Whaddu in for?

[bigredddaddy]

I had a yellow sting-ray as a kid, LOVED that bike :mrgreen: Fast-forward to 2002 and a 26" cruiser that I dumped $300+ and I didn't ride it a lot. Too hard to clean, 72 spokes take an hour alone! So I watch all those car & truck shows on tv and seen ratrod cars there. I love the whole idea around it and after Horsepower TV's "Raunchy Rat", I decided to hack that 26" girls bike lying around and toss on rusty parts. My first rat was bourn thanksgiving morning 2006. I went to BR & K a lot and seen the winner of the RRBBO there and followed the link here. I did wonder if there where others ratting bikes so this was a great find to me. BIG props to Steve :!: The rat rod bike (now retiered) that started it for me;

 

[Rat Rod]

I was out in the garage one evening and a bucket of paint fell off the shelf and hit me square in the head (insert tweety birds, stars, x's on eyes).

During my unconscious state I unknowingly created a wacky forum that would take over and change the world of biking as we know it.

Okay...so...maybe that's not how it really happened. :lol: :roll: :lol: :roll:

 

[12bcruzin]

It all started 25 years ago. I needed a beater bike to cruise the old car swaps but wanted something cool. Nothing too high maintenance, just solid and old. I found a beat-up, rattle-cannned 48 Schwinn girls bike with tank, fenders, springer and it was lust at first sight. Plus it was all I could afford since even then the boys tank bikes were commanding big bucks.
That was my main ride for years until I found mountainbiking and my interest was diverted for a decade or so. The old girls bike was moved to the rafters in the garage.
This last year, as Summer fast approached, I got a wild hair to build a klunker-esque cruiser that would be faithful to the roots of mountainbiking for trips to the beach. I found a 40 Schwinn DX on ebay, bolted some vintage 79 era BMX parts on it and built myself a custom cruiser with three speeds and drum brakes. I posted pics of the DX on mtbreview and that was where I found out about this site.
This and the Schwinn site have kick-started my interest in the old bikes so down from the rafters came the girl's bike for a mild clean-resto chik-rat makeover...but something had changed. After 1000s of miles of road and MTB-ing, my knees just didn't get along with the cramped riding position on the girls bike. After a brief search, I located a 1939 Columbia Superb for a reasonable price and in my favorite finish-rust-to be my vintage beach ride. I have also decided to try and find all of the missing stock parts for the DX, or maybe I'll just full rat it. Either way, my soul and my knees couldn't be happier.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/david-quickpic

 

[BASTY 76]

Hey Tj, I'm pretty new to the site and ratters in general. started building about a year ago, just simple fixies and stuff but they weren't a big enough creative challenge.Back at school I loved art (drawing and sculpting) and metal work, now twenty years later I chainsaw carve, ice carve, build metal sculpures and now I've started building rat rod bikes. Kind'a like doing stuff not many other people do. I've noticed from the other posts I'm not the only one that has always been and wanted to be a bit different. Guess I'm a bit different here too cause I havent seen any other rat swingers (bring out the swingers in the gallery).
Soooooo any body up for it ? RRSBBO1 2008 :?: :idea: :shock: :lol:
Rockabilly? well I've got a couple of Fire Balls albums.

 

[bmxerpete]

I got turned onto this site by Kenny and the freaks over at Freakbikenation, as they were talking about RRBO II. I thought it was one of the coolest things I've seen on the web yet, so here I am. KOTA is absolutely right- no gigantic egos here, unlike some of the old school bmx sites I go to. I love collecting and restoring vintage bmx bikes, but some of the people in that hobby make it really hard to want to stay involved.
The total creativity and more importantly the people both here and at Freakbike are what I find so cool. There are a lot of really good people too over on the bmx sites, and I'm glad to say a bunch of them have become good friends. I just hate seeing the few jackbags mess it up for everyone else.
Steve- thank you for catching that can on your head and creating this place!

 

[kingplinker]

I took "parts" from all your posts and built my own response. :mrgreen:

"Lack of funds!" — oldgreenbean

"I have never been what most people would call normal and always been into unusual things." — nogoodnic42
 
"i'm not too sure how to answer that other than i love old machines, the curves, the chrome, the noise, the dirtiness — Joshua85

"I'm suddenly obsessed... "...I don't have the rest of the bike yet, just a set of bars and a seat in the junk pile..." — ParkRNDL

"I'm a pretty boring/normal guy, i eat, sleep, work, repeat..." — CCR
 
"started surfing the web for parts and it kinda snowballed from there." — tikiharl

"Was into bikes bigtime as a kid. Then got into cars." — Buck Masterson

"I found this in the trash. I was always into bikes and trash and old stuff, grafitti, cars, Mad Max... — skoda
 
