New Chopper build started today...

[stretch]

i see what ya mean by its not perfect, but its pretty dang good anyway. do some 'striping on it to distract the eye.

[PeeWee]

HI, my name is PeeWee, and I commissioned this bike. I'm an OG member of the Chopaderos, originally with the mother chapter, but recently a member of the Nomads chapter. I wanted to build this bike to commemorate my move to San Francisco, and have a bike that's perfect for riding around here. I have put together over a dozen bikes of my own, but this bike goes way beyond my skills, equipment, and free time. I knew Tex would be the perfect one to build this bike because, he not only can put together a custom frame, but incorporate all of the performance and kustom parts I wanted beyond that. Being a part of the birth of this bike has been an amazing experience. I never expected the journey it would be! At first we were thinking of a bike for around $800, that would not be too out of control. Now we are at around 4x that amount with the rear wheel alone almost more than the original budget. Its a dynamic relationship having an artist make something for you, that you are paying for, while still respecting his artistic vision, skills, and opinions. I'm sure Tex will agree that it is not and easy journey, but it is very rewarding. I hope he can use this build as a stepping stone to do greater things, and I will always give him all of the credit for this build. As I'm sure everybody won't agree with every aspect of this bike, I am so happy with it, and in my mind it will be one of the best bicycles ever built. It is everything I have dreamed of and has almost everything I ever wanted. I'm sure every one of you has laid awake at night thinking about what we would do if we could build our "dream bike". Well, for me this is that bike. Believe me, every little thing on this bike has be pondered, argued over, changed a few times, and finally settled on the best of the best, down to the last nut. Nothing on the bike is normal or "stock". I hope all of you keep inputing your very valuable opinions as this build comes to a close. The only bad part about this build is that now I have at least 2 more projects lined up for Tex to do, with budgets equal to this, including building up my new limited edition Basman frame (from my buddy/ brother Da Flixster) and a totally custom motorized bike. Oh Well. I leave you with the video clip that inspired this build.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4HZcKJ55Zc

P.S. How do you imbed a video on this site?

[bikeriderx]

Awesome video!

[IronSpadeCycles]

Alright well I've been busy as a beaver building a... well you know, I've been building a bike! LOL So I got quite a bit done over the last few days and thought I'd give you all an update.
I have a new deadline of Nov. 20th as the client has decided to have me fly out to San Francisco to hand deliver the bike and also represent at the San Francisco Bike Expo. My neighbor owns a print company and is going to make me a 3'X3' banner and some decals so at least I might look presentable. Well I think if I start to paint this coming Tuesday I should have a few days to allow the paint to cure before packing it up to fly on the 20th.

I'm looking forward to it, I haven't been to SF in about 15 years. So where do I begin? Well I sat down last week and took a long hard look at the bike and the pile of parts I had and thought what do I have left to do? So I started to make a punch list of all the things that either needed to be finished of items that needed to be welded before I could begin painting.

I knew the tank was going to take some time so I jumped right into that and after many hours of fitting, tacking, cutting, tacking, fitting, cutting, tacking and welding I got it ready for a coat of filler. I hand made a hinge like you'd find on a gas door on your car and hid it inside the tank. So now when Pee Wee wants a sip of tasty beverage he can just pop the gas cap off, pull out the tube and drink up. The "door" allows him to pull out the Camelbag liner to clean it between fill ups. I'm also making the tank removable for rides where he's not so thirsty.















I made struts to help support the rear fender and while trying to figure out where I wanted to mount the tail light, the answer was right in front of me. The struts needed a brace anyway so I just made the plate a little larger and mounted the taillight as well. I had fabbed up a seat mount but I still needed to weld it to the frame. I needed to have the fender in place so I could make sure I was at the right height so as not to have the two interfere with one another. I got that sorted.







Then there was the matter of that pesky shifter. I was having issues with it! First I hated the placement, than I hated the second shift lever I made, so they both got changed for the better! In the process of moving the mount point from the down tube to the rear chain stay I solved the shift cable routing problem as well.







Here is what the shifter looks like in the three speed positions.







I got the kickstand mounted and the return spring sorted.





I originally wanted to make a "Oil bag" that I could hide a battery inside for the lighting system. Well that ended up growing into a leather tool bag that could hold a lock and tools as well. I've decided to kill that idea and make a Stainless steel box that will mount under the seat flush with the top and bottom of the upper chain stay tubes. The rear stay tubes are 1.25" diameter and most NiCd packs are only 1 inch thick so that gives me room to pad it and there's so much room in there Pee Wee could have 2 or 3 batteries wires in parallel to extend the run times to more than 8 hrs between charges.



Look closely at the 203MM rear disc's from Dirty Dog Mtb, the spokes are mudflap girls with spades cut out of the disc. The details are so cool...

