for his kids bikes on the farm. Have got heaps of old crappy tires at work so might make up some tire liners.

 

[Lindsay97]

Been a big day did most the sanding last night and finished off this morning. Got straight into painting the frames. Have a lot of other festival preparations so spent a while doing that.

Got the bike mostly assembled, enough to know it'll work. Forgot to take a pic before I put it in the box. Will post some finished photos when I get back.