New Bike on the Way, One has got to go

Screen Dump of Cad for new bike

New Bike Frames in the Back Yard

Hi

Have not posted for a while, I have been quite busy at work and doing some writing  to help organise the OzHpv Challenge in May.  As well my mum has been a bit sick.  Anyway, this is a blog about bikes and I will get on whith writing about them. 

First of all a bike I have is for sale and its advertised on the OzHpv website. I've started building a new bike, so the one I'm not currently using and stealing bits from is for sale.

A while ago I got sick of some of the issues with my monsterbike and decided to do something about it.  The bike I ride is very good but it has its limitations. 

The main issues are:
* The bike is not easy to adjust for leg length, and
* The seat frame has some sharp tubes that protrude into the load area, these have been damaging my luggage, tearing part of my back-pack and making a mark on some books I bought.  Oh no! Horrible!

So anyway, I designed a new bike to overcome the problems.  Up to date, my successful Monsterbikes have been made using 50.8mm X 1.2mm round cromoly steel for the main tube.  I was able to do calculations comparing other sections of material with the cromoly and work out what should not bend and should not weigh too much more.  In the end, I chose an aluminium material section that was readily available but not that high strength, 88.3 X 28.3 x 2.2 6060 grade.  Next was drawing the frame and after that came looking for a fabricator for 2 frames.  After some discussions with a framemaker last year and no significant progress, I phoned and then emailed Michael Rogan from MR Components cycles.  We worked out prices and I placed an order.  After a bit of a wait and some discussions, Michael emailed me that the heat treated frames were ready.  So now its up to me to finish them! I want to order 6mm routed birch ply to make the seat and need to fabricate the rear triangle from steel.  All for now but more bike building blog entries to follow.