I started to finish the fork tonight and realized I still haven't bought a .875" drill bit that I need to drill 4 holes in the fork legs so I'm off to Tractor Supply in the morning for a $27 drill bit and I'm going to use all stainless steel fasteners since Pee Wee lives in the Marina District of SF and he's close to the saltwater and salty air. I don't want him complaining that a month from now his bolts are all rusty. I should have the springer fork done tomorrow and I'll post more pictures then.

I did get the Ballistic ball joints installed and they look so beefy but they move really nicely.



On that note I will see all you fools tomorrow. Later T

[AussieJester]

Would like too tellz you it looks awesome Travis but none of the pictures load for me, well...the first one did, once, but nothing else has loaded, checking back through pages i see you have pulled all the images ???

KiM

[bikeriderx]

That is one sick bike Travis!!!
Hey Kim, as of 07:15 (local time) 11/7/09 all the pics are viewable for me...

[AussieJester]

That is one sick bike Travis!!!
Hey Kim, as of 07:15 (local time) 11/7/09 all the pics are viewable for me...

Very strange, i cant view any of Travis's pics i used to be able too....shall re-boot my modem tonight see if that makes a difference, tried a different browser with same result, just the word 'image' where pics should be can see everyone else..


KiM

EDIT: OK..first Travis...mice work, prefer the first shifter though, keen to see how well this fork works too mate, have you rectified the amount of steering angle available?....

RE: the images the only way i can manage to get your pics up is using a proxy server my ISP must have a block on tinypic no idea why...

[IronSpadeCycles]

I think I've got the steering sorted. Lets just say its a chopper not a race bike. Its not meant to turn sharp corners. I think if I chuck up and turn the balls and the end plates in the lathe I should be able to gain another 10 degrees total bring it up to 40 degrees lock to lock. Crazy thing is I've seen these exact bearings used in this same orientation on an offroad race car as the front suspension joints. You'd think that if they worked in that application it should work fine on a bike, right?

I'm off to the hardware store, I'll add pictures of the front end later today.

Travis

[IronSpadeCycles]

Pictures of the fork as it comes together! Yep after spending $26.99 on a drill bit to drill a total of 8 holes I got the fork together enough to make templates for the spring plates and other brackets and the headlight mount. Its coming together.
















My pops and our neighbors went fishing today and killed it! We're having grilled Snapper tonight!

Later Travis

[AussieJester]

dang thats a wide fork Travis! What front hub you intend using?

We get Snapper here in W.A Travis we is somewhat famous for our Snapper here on a National scale.
You have bag limits there in Texas for Snapper? byt he look of the number caught and the people that were on the boat (assuming all in the pic were on board) you have a bag limit of 4-5 per fisherman? Our size limit here is min 38 cm snout to tail and limit of 5 a person or 15 for the boat...Grillz them up on tha bar-b-q with a handful of prawns beeeeauuutiful ...

KiM

[IronSpadeCycles]

4 per fisherman plus they have to be a minimum of 15" long but no limit on overall length. They caught those 6 miles offshore in about 30 minutes of fishing. Absolutely killed it!

Later T

[karfer67]

one thing i love about bikes when i build them is how designs change as you go. i have built parts before only to put them on a bike stand back and go NOPE rip it off toss it in the trophy can and start over. my fav part of this bike is the front end the idea of using those joints is amazing it changes the look of the bike totally. this bike is simply amazing i cant wait to see it, i am amazed you have time to post up dates, the 20th is a coming quick my friend. cant wait to shake your hand

[Fireproof]

Thirty minutes?!?!?!?! WOW!
BTW, PeeWee's bike is lookin' great!

[IronSpadeCycles]

Karfer, Yeah a lot of parts got changed as I built it. One thing I'm holding back a little on is my handlebar mounts. I had a set of mount clamps that came off one of my RD350's after I went to clip-on's. They are designed to through bolt onto the upper tree with rubber bushings. Well turns out they are the perfect length to mount to those fork legs as a through bolt scenario. I just mocked up the bars I'm going to use and they really make the look of this bike just jump. I'll tease you just a little and tell you the bars pass thought the frame and other than the low profile clamps, they look like their floating unattached. I wish I had access to a digital plasma table right now cause I really want to make a fork plate with my logo carved out of it. None the less my neighbor said he'll make me some stickers just for the event. I'm really looking forward to it!



Later Travis

[IronSpadeCycles]

Well I got the springer fork all tacked together and when I took it off the rack and sat on it the springs are a little soft. I used a pair of 300lbs springs from a porch swing. I've got an old 60's chopper springer in my shop that I'll just rape the springs off of for now. I still need to build a truss brace on the forward rocker posts to stiffen the front and make them work together. I'll get to that tomorrow. Also after I sat on it I'm really digging the handlebars but I think they are just a little bit too low, by about 3 inches, so I'm probably going to just make a new set with more rise.

I'm tired so this is all I'm going to say for now, and I'll let the pictures speak for me. Later Travis