Hi RatRodders. This is no actual build, but rather a blast from the past. This bike was built in 2015 but never documented here on RRB, but already made several guest appearances in other threads.
As I use it a lot lately, I wanted to give it a place here on this site.
So may I proudly present you "铁猪 - The Iron Pig"
This is how it looked, when it was all shiny and fresh from the workstand in 2015. At lot of small stuff has changed since then, but the vibe is still the same: the one of an elegant but simple workhorse... But let's start this journey on the very beginning.
This bike cougth my eye on the bay. Some crappy pictures but a very promising description (chinese cargo bike) and I got it for a low price. I took the vendor over a month to finally send it to me (I had to be very insisting) and this is how it arrived at my place back then:
I got a frame with crank and (open) bottom bracket, pedals, a wheelset (28' front/26' back) with heavy duty spokes and tires, fenders, a stand, remnants of a rod brake, a handlebar with stem, a set of truss rods and a chinese license plate.
After ordering a (dutch) 28' fork and digging through my stash I came up with this "layout" (the trussrods got ditched later on):
Another thing I wanted to try on this build was using reflectiv black tape instead of paint (left without, right with flash):
The frame and fork were pretty easy to cover, on the rims it took some convincing with a heat gun to make it work:
As you can see on this picture, the frame had already a hole from the rod brakes in this place:
This gave me the perfect starting point to install a stick shift. I made it up from parts of an old camera lens, a cover from a pocket watch and the rubber from one of the original pedals (they were beyond saving):
So this is how the bike looked in its first version:
If you look closely you will see, that the refloctor in the right grip got replaced by a coin. That's because the bike fell over once and the reflector broke. At some time I had kept that coin because it showed the animal that gave me my name... The bear in latin: ursus and the short from of it is a very tipical swiss first name: Urs
Later in the game I also added lights. Both front (classic Bosch) and rear (Hella tractor light) are converted to LED and operated by a 9V block battery. They both had the perfect patina to fit the build.
And finally I found also a fitting chain guard:
Like this the bike got ridden hard over the last seven years:
In the meantime it lost the saddle bag, the monkey light got stolen (that's Berlin...), the adapter for mounting a kids seat is gone as well (kids ride their own bikes now), it got different pedals and a new fork (bent the old one doing a full stop to prevent an accident with some idiot stepping onto the bikelane without looking while checking his smartphone and having headphones on...). Also the bottom bracket is the third one (last service is documented here). The first one lasted only one year. It was one of these suntour plastic encapsulated ones. I'll never use one of these again!
And when I say that it gets ridden hard I do mean it. This is in winter 2015 with spikes mounted.
That year I even rode it up and later down our local sledding hill. That was real fun!
I hope you enjoyed my little pre RRB making of. I'll keep you posted...
As I use it a lot lately, I wanted to give it a place here on this site.
So may I proudly present you "铁猪 - The Iron Pig"
This is how it looked, when it was all shiny and fresh from the workstand in 2015. At lot of small stuff has changed since then, but the vibe is still the same: the one of an elegant but simple workhorse... But let's start this journey on the very beginning.
This bike cougth my eye on the bay. Some crappy pictures but a very promising description (chinese cargo bike) and I got it for a low price. I took the vendor over a month to finally send it to me (I had to be very insisting) and this is how it arrived at my place back then:
I got a frame with crank and (open) bottom bracket, pedals, a wheelset (28' front/26' back) with heavy duty spokes and tires, fenders, a stand, remnants of a rod brake, a handlebar with stem, a set of truss rods and a chinese license plate.
After ordering a (dutch) 28' fork and digging through my stash I came up with this "layout" (the trussrods got ditched later on):
Another thing I wanted to try on this build was using reflectiv black tape instead of paint (left without, right with flash):
The frame and fork were pretty easy to cover, on the rims it took some convincing with a heat gun to make it work:
As you can see on this picture, the frame had already a hole from the rod brakes in this place:
This gave me the perfect starting point to install a stick shift. I made it up from parts of an old camera lens, a cover from a pocket watch and the rubber from one of the original pedals (they were beyond saving):
So this is how the bike looked in its first version:
If you look closely you will see, that the refloctor in the right grip got replaced by a coin. That's because the bike fell over once and the reflector broke. At some time I had kept that coin because it showed the animal that gave me my name... The bear in latin: ursus and the short from of it is a very tipical swiss first name: Urs
Later in the game I also added lights. Both front (classic Bosch) and rear (Hella tractor light) are converted to LED and operated by a 9V block battery. They both had the perfect patina to fit the build.
And finally I found also a fitting chain guard:
Like this the bike got ridden hard over the last seven years:
In the meantime it lost the saddle bag, the monkey light got stolen (that's Berlin...), the adapter for mounting a kids seat is gone as well (kids ride their own bikes now), it got different pedals and a new fork (bent the old one doing a full stop to prevent an accident with some idiot stepping onto the bikelane without looking while checking his smartphone and having headphones on...). Also the bottom bracket is the third one (last service is documented here). The first one lasted only one year. It was one of these suntour plastic encapsulated ones. I'll never use one of these again!
And when I say that it gets ridden hard I do mean it. This is in winter 2015 with spikes mounted.
That year I even rode it up and later down our local sledding hill. That was real fun!
I hope you enjoyed my little pre RRB making of. I'll keep you posted...
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Nothing was thrown away, everything, even little parts was stashed away. Some would call it a mess, for me it was a treasure trove!
Berlin Lights Ride
