Thanks buddies!
herr_rudolf: I agree with you completely about how the bike rides is the most important thing. Thats my first concern when I make the first sketch for a bike, if I think it'll be a good ride and perform well according to it's purpose, then I focus on how to design the rest around that. I'm still at a stage where I do a lot of guess work when designing the bike, ideas that I want to try out to see if they work, and it was such a great feeling to ride the 18 and find out that the thoughts I had on seat- and head tube angles actually did make the ride feel as I wanted it to. Sometimes luck smiles at you!
FOUND OBJECTS: Yeah I think I'll work it out somehow, and if I can't get my head around how to fix it, there's no lack of knowledgeable guys here to ask for help! 8) But when I was riding around today I found that one of the gears had this perfect balance for being able to cruise around on it at a good speed and at the same time it wasn't too heavy when starting from a standstill. I'm leaning towards building more single speed bikes in the future. Beautiful simplicity!
When I look at the photos of the finished bike again I notice that the seat doesn't point straight forward, sorry 'bout that folks. :roll: I haven't tightened the seatclamp completely yet...
Oh, and for those of you who have followed the build and think to yourselves "hm, I think those are not the same handlebars from the mock-up photos", you're absolutely right!!
I changed the ones I had originally planned to use for straight ones. It made the headlight look a little closer to the bars and I also wasn't totally happy with the upside down look of the other ones, so I like these better over all.