A swissguy living in germany

[SwissGuy]

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 finished during 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:

 

[BARTO]

Wow, really nice bikes...welcome to the site

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Welcome aboard!

Luke.

 

[Chief]

Welcome/Willkommen--Alle paar Jahre Reise ich nach Deutschland.

Im Raum Dresden werden im Oktober für eine 7-Tage-Fahrradtour.

Meine Frau ist Deutsch, so dass es immer eine Gelegenheit, ihr Haus für ein wenig bekommen.

 

[SwissGuy]

Just updated my intro with some of my other bikes...

 

[SwissGuy]

An again a quick update...

 

[arty dave]

Nice bikes! Dagnabbit...I just got back from 3 weeks in Berlin visiting with my daughter. Next time I'm there we should catch up for a ride/beer/coffee or the whole trifecta? What part of Berlin are you in?
My daughter lives in Charlottenburg-nord

 

[deorman]

Welcome back.

 

[SwissGuy]

Nice bikes! Dagnabbit...I just got back from 3 weeks in Berlin visiting with my daughter. Next time I'm there we should catch up for a ride/beer/coffee or the whole trifecta? What part of Berlin are you in?
My daughter lives in Charlottenburg-nord

I'm located in Lichterfelde. That's not that far away.
Next time you are around let me know. I usually have a bike or two on stock for a ride-out...

 

[Short Stuff]

Swissguy do you know if the Swiss military bikes can be adjusted for someone about 5' tall? Just wondering as I think I may be able to get one. Thanks and Be Well, SS.

 

[SwissGuy]

The swiss military bike (Ordonnanzrad 05) was originally built with the average soldier of that time in mind. So it should be good as of 165cm height. As far as I remember our smaller colleagues in our platoon had about that size, and they basically put the saddle stem in the lowest possible position and turned the horizontal part to the back, to make it point down to get an even slightly lower position.
So with 5' (152.40 cm according to google) you are probably right at the threshold of usability. As it is a wonderful bike, maybe you should give it a try anyway...

 

[Short Stuff]

That doesn't give me as much hope as I had wanted. It is quite a bit of money. I have been thinking about it but if it is a failed experiment I won't be able to recover my money. I have been hoping to do this OR have a custom bike built with a setup for a trailer. I had the money set aside for the custom but my builder never messaged me. I was watching for it like a kid at Christmas. I am an adult at times and can get past it. Just had hopes. If he can build it, it will only be in the winter when he is layed off from work. I can only hope he will get back with me. I don't want to push a true artist in steel. Be Well, SS.

 

[Cyclist]

Okay. You should be able to edit it. Please let me know when done so I can set permissions back as they should be for normal operation.

 

[SwissGuy]

Okay. You should be able to edit it. Please let me know when done so I can set permissions back as they should be for normal operation.

I'm done, first post is up to date now.
Thanks a lot!

 

[Ulu]

Hey thanks for bumping this up. That’s quite a collection there, and the old military bikes were quite awesome.

By the way, I did read a lot of your A-frame garden shed project description.

I too put up a shed during Covid, but it’s the one you always see in my pictures with the red and white doors, and I just hired people to come build it.

I kind of raided my retirement account to put up that shed, buy new tools and welding equipment, another hobby car, and to remodel our kitchen and bathrooms and put new floors in the house, and paint all the walls and ceilings.

I did do (and redo) quite a bit myself, because good quality help can be difficult to get. Also because California is almost as expensive as Switzerland.

 

[BartRidesEternal]

I just read this topic for the first time.

You built and owned some seriously awesome bicycles. And your ingenuity with re-utilized parts is one I can aspire to. I believe you look at scrap or parts in a different way: A manufacturer uses a part for its product 'A'. You see that same part that can be used for 'A to Z'
And the Swiss army bicycle you still own from your service... wow that is really cool! I still have patches, pictures, a knife and clothing from my service but no bike

The Campground Buggy Trike is a build topic I am going to read right now

I appreciate your work!

 

[SwissGuy]

I just read this topic for the first time.

You built and owned some seriously awesome bicycles. And your ingenuity with re-utilized parts is one I can aspire to. I believe you look at scrap or parts in a different way: A manufacturer uses a part for its product 'A'. You see that same part that can be used for 'A to Z'
And the Swiss army bicycle you still own from your service... wow that is really cool! I still have patches, pictures, a knife and clothing from my service but no bike

The Campground Buggy Trike is a build topic I am going to read right now

I appreciate your work!

Thanks for the kind words (and the 27 likes in the buggy thread)
Regarding product "A": I usually walk over fleamarkets or through hardware or Ikea stores and see building possibilities (it drives my family nuts sometimes) and buy stuff to use it in all different ways, just not the way it was intended to use.
I think this comes one part from growing up in a family where handicraft was appreciated and present all the time. My father worked as an organ builder and I used to help him a lot in my student years to earn some pocket money and my mom was (privately) teaching various handicrafts to other women at our home. The other part comes from my studies to become a teacher in handicrafts at the Zurich art school. My favourite topic (besides wood and metal work) was "Materialexperimente". There we learned to cross borders and (ab)use stuff and mix materials in very creative ways. But I also learned to respect long learned craftmanship and in the same time lost the fear of trying out new techniques or even developing my own if needed.
As I'm back to teaching "normal" school topics now after a long time working as a propsmaster in various theatres all my creative juices flow into private projects, mostly bike related, but not only (shed and rower for example).
But to finish off I must say I also enjoy your projects very much and like to follow along to see what you are coming up with. I think you have a very similar approach. Over on instructables in another discussion with a fellow maker I used to call it "take what you got and go for it...!"

 

[MattiThundrrr]

My favourite topic (besides wood and metal work) was "Materialexperimente". There we learned to cross borders and (ab)use stuff and mix materials in very creative ways.

This sounds like such an amazing course, I would love to hear more about it!

 

[Skippy]

wow ! super cool . Welcome , following with interest

 

[SwissGuy]

This sounds like such an amazing course, I would love to hear more about it!

In the beginning we where mostly experimenting with "non-classical" materials like exploring the possibilities of various types of plastic.
I remember melting all kind of different stuff with a heat gun... We also did mechanical toys. I rebuilt a larger version of one of this moving kinder surprise egg toys out of wood.
The final task was to build a box, where the lid moved something when opening it (most tasks were very open). I tried to make metal butterflies come out of it, failed miserably, but still learned a lot about mechanics... The "classroom" was a whole floor of the building with several smaller workshops with a lot of tools and mid sized machinery for all sort of materials. But you could also go down to the metal workshop or to the wood working section if you needed bigger pro-machinery.
A real makers paradise!