Kirsch Special - Swing Bike Project (no welds so far)

[SwissGuy]

the original swing bikes had a return spring (if that's what it's called). Are you going to put one on this?

Probably not, it works fine for me like it is.

 

[SwissGuy]

Today almost the full (work)day it was really nice weather outside. But right on time for the ride home a thunderstorm with heavy rainfall and wind hit us. So I decided to take some indoor pics in our school and do some "Swingin' in the Rain" later...
Here it is fully stretched out:

and here it's in full swing:

That hole on the front fender was just begging for "something", this is what I found:

Oh and we had bananas for snack today. I somehow liked that sticker and as riding a swingbike is somewhat bananas I thought it would be a good fit as a
headbadge

One more of the rear pivot:

The safety bolt (coming from a discarded kids trailer):

And the stress relief setup:

On thing I realized today is, that the left crank is twisted. Next time I'm on the campground (after easter) I'll have a look into my stash. I'll probably have a spare somewhere. But as this whole bike wobbles and twists in all directions as soon as the safety bolt is out you don't realize the twisted crank...
If the weather is okay tomorrow I'm considering joining the local critical mass with this thing (but first I have to repair the flat tyre that I got on my way home). I'll keep you posted...

 

[SwissGuy]

Took the bike to ride to work and back:

 

[Johnjoe]

Great no weld swing bike.

 

[SwissGuy]

Just took the SwingBike to pick up my car from the workshop (another 520.- € down the drain...) to have at least a bit of fun during a sad task...
I didn't know before but do now: The roof rack doesn't work with this bike, but it fits into the trunk. Not as smooth as my EggBeater, but it works...

 

[SwissGuy]

After riding the Bike several days in a row to work and back, I realized that the connection of the (now) topbars wasn't really solid anymore and started twisting (and producing squeaky noises). So I gave the bike a pause.
When buying supplies for my BO SwingBike I boughtsome extra screws for this bike and today I finally found the time to twist the swing a bit.
Another issue was that the bike was too long. I compared it with my daily ride and found out that the axle distance on my daily is 120cm, on this bike it was almost 129. So this monster had to shrink.

First I removed the two small screws that held the two frame pieces together and marked where I wanted the front frame to go to.

With a few decent wacks with the rubber mallet onto the head tube I got it there:

I obviously had to redrill the two holes and I added two more. Only this time I used larger screws (M8 instead of M6) in the hope of getting more stability out of it.

After riding it tonight for a short trip to a parent evening in my kids school, I must say, that the shortened frame handles much easier than the longer version from before (or I just got better at it).

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Would you get more stability at the joint if another set of screws were run through the tubes in a horizontal direction? Triangulated.

 

[Wildcat]

I noticed the slant of both head tubes is alike. I know the front needs the slant but I didn't know about the angles of the rear steer. On an original, they are more upright but yours seems to ride well.

 

[SwissGuy]

Would you get more stability at the joint if another set of screws were run through the tubes in a horizontal direction? Triangulated.

Thought about that, but was afraid that my skin/pants would then get caught by the screwheads or bolt ends...

I noticed the slant of both head tubes is alike. I know the front needs the slant but I didn't know about the angles of the rear steer. On an original, they are more upright but yours seems to ride well.

From what I read it makes the handling easier, when both steerertubes are parallel and also that the steeper the angle the easier is the handling. That's why I'll try to mount a smaller frontwheel on my BO build