RECYCLED RECUMBENTS!!!!!!!
Here are a few pictures of my bikes. I keep a page of pictures of everybody's work - I hope to see your bike here sometime! Bikes by others - New BIKES BY OTHERS
(I put a few 2009 projects of mine down on the bottom of this page - 6/12/09)
History - we all start, and learn as builders. These first few shots should encourage you - I started, you can too.
Here is #1 - my first, before I had any idea how to finish it. It needs handlebars, a chain. Front wheel is pink, from some child's bike. This second shot is something like my first ride. Bare steel, out on Dexter Ave, 2001. There's a big smile under that beard. Notice it's a 16" front wheel? That fork in the picture is original from the donor bike, not even a brake bridge yet - I remember that bike like yesterday. The first donor bike I ever had the bravery to attack with a hacksaw!
That first bike as finally finished. I did find a home for it in Michigan somewhere.
This is my second frame - still in the days before the drawings you see (this one is the model for the EZ Clone drawings). Still on the 16" front wheel - this bike had a number of incarnations and modifications. It was originally built to try an underseat steering system - see that little frame stub just by the idler? That's all that is left in this frame from that USS experiment.
Same #2 bike, maybe a year and more later. Really it's final form as yellowbike1. This bike was on the masthead of the website for a while. Finally it has the 20" front wheel. I did add some rake to that fork. And presents! Fairing. In this shot it has SPD pedals on it - I went for Bebops shortly thereafter. Pannier bags to carry everything, that's probably the 7 speed, 26" rear wheel I bought for it one year. Still on center pull caliper brakesets - note how I run the rear brake UNDER the seat stays, and string it's cable under the top tube. I still do that. This is a fine bike, I had maybe 6000 miles on it before I finally decided to make myself a Mach 2.
This is my current, 6 year old ride, yellowbike2 (I am horrible at original names, but I love her just the same). I made maybe 20 Mach 2 frames over a couple of years before I challenged myself to make the 'perfect' bike for me - one that would persuade me to abandon yellowbike1 above. This is it. 700c rear, 9 speed by my favorite 3 speed front crank, I taught myself to install frame studs for this bike, we are on direct linear pull brakes now. This was a slow transition too for me as a rider. I had maybe 500 miles on this bike before I was completely satisfied with it, and ready to truly let yellowbike1 move on (she lives in Indiana now, I think).
If you know the store bought bikes at all, you might be curious about the differences. Just shadowing my bike in this picture is an Easy Racer's Tour Easy, one of the finest worth-every-penny long wheel based bikes you can buy.
End of history lesson. You can do it. Make one and ride. See where it leads you. It's OK, not everybody gets as addicted to this as I am.
This is an EZ Clone, bare steel, in a 'first test' set up. No rigging, no brakes on it. Just take it around the block and see how it feels.
Much the same 'shot', but a different bike, finished.
I did an underseat for Don in Texas. He insisted.
Details on that underseat.
This red bike uses an EZ-1 style handlebar - you don't HAVE to use the steering riser detailed on the website (second shot)!
Typical details. See how easy it is to add a Wallyworld rack on the
back?
Yellowbike2, with a couple of similar Mach 2 bikes made 2007. I rode the black one on BRAG in Georgia before passing it along. These are all powder coated frames.
This was a spray paint experiment - an undercoat/overcoat metallic gloss treatment straight off the rattle can shelf at the auto parts store. This pretty bike lives in Florida now - it is a Mach 2.
I met Richard and his bike again in Michigan on the DALMAC ride this year (2008). I made his bare steel frame 4 years ago, and it was a pleasure to visit with Richard and see the bike he made from, it. Look at the detailing Richard did on the "Radio Flyer"!
NEW SO FAR in 2009 -
Is the background (our side porch) getting familiar now?
the Fall 2009 'fleet. The blue one is out on loan at the moment, more later on that. The green and black bikes found new homes this fall. And of course, yellobike 2 will likely be here still when this is an estate sale.....
I tend to build in batches of frames now - you could call this 'November' fun. Kind of look like reindeer, don't they?
More details and a few neat ideas from other builders here. Detail page
Send in your pictures - I'd love to post them with the others on the 'bikes by others' page!