Hi there,
I'm a swiss guy, living in Berlin, Germany, married to a beautiful wife and father of two boys (born 2012 and 2013). I'm trained and currently also working as a primary teacher in a private school, but in the past years I did a lot of different jobs, mainly in theatre as a propsmaster. I'm into bikes since my childhood days, always owning at least one at a time, most of the times more... I even made my military service in the swiss army as a member of the cyclist troups (funfact: the guy at min 1:35 in the linked video became my commander about three years after this report was first broadcasted)!
My first real build was a touring bike I put together in 1994 and still own and ride until today. After that, for a long time nothing happend until 2013, when I built a vintage style trailer for my first kid. After that I restored (and pimped) a matching bike from the 50ties and after that I built a new daily out of the frame parts of a chinese cargo bike... From there on it got worse (at least according to my wife
).
As the traffic (and political) situation in Berlin is getting worse and worse for cyclists I joined a activists group that calls themselves RespectCyclists. Every first Wednesday of a month (and on special occasions) we do a protest ride to always different places with specially bad infrastructure here in Berlin. Some of us also join rides of other groups, so this keeps me pretty busy besides work and family.
I documented most of my first builds on tretharley.de (kind of the german cousin/brother of this site, with a strong focus on custom cruiser bikes) and sometimes on instructables. I go there by "uersel".
As I participated in BO 11 I shifted from documenting on tretharley more and more over here. So I think, this post (and thread) is a good spot to link together my different builds...
Currently (status of september 2024) I'm working on:
---- Gathering parts for new projects ----
Unfinished business:
Hope4muscle (started as a BO17 entry and will hopefully be finishedduring another Winter/MuscleBike BO somewhere in the future)
Skinny'matic (no build thread yet, watch out for it in a future BO)
Make shure to also check out the non-bike-stuff at the bottom of this post...
And here comes my fleet:
The CobbleStoneRat, built during the SkinnyWheelBO (March 2024)
SwingThatMuscle (no welds SwingBike) (BO18)
Kirsch Special - Swing Bike Project (no welds) (March 2023)
Campground BuggyTrike (BO16, 2021, finished 7th and proud winner of the OddJob Award) This build is also a documented winner over at instructables (of course with a backlink to this forum)
ClearOut (BO14, 2019)
My 50ties NSU with trailer (Also documented on instructables.com), the bike that (re)started all of this:
铁猪 - The Iron Pig - My winter and bad weather daily:
My swiss army bike (I did my military service on this one!):
(I really need to take a better picture of it)
In 2015 I built this nice and practical ride: Capitan Terror (documented in german)
BO11 BarrelBanana Lowrider (2016) (finished thread) (build thread)
Meanwhile I took it apart and used the frame for another project (ClearOut, BO14, 2019)
Started during the BO12 in 2017, finished in 2018: The Wolverine (thread 1) (thread 2)
My very first self built bike (1994): Herkelman Trekking Rad, still in use (minus the trailer)
The EggBeater (BO13, 2018):
Göricke ladies bike from the early 50ties. It's almost completly original and was a real bargain. Unfortunatly it doesn't get a lot of ride time, as my wife thinks it's to heavy for her (I would disagree on that, but as long as it stays in the basement, at least it doesn't get stolen)
Neckermann folder (26") from the late 60ties/early 70ties, got a better rim laced in and is currently ridden by my wife when we stay on the campground.
The other campground folder, a Lamberti (with my trustworthy swissmade Vitelli touring trailer):
My Versatile cargo Trailer
Sold:
Bianchi Bersaglieri (1939 italian military bike, folding bike with full suspension and solid rubber tires) traveled to Indonesia together with the military attache to be displayed in his militaria collection.
Unknown 50ties tandem (will be rebuilt by someone else...)
Falter Cargo bike (frame was far beyond saving, so it was sold in parts)
NSU Ladies bike from the 50ties, got it for cheap on a flea market and back home I realized that the frame was broken, so it was sold in parts...
Other stuff I build (and document here):
In summer 2020 I didn't feel like building a bike. Covid lockdowns and teaching primary kids from home (and teaching my own kids at home the same time) kept my mind to busy to get really creativ and had me really exhausted. But a one point the builders virus kicked in anyway and I built this rowing machine: The RatRodRower:
Since autumn 2021 I am working on building a garden shed that after almost one year is pretty much done now (autumn 2022).
