Post Your Final Thoughts

Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum

Help Support Rat Rod Bikes Bicycle Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

The Renaissance Man

__CERTIFIED DIVER__ (Open Water & Open Dumpster)
Staff member
Moderator
Pro Member
Joined
Nov 24, 2012
Messages
9,749
Reaction score
27,025
Location
The Tropics of Alabama
Congrats to everyone that finished and thanks to everyone that participated for making it entertaining! Thanks to @Rat Rod for making it possible!

We have a week to get the votes in and I plan to take plenty of time to carefully check out every bike before casting mine. It's so hard during the summer to keep up with everyone! Good luck to all!
 
Absolutely. Great to see so many finishers. Not sure the extra time helped me or not in the end. I’m a procrastinator so it probably didn’t really help!

After following the builds from he start I’ll still need to go back and check out each one as well. Then I’m create a short list and then try to cut it down to a ‘reasonable’ number. Will have to get on a bigger screen to really get the feel for each bike. - phone is too small for these eyes.
 
The variety in the builds and how helpful everyone is too each other on this website is fantastic. Completing one just made me want to do another as part of this fantastic community. I've already voted but it was hard too narrow down what I liked the most. I tryed to limit myself to a set number of votes.
 
Took me two months to get the frame painted. And I got a late start. So the extra month really helped me.

Couldn't really decide what the bike needed until I got it rolling.

Glad I got it outfitted with the Brooks saddle. Which I would've never even thought of without the wisdom of the members of this site. Best money I ever spent on a bike.

Really learned a lot from the members here and watching some of their builds. And from my own mistakes of course.
 
Weather was so nasty, got its own thread. Double whammy for me as farm chores more difficult as well. Was a lull for me after frame painting where the heat and humidity, I just kinda ran out of gas, I guess. Then I found the cool big spoke wheelset, white pedals and headlight at a swap and it all came together.
 
There were some amazing rides this year.

However, I've talked to several builders and I wouldn't be doing my due diligence as a member if i didn't make few comments.

1. I said this last year but I think there should be some sort of voting cap. I personally was a fan of 30+ bikes but only voted for 4. I feel like I would be cheapening the process if I voted for 30. I think that I have to show some restraint and truly analyze the builds i have watched for months and only vote for my "top" choices. Every builder who finished deserves significant props but that doesn't mean they were all equal quality and style.

2. For the sake of integrity I think we need to be careful in the future with allowing builds into the voting booth that do not have a proper and or timely build journal. In the case of the Pimp My Slater, I understand that he was having health issues, but we need to make sure that no one in the future uses a loop hole to get in to voting. I am in no way claiming that is what he did but I could definitely seeing someone taking advantage of that loop hole in the future. He started building in June, didn't join the forum until late July, and then submitted his entire build in 1 day at the very end.

3. I'm a massive fan of the Olive Oil bike but that is not a Class 1 frame according to the rules. That is a bike that was factory and then heavily chopped and modified. Although the builder is not the one that did the frame work its yet another gray area to think about in the future. Honestly, i think Olive Oil would stand a serious chance of taking a top spot in the Class 2 comp as well.

Killer builds this year, its definitely one of the deepest build fields I have seen in recent years. The craftsmanship was off the charts. Congrats to everyone competing.
 
Great time as usual. This was the first time I was still building at the end. Such a flurry of activity.....then it's over so suddenly. The last 2 weeks were the best playing with bikes weather here in OH as well.

Last year's bike was more involved and I was fighting burnout as well as time. This year was funner!


Amen to that! Lot's of complex headaches to sort out for me but it all worked out. Simpler builds are definitely more fun.
 
@cjperry81 , I agree with nearly all of your comments. The one other rule that has never been enforced, is "Bike must be rideable and pedal powered." There are 2-3 builds this year, that are garnering significant votes, that we have never actually seen being pedaled and powered down a street or across a parking lot using the pedals as propulsion. To me, this is key. It sets this forum apart from a forum or site devoted to "artistic designs" . We are, after all, building bicycles.

It has been another fun build off with all of the interesting ideas, and interesting people putting those ideas into motion! The past 5 years I have been involved have really added another dimension to my lifetime involvement with cycling.
 
@cjperry81 ....The one other rule that has never been enforced, is "Bike must be rideable and pedal powered." There are 2-3 builds this year, that are garnering significant votes, that we have never actually seen being pedaled and powered down a street or across a parking lot using the pedals as propulsion. To me, this is key. It sets this forum apart from a forum or site devoted to "artistic designs" . We are, after all, building bicycles....

Fully Agree Here - perhaps a mandatory ride video with pedaling.

giphy.gif
 
To me the following definition relates to bicycles as well...my guiding light for 10 rat rod build-off bikes and one wagon, so to speak.

From Wikipedia:
“The modern definition of a "rat rod" is a custom car with a deliberately worn-down, unfinished appearance, typically lacking paint, showing rust, and made from cheap or cast-off parts.[1] These parts can include non-automotive items that have been repurposed, such as using a rifle as a gear shifter, wrenches as door handles, and old saws as sun visors. A rat rod may or may not have extraneous decorations, but will always exude a great deal of personality due to the imagination required of the builder.

An alternate, and outdated, definition of a "rat rod" is a style of hot rod or custom car that, in most cases, imitates (or exaggerates) the early hot rods of the 1940s, 1950s, and early-1960s. The style is not to be confused with the somewhat closely related "traditional" hot rod, which is an accurate re-creation or period-correct restoration of a hot rod from the same era.

Originally, rat rods were a counter-reaction to the high-priced "customs" and typical hot rods, many of which were seldom driven and served only a decorative purpose. The rat rod's inception signified a throwback to the hot rods of the earlier days of hot-rod culture—built according to the owner's abilities and with the intention of being driven. Rat rods are meant to loosely imitate, in both form and function, the "traditional" hot rods of the era. Biker, greaser, rockabilly, psychobilly, and punk sub-cultures are often cited as influences that shaped rat rodding.”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Back
Top