Quick intro, I'm Gordon, and I've rebuilt bikes before but never done any cut-and-weld bike customizing before.
Figured I'd post pics of this bike I built since you guys might enjoy it.
This bike started off as a promo bike my mom won in a raffle or something.
She gave it to my wife after a few years of it sitting.
My wife is the same height as me but is all leg and had to raise the seat post all the way to even fit on the thing, but wasn't comfortable, so it became mine...
I rode it a while but was bored with it. I owned another cruiser anyway, and one day after leaning it against my welding machine, an idea caught hold.
I cut the forks right near the dropouts and spliced in 11" of EMT giving it a decent rake.
Then I cut the chain stays at the bottom bracket, and removed the entire rear triangle by slicing the area where the 3 top tubes curve together and the weld at the down tube.
I extended the chain stays 7.5" (remember this) to get the bottom bracket back to it's original height, and pivoted the whole rear triangle until it mostly lined back up.
You can see in the 3rd pic that the front part extends a bit past the downtube, but overall, I'm not worried about it.
Finally, I added a banana seat and 36" (I think) sissy bar and called it a day.
Whew.
Well the bike rides great.
The rear half basically lined itself up for me due to the frame design of the beach cruiser frame.
The front was a bit harder since I don't have a frame jig, but I got it pretty close.
You can't ride it without holding the bars because it has a very very slight pull to the right, but once you are moving it's not noticeable.
What I learned?
Chain stays are a certain length for a reason!
I extended mine 7.5" since that was the length that made the frame work with how far I extended the forks... I did the forks first.
Unfortunately since bike chain is 1" pitch, I had to slide the wheel as far back as it would go and the chain is still slightly loose. moving it forward and removing a link is too short...
So I'd need a half link... not the end of the world. I'll probably just swap in a +1 sprocket and call it a day. it doesn't rub until you backpedal so it's not a big deal, but just annoying to know that I should've foreseen that happening.
Overall it was a fun easy project, took about 2 afternoons, and I had literally no idea what I was doing.
Anyway...
Thanks for reading.
Figured I'd post pics of this bike I built since you guys might enjoy it.
This bike started off as a promo bike my mom won in a raffle or something.
She gave it to my wife after a few years of it sitting.
My wife is the same height as me but is all leg and had to raise the seat post all the way to even fit on the thing, but wasn't comfortable, so it became mine...
I rode it a while but was bored with it. I owned another cruiser anyway, and one day after leaning it against my welding machine, an idea caught hold.
I cut the forks right near the dropouts and spliced in 11" of EMT giving it a decent rake.
Then I cut the chain stays at the bottom bracket, and removed the entire rear triangle by slicing the area where the 3 top tubes curve together and the weld at the down tube.
I extended the chain stays 7.5" (remember this) to get the bottom bracket back to it's original height, and pivoted the whole rear triangle until it mostly lined back up.
You can see in the 3rd pic that the front part extends a bit past the downtube, but overall, I'm not worried about it.
Finally, I added a banana seat and 36" (I think) sissy bar and called it a day.
Whew.
Well the bike rides great.
The rear half basically lined itself up for me due to the frame design of the beach cruiser frame.
The front was a bit harder since I don't have a frame jig, but I got it pretty close.
You can't ride it without holding the bars because it has a very very slight pull to the right, but once you are moving it's not noticeable.
What I learned?
Chain stays are a certain length for a reason!
I extended mine 7.5" since that was the length that made the frame work with how far I extended the forks... I did the forks first.
Unfortunately since bike chain is 1" pitch, I had to slide the wheel as far back as it would go and the chain is still slightly loose. moving it forward and removing a link is too short...
So I'd need a half link... not the end of the world. I'll probably just swap in a +1 sprocket and call it a day. it doesn't rub until you backpedal so it's not a big deal, but just annoying to know that I should've foreseen that happening.
Overall it was a fun easy project, took about 2 afternoons, and I had literally no idea what I was doing.
Anyway...
Thanks for reading.