"Its takes very little money and you can have it done from a weekend to a week"" — Firewalker

"It satisfies the creative part in their heart... It makes you "happy"! — KOTA

"WONT CONFORM" — MagicRat
 
"...so being a bike nut is easy, and here at this forum, relatively cheap." — ratdaddy

"found rats, and im still building and getting better at it!" — fast eddie

"i was a poor white kid in the lower class side of town. so i scooped up every busted,rusted bike and part i could find...
so when i found rat rods it was like home for me." — Upper Class White Trash

"I lurked more and more until one day in the fall of '07 I joined RRB." — dangratsdan
 
"I grew up riding bicycles all over the place, just like most kids." — TJK

"I was always into bikes... now its kinda an addiction" — moparmayhem93
 
"BIG props to Steve" — bigredddaddy
 
"insert tweety birds, stars, x's on eyes" — Rat Rod

"for a reasonable price and in my favorite finish-rust" — 12bcruzin

"Kind'a like doing stuff not many other people do." — BASTY 76

 

[mandysbus]

I'm in it for The Chicks!! :mrgreen:

Nuf said!! :wink:

Kev.

theres chicks in this hobby? :wink:

i was always into bikes
not like hardcore just whatever bike i had as a small child i always tried to customize
nanner seat
paint job
high seat
somethin different
then i found this site and it really jumstarted my whole bike hobby
now its kinda an addiction
STEVE~!!
thanks for the site
otherwise i would have never really gotten into bikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

belive it or not there are chicks in this hobby........mandys been into bike for 8 or 9 years.lisa from memory lane probably forgot more than most of you know.......there are not alot though.....if you can find one that will tolerate your bike 'thing' and let you keep bike in the living room try and keep them..............plus they are a lot better to look at than some of you guys :mrgreen: .....phil

 

[ponytailmike]

What can I say???
Growing up in the 70’s
My first bike was a banana seat bike got stolen from the front yard
My second bike was an old 24 inch Murray ten speed. Road it to death
Had to of put 2000+ miles on that old bike. I did all the maintenance to keep it running
I have always been mechanical.
Thanks Dad (must have been inherited Dad grew up on a farm)
Had lots of ideas back then but no money
Or means to make the conversions back then.
Skip forward 25 years
I’m at a thrift store and I find an old (late 80’s) Raleigh road bike
And thought I just might like to ride again it was cheap enough and looked
To be in good condition
Then it happened I found an old three speed diamond frame 70’s cruiser
And fell in love(gotta love the three speed)
You know the type 26 x1 3/8
I’m looking for parts
No bicycle shops have any parts nor will they give me any advice
They were almost a little snobbish
One shop told me why don’t you just quit playing with that old junk
And buy a new bike
Then I found Peddlers bicycle shop and bicyclerick
He had a supply of old parts
Thanks so much Rick
And all the advice has been invaluable
He tells me about this cruiser bike club they are starting "The Spokesman"
I joined immediately
Then he tells me about this web site
And here I am building the stuff I only dreamed of as a kid

PonyTailMike
Mike

P.S.Sorry think I got a little carried away

 

[moparmayhem93]

belive it or not there are chicks in this hobby........mandys been into bike for 8 or 9 years.lisa from memory lane probably forgot more than most of you know.......there are not alot though.....if you can find one that will tolerate your bike 'thing' and let you keep bike in the living room try and keep them..............plus they are a lot better to look at than some of you guys :mrgreen: .....phil

man guess i'll have to hang pout with oyu guys more
where i live all the girls are into john deere and the whole farming thing
and trust me if they let bikes in the house shes a keeper
my mom won't even let em in the basement!! then again we have a 5 car garage :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

 

[maddogrider]

i built ah old stingray with a springer and painted the frame that flat black along with the handle bars and called it a ratrod. then i was looking around the internet to see if there any freaks like me out there and there it was a bunch of bike riding punk rock listening freaks like me that ride bikes that are way cool in my mind. you guys rock

 

[TJK]

My wife and I were keeping ours in the kitchen for the longest time!
New shed coming soon.

I was just curious about how y'all got into this.. It seemed lots of people into this sub-genre of bikes have come in via old cars and the neo rockabilly swing thing /punk rock that happened a few years back.

Thanks for all your responses so far.