A-Frame Garden Shed:
I'm a swiss guy, living in Berlin, Germany, married to a beautiful wife and father of two boys (born 2012 and 2013). I'm trained and currently also working as a primary teacher in a private school, but in the past years I did a lot of different jobs, mainly in theatre as a propsmaster. I'm into bikes since my childhood days, always owning at least one at a time, most of the times more... I even made my military service in the swiss army as a member of the cyclist troups (funfact: the guy at min 1:35 in the linked video became my commander about three years after this report was first broadcasted)!
My first real build was a touring bike I put together in 1994 and still own and ride until today. After that, for a long time nothing happend until 2013, when I built a vintage style trailer for my first kid. After that I restored (and pimped) a matching bike from the 50ties and after that I built a new daily out of the frame parts of a chinese cargo bike... From there on it got worse (at least according to my wife
).As the traffic (and political) situation in Berlin is getting worse and worse for cyclists I joined a activists group that calls themselves RespectCyclists. Every first Wednesday of a month (and on special occasions) we do a protest ride to always different places with specially bad infrastructure here in Berlin. Some of us also join rides of other groups, so this keeps me pretty busy besides work and family.
I documented most of my first builds on tretharley.de (kind of the german cousin/brother of this site, with a strong focus on custom cruiser bikes) and sometimes on instructables. I go there by "uersel".
As I participated in BO 11 I shifted from documenting on tretharley more and more over here. So I think, this post (and thread) is a good spot to link together my different builds...
Currently (status of september 2024) I'm working on:
---- Gathering parts for new projects ----
Unfinished business:
Hope4muscle (started as a BO17 entry and will hopefully be finished
Skinny'matic (no build thread yet, watch out for it in a future BO)
Make shure to also check out the non-bike-stuff at the bottom of this post...
And here comes my fleet:
The CobbleStoneRat, built during the SkinnyWheelBO (March 2024)
SwingThatMuscle (no welds SwingBike) (BO18)
Kirsch Special - Swing Bike Project (no welds) (March 2023)
Campground BuggyTrike (BO16, 2021, finished 7th and proud winner of the OddJob Award) This build is also a documented winner over at instructables (of course with a backlink to this forum)
ClearOut (BO14, 2019)
My 50ties NSU with trailer (Also documented on instructables.com), the bike that (re)started all of this:
铁猪 - The Iron Pig - My winter and bad weather daily:
My swiss army bike (I did my military service on this one!):
(I really need to take a better picture of it)
In 2015 I built this nice and practical ride: Capitan Terror (documented in german)
BO11 BarrelBanana Lowrider (2016) (finished thread) (build thread)
Meanwhile I took it apart and used the frame for another project (ClearOut, BO14, 2019)
Started during the BO12 in 2017, finished in 2018: The Wolverine (thread 1) (thread 2)
My very first self built bike (1994): Herkelman Trekking Rad, still in use (minus the trailer)
The EggBeater (BO13, 2018):
Göricke ladies bike from the early 50ties. It's almost completly original and was a real bargain. Unfortunatly it doesn't get a lot of ride time, as my wife thinks it's to heavy for her (I would disagree on that, but as long as it stays in the basement, at least it doesn't get stolen)
Neckermann folder (26") from the late 60ties/early 70ties, got a better rim laced in and is currently ridden by my wife when we stay on the campground.
The other campground folder, a Lamberti (with my trustworthy swissmade Vitelli touring trailer):
My Versatile cargo Trailer
Sold:
Bianchi Bersaglieri (1939 italian military bike, folding bike with full suspension and solid rubber tires) traveled to Indonesia together with the military attache to be displayed in his militaria collection.
Unknown 50ties tandem (will be rebuilt by someone else...)
Falter Cargo bike (frame was far beyond saving, so it was sold in parts)
NSU Ladies bike from the 50ties, got it for cheap on a flea market and back home I realized that the frame was broken, so it was sold in parts...
Other stuff I build (and document here):
In summer 2020 I didn't feel like building a bike. Covid lockdowns and teaching primary kids from home (and teaching my own kids at home the same time) kept my mind to busy to get really creativ and had me really exhausted. But a one point the builders virus kicked in anyway and I built this rowing machine: The RatRodRower:
Since autumn 2021 I am working on building a garden shed that after almost one year is pretty much done now (autumn 2022).
A-Frame Garden Shed:
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