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Saturday, March 2, 2013

Wooden Bike Mk2 Part 5

Progress on the rear triangle, still a bit of work to do.  I want to drill and tap the 2 support posts in the middle to secure it all together.  Not the lightest thing, it is made with solid plywood with fibreglass reinforcement and has handmade steel inserts screwed and glued in for the dropouts and pivot points at the ends.
Frame Almost Done

Suspension blocks in place.  These are parts of old-school pedals.  They were ground back a bit to make slots for the velcro straps.  This making a black rubbery mess!

Almost a bike now.

This is the plan.
Quite a bit of progress on the bike today with most of the frame and rear triangle put together and only some more screwing together and painting needed to finish it. My welding gas (acetylene) ran out just as the brazing of the rear triangle cross piece bits was being finished.  

 While browsing on the internet I came across another wooden bike on the XNTRICK site .  I am aiming for good speed from my wooden bike, and the XNTRICK site describes a good race performance from this very similar bike.  (Incidentally, there are many other good and simple bikes on XNTRICK.  The video on this page shows the world Human Powered Furniture Championship and is hilarious.  I am interested in having a go at a Velocino and already have a good donor bike lined up.)

This week I've been struggling with a painful back bruise (surfing accident).  I have a long Audax ride coming up in a few weeks (all day Opperman Trial) so hopefully will be fit enough to ride in it.  My training needs to be a bit like what I did leading up to the 300 k ride I did last year and the bike will be the same one I used for that ride.  

1 comment:

  1. Hi Steve

    Could you please give details of the timber sizes ? I may need to build a recumbent quickly ! and without welding. I remember you had a wooden bike in your book and crikey when I looked you up on the net you are building a second one ! I have built the 2x4 Low Racer in the past but it was too long and a bit of a beast for riding in traffic. I think I have all the bits for this apart from the handle bars , I shall have to wing that bit , all part of the fun.

    regards Paul

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