Saturday, December 15, 2007

My Tall bike build now COMPLETE...

I built this tall bike a while ago but only recently completed it. Worked all the bugs out of the drive train and everything. Pain. in. the. aaaaass! But well worth it because now I have a 6 speed tall bike cruiser that I really have absolutely no use for. Awesome! Well, it was the challenge that drove me on this one. I'll just keep telling myself that anyways...



Close up of drive train...


Nice big step makes getting on easy...


More pics...

The reason I started this project is because I've always gotten a huge kick out of tall bikes. I've seen them around the city at various meets like Critical Mass etc.. I've always wanted to ride one but I don't know anyone who actually owns one. I had recently purchase a MIG welder to help fab up the exhaust on my car. Since I had a few old street find frames lying around I figured: Shit man, why not just make one myself?. At first I was just planning on making it a single speed. As I progressed with the project I decided to make it more interesting by adding gears. That and I live in a hilly area and I knew gears would come in handy when trekking around on this thing. I also had nearly all the parts just lying around along with some scrap metal. The only parts I bought specifically for this build was a set of long reach brake calipers, tandem length chain and a set of corner cable guides. The biggest challenge was working out the issues with the drivetrain. Chain tension along with making sure it didn't rub anywhere was a hassle. Also making things difficult was having to attach all the little cable guides with a goddamn MIG welder. Very frustrating. Once everything was all welded up I gave it a nice Krylon can job and wired it all together. I have to say it rides really well. The gears shift pretty good and aside from knowing you're really high up basically feels like a regular bike. Def a fun ride. Thankfully I haven't fallen on it yet and I REALLY hope I never do. The two frames I used are a 57 and 59cm ctc size making this thing very TALL. Now I just need to go on an extended ride and see how it handles over longer distances. I def need time to get used to it. Riding with your ass sitting way above car roofs is somethin' else!


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10 comments:

® said...

I was just reading some articles about tall bikes on 63xc i think. very interesting.

Dude, what else have you not done or tried? haha... you got me figuring...

con't reading yr post later... got to bring old folks out...

Auntie Maim said...

Hey man, please report road test on that bad boy. It looks like fucking fun on a stick.

® said...

doesn't krylon paint comes off easily? what about the law? think it'll be tough over here... just curious. have fun dude!

morgman said...

Looks sick, I love a well-done tall bike. I just got mine back together today after bending the original fork in September.

From a fellow bike, metal, and car loving jerk,
Morgan of Project-B in Vancouver, BC.

Alan Sikirić said...

Holy comments Batman! Okay, here goes:

Rotten: I like to get my hands dirty in as much DIY projects I can. It's just so much fucking fun! Krylon paint does tend to come off a bit easy. But I don't care cause I'll just top it off with a little more. I just really like to use their 'super flat black matte' paint cause the name and color are baaaaad aaaaass! Not sure about the law. I'll let you know if I have any issues...

Auntie main: I sure will man!

Morgman: Thanks a lot man! The fact that you have a trailer hanging off the back of yours is sick! p.s. I've got cousin's over there in Vancouverdamn...

gabrielamadeus said...

nice work! The dble chain is a bitch to work out, but it is great for gears when you get it running.

A friend did it up for touring:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15796088@N00/1460513264/

Alan Sikirić said...

Holy crap Tri bars?! AMAZING!!! Thanks for the link and good words man!

Gabe said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gabe said...

That is a really nice looking tall bike, looks pro compared to some of the ghetto ones i have seen. How well did using mig welder work?

Also how does the head tube/steering work. It looks like one really long tube, does the fork run all the way up?

Alan Sikirić said...

Hey man, thanks a lot! I def wanted it to be a nicer tall bike albeit the opposite of what the whole thing is about these days. But who cares about that shit right? I just wanted to build and ride one of my own. Anyways, the mig welder def did the trick though it was a bit too hot at times and I was very new to it's use. The two frames head tubes are connected via a same sized steel tube. Then I took one of the original forks, cut it's steerer tube in half, welding a smaller tube to the inside of each half extending it to the top of the top frame's HT. As you can see it came out great and rides EXACTLY like a normal bike.. Except for the fact your ass sits at about the same height as most SUV's roofs, hehe.. dumbass SUV owners...