Re: What is the stupidest bike you ever rode?
- From: "Vee" <v.powell@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 31 Jan 2006 05:51:50 -0800
joseph.santaniello@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
> When I was a kid we used to make silly bikes and go play bike-tag which
> quickly deteriorated into demolition derby. A friend had a huge supply
> of parts and frames in his workshop in the basement. His father was the
> super of our building so we had access to all sorts of tools, etc.
>
> For a while we made lots of choppers using 20" kid's bikes with a 27"
> fork and a 12" front wheel. Banana seat usually and different bars.
> Sometimes a steering wheel. We made a few trikes too, but they
> "durability issues".
>
> The dumbest one I ever made and rode was a reverse chopper. It had
> girls cruiser frame probably for 24" wheels. It had a 12" rear wheel, a
> huge chainring on a one piece crank that came from who knows where, an
> extra long fork that had a zig-zag pattern and a 27" front wheel. The
> seatpost was bent in a vise and leaned forward at a crazy angle. It had
> a unicycle seat that wasn't the right size so it gave us the idea of
> swivle-seat steering. A pushrod was rigged between the seat and a stem
> stuck in sideways with a hole drilled through it mounted with a big
> sloppy bolt with a nylon lock nut. The whole steering gizmo was hidden
> under layers of mattress foam and duct tape for safety!
>
> The swivle seat steering didn't work with nothing to hold onto, and
> upons seeing my history teacher riding a recumbent, we decided under
> seat steering was the way to go. So we madde a loose one handed tiller
> sort of thing around the seatpost and put a regular seat on.
>
> That was a pretty stupid bike.
>
> Joseph
Grew up on a farm... we'd usually kill the cheap dept. store bikes our
parents bought us in a few weeks. I mean really killed, like bikes
ghostriding off bluffs or getting run over by tractors. But we had
lots of parts to work with, so we created unsafe 2 wheeled devices like
you describe.
I don't know about stupidest, but my favorite was a cheap bmx frame
with 27" fork and wheel, and a 12" rear wheel. Because the front end
was so high, we couldn't ride it far, so we mostly raced across the
barnyard. We quickly learned the value of fenders, which my brother
was adept at making from tin roofing and twine. After a summer of
abuse, the 27/12 bike had two flat tires and looked rather unsafe, so
my dad hauled it to a nearby junk ditch. Coincidentally, my grandpa
noticed it, thought it looked pretty interesting, and recovered it.
After he died, my dad found it in grandpa's machine shed and threw it
away again.
-Vee
.
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