-Tj

 

[BrigmasterA]

Well, I've been a grease monkey since day one. Inherited that from my dad. He always had a shop out back and a business on the side. When I was about a month from turning 16, I asked if he was getting me a car for my 16th birthday. We were in the shop at the time. He takes me by the shoulders, spins me around to face the field full of spare/junk/old cars, and says "There's a field of 'em. Pick one and make it work." So I picked the 1973 VW squareback that had been there for years... Thanks to my dad i had plenty of mechanical talent, as I was the one who had to keep my go-kart and minibike and other dirt bikes going. We never had new stuff. But we knew how to make old stuff work... You know, the more skill and ambition than money story... Then later on in life I helped a friend of mine build a chopper out of an old flathead Harley 45. Then I got a 1979 Yamaha XS650. And this bike was a rat. I pulled it out of a junkyard and made it run and drive that night. Drove it for 2 years before I ever got a title for it, which meant getting it out of impound every time I got pulled over, which was 4 times altogether... As far as bikes go, I pretty much quit riding bikes when I was 16. Then when I was 25 I saw an old Huffy Causeway 6 speed cantilever cruiser at a garage sale that I just had to have. Still don't know why. Then when I got married, my wife kept stealing my bike because she liked it better than here full suspension walmart special mountain bike. So I decided we'd get her a cruiser, so I found some on craigslist. Hers ended up being a 1941-ish hawthorne that she loved. Then I got tired of her having a cooler bike than I did, so I was always on the prowl. Then I saw this cool bike with pointy dropouts at an antique store in town. The owner didn't know what it was, but thought it was worth 80 bucks. So did I. So I took it home, and busted out the steel wool. Found out it was all chrome under there. A friend of mine told me it might be a spaceliner. So I looked that up on yahoo, and found a bunch of pictures of JoeyMac's 'Liner collection. He in turn told me about this place, and I've been here ever since. As far as Kulture or scenes go, you don't wanna get me started... I was Punk rock before it was cool. I remember being called a ... when I went to school with a mohawk. I was in to rockabilly and swing, still dig it. I've got curly hair so a pomp never worked. I've got big sideburns. But when I go to shows and get looks from and snarky remarks from kids who think because i don't dress like them or look like them i'm some sort of lame square poser, I'm like, "Dude I was punk rock when you were crappin' your Huggies." Scenes are stupid in my opinion. I've been hardcore. I still am in my own way. But I don't dress it, and i aint tryin' to prove it to nobody. I'm married. I got a decent job. I go to church. And compared to a lot of the people there, I'm still hardcore. But I ain't tryin to be something I saw on tv or the internet, I'm just trying to be me. I just got to the point where i felt it became stupid. I mean you go to a big city, and half the 'greasers' and rockabilly cats there (from my experience in Seattle or Portland) couldn't change their own oil. They've gotten so far from the roots of their scene that they forgot what it's all about. My 2 cents...

So what brought you here tjk? you never explained other than keeping bikes in kitchens...

 

[ratrodlover93]

ive always been around old trucks and bikes that looked like ratrods, i juss kinda fell in love with the hobby

 

[necessaryevil]

Truthfully, I never looked twice at old bikes until a few years ago. Grew up my whole life riding BMX, my dad restored antique cars but never built hotrods, just brought them back to their original condition. I always had a liking for traditional 40's and 50's hot rods but never had the time or money for the hobby. It never really dawned on me how cool these old bikes would look if you customized them until a friend picked one out of the trash and built a motorized rat bike. I've been hooked ever since! You can build a bike in a week for chump change as opposed to building a car in a year for a small fortune. Rusty513 showed me the site and I'm glad he did, I've seen a lot of cool stuff here and met some interesting people along the way. I think this site opened my "BMX only" mind up to building and riding any and all types of bicycles.

 

[johnny nightwolf]

Cool old thread! When I was a kid I was always into skateboarding and riding BMX. Got into punk rock when I was about 11 and started building cars about 10 years ago when I was in high school. After high school, I went to college and pretty much only biked for transportation around campus. After school, I moved around the country a little, then resettled in upstate NY and got a job running a cool little punk rock bar. About 2 years ago, a few of us in our local punk/rockabilly/custom car scene decided that it was cooler to cruise around on old bikes than to walk from bar to bar. A guy we know locally has one of those mythical barns full of old beach cruisers, so we picked up a few and started messing around with them. That was the start of the Dusty Spokes BC. Now there's about 40 of us. I found this site through xddorox's rat bike repair guide, about 6 months ago or so, and I'm totally hooked on it. I've also gotta say, in addition to learning a ton about old beach cruisers and ballooners, and seeing some of the coolest bikes on the planet, this site has totally gotten me back into BMX riding (sorry Hooch!) for the first time since I was a kid, and has given me a much greater appreciation for bikes in general. Thanks guys!

 

[thom]

I've been into cars & trucks for 35 years. I've owned more than I can remember. Pretty much every vehicle I've had has been a rat rod , even before they were called rat rods.All my machines are old.I drive a 56 Ford truck every day, I even mow my lawn with antique mowers.I'm blessed to be a deacon in a baptist church and am thrilled to find others with similar beliefs in the hobby.I've got enough old bicycles stashed away to keep me busy for a long time.

