Some of you here are old enough to remember when the big wheel came out. (the plastic trike with the handbrake that let you do cool spin-outs) Growing up on a gravel road made owning one pointless, so my only chance to ride 1 was when we drove into town to visit my cousins.
Fast forward a few decades and I buy my son his 1st chopper.
When they later came on sale I bought a 2nd one and stripped it right away.
Any adult who has sat on a schwinn chopper knows they're a little cramped, so my original plan was a simple stretch. Thanks to this and other sites, i've seen some wayyy cool trikes, so I knew I was going to build 1 eventually.
All the necessary parts have come together (more or less) but this build may well get cancelled if the axle I have does turn out to be bent beyond repair.
Step 1; The wheels.
The axle came with 26inch skinnys, which I knew would taco under lateral load. They also have a hexagonal hub to prevent them slipping on the axles ( never worked on a trike before, so I dont know if this is common)
After some careful guesstimating, I figured that swapping the wide hubs from the chopper wheels with the narrow ones from the trike wheels would work using the choppers spokes.
But, what the heck do I know about the arcane alchemy of wheel building? I've never tried that kinda magic before :|
So 8 hours of experimentation later, I wound up with a pair of fat back trike wheels, and had to mock things up. The black frame is a craigslist find, the red is the new frame I bought and stripped.
Both frames will be merged together to form something rideable. ( at least, thats the plan so far)
Some serious shimming or frame offset will be required to make the drive-line work though.
I also have a spin system in the works, but no pics yet, as it exists soley in my head at this point :lol:
Rick
Fast forward a few decades and I buy my son his 1st chopper.
When they later came on sale I bought a 2nd one and stripped it right away.
Any adult who has sat on a schwinn chopper knows they're a little cramped, so my original plan was a simple stretch. Thanks to this and other sites, i've seen some wayyy cool trikes, so I knew I was going to build 1 eventually.
All the necessary parts have come together (more or less) but this build may well get cancelled if the axle I have does turn out to be bent beyond repair.
Step 1; The wheels.
The axle came with 26inch skinnys, which I knew would taco under lateral load. They also have a hexagonal hub to prevent them slipping on the axles ( never worked on a trike before, so I dont know if this is common)
After some careful guesstimating, I figured that swapping the wide hubs from the chopper wheels with the narrow ones from the trike wheels would work using the choppers spokes.
But, what the heck do I know about the arcane alchemy of wheel building? I've never tried that kinda magic before :|
So 8 hours of experimentation later, I wound up with a pair of fat back trike wheels, and had to mock things up. The black frame is a craigslist find, the red is the new frame I bought and stripped.
Both frames will be merged together to form something rideable. ( at least, thats the plan so far)
Some serious shimming or frame offset will be required to make the drive-line work though.
I also have a spin system in the works, but no pics yet, as it exists soley in my head at this point :lol:
Rick