 

[Wingman]

Ughhhh ..... I Do No

Its the chicks LOL .... ya ... Thats the ticket ! ... Or

This place helps me battle with my Bi Polar Depresion ... I think

OK Here goes LOL ...Click Click .....Radatatatatadatadatatatadatatadatadatatadatadada ..Datadtatdtatdta ... Click click

Smokinn !! ............ YIPPY , WAHooo , YEahawwww .... AHhhhhhhhhhhh Much better now .....
see it helps.

Back To Base to Re Load .... Wingman Out

 

[GodHatesCleveland]

I'm in it for The Chicks!! :mrgreen:

Nuf said!! :wink:

Kev.

I build every bike with the same goal in mind, to make the panties of every woman I ride past spontaneously drop to the ground. Although that hasn't quite happened quite yet, I have gotten plenty of smiles, stares, shouts, and then there was a couple of guys who wanted to bike-jack me and steal my ride but that's Cleveland for 'ya.

I found this site after buying an old beater for $50 and deciding that I could improve on it while it was shelved for the winter. If I had found this site beforehand, I never would have paid $50 for it.

I was thoroughly impressed by the knowledge and creativity of the builders on this board. After that I learned about the history of bikes in general and how they represented a specific time, culture, and state of technological advancement. That's easy to do in Ohio where so many of the balloon tire bikes were made. And as an engineer the idea of self-powered two wheel transportation just seemed to make a lot of sense. But this forum was the spark to a much bigger appreciation for bikes and culture. Now I'm a bicycle enthusiast, not just for rat rods but all types, even though the rats and classics are still my favorite.

I've said it before, but every time there's a cool bike, there's always a cool story behind it.

 

[benz]

Great thread man. I feel in love with mechanical things because I was horrible in math and science. My mom and dad were both kind of inept at fixing or building anything! Anyway, one year for a science fair(remember those?) I built a really simple hand cranked motor, a really crude attempt at a single cyclinder motor. I got a 92 on the whole thing. My highest grade ever! Ha. After that I started reading about metal, and rust and plastics and started taking things apart. I was hooked. I seemed to be the only one in the world listening to Sublime, Ice Cube, Rancid, man I can remember so many shows at this local club called "The White Rabbit". This was when it was still cool to show up to a show without a certain uniform (i.e chains and leather or plaid and mohawks). I rode my bicycle a crappy fixie that I painted lime gold hahaha to school, and thats why I rolled up my jeans. I can honestly remember building my first bike when I was 12, a super crap that would now be called a klunker. but hey, it was for my mom. When I started working a naturally went into metal work and then paint and body, and now It seems like I know so little and I still learn everyday. The only way jeans look cool,is if they are covered in grease. White walls only look cool when they are rolling, and trailer queens suck.

 

[SkidMark]

Before I was into bikes I was into cars. We had a restored 1931 Model A and the daily driver was a 1970 Pontiac Bonneville 455 convertible. I found an old issue of Car Craft at a swap meet with the Orbitron in it and it was over. All I did was draw cars and build models. Then BMX happened. My drawing skills supplemented my BMX habit, the result being a "P.K.Ripper" with ACS Z-rims, Redline Brute stem, GT Pro bars, Dia-Compe MX II brakes, and Comp Stadium tires. I rode BMX as it morphed from freestyle into "street". Then I moved to California, where I got into Vespa motorscooters, and then 2-stroke street bikes. The motorcycles were loud, fast, and primered, for that matter so were the Vespas. I had a few vintage VWs during this time too, the nice ones were a 66 Cal-Look Beetle and a bone-stock 57 Transporter panel van. I moved up to Portland, Oregon with not much more than a Vespa and a backpack. If you've ever been here you know that driving is extremely frustrating, people drive really slow, and because there aren't that many freeway exits you have to travel forever on surface roads. To top this off you can't lane split, so you might as well be driving a car if you are stuck in traffic, so riding the Vespa became pointless. I met a group of Zoobombers and put together a bike. They told me about the Goodwiil bins and I had a cheap source of bikes to either turn-n-burn, or keep for myself. I got my stuff up from San Diego, a raked/stretched lowrider Stingray included. I built a fixed gear bike to commute. There are bike co-ops here with used parts, and a throwaway consumer culture and lots of like-minded individuals so I've been building freakbikes that sometimes have a hot rod/kustom/chopper inspiration for the past few years. A lot of the bikey types up here have sort of an Eco bend to them so they don't get the car and chopper thing. I'm a little older too so I don't what the heck they listen to. I was into Hardcore Punk, then Goth/Industrial, then Oi! and Ska, then Psychobilly and Rockabilly. So it's always been about bikes, motorcycles, and cars for me, stuff with wheels. It all sort of comes together here.