fixie update

My friend Nate inspired me to build up this frame. He was looking into producing his own brand of bikes. Him and I came up with the name of our bike company. BMA bikes. stands for
Big Man Approved bikes'

I spent last night painting the frame in the garage, 2 coats of primer, 3 coats of flat black, and 3 coats of flat clear coat. I decided not to powdercoat this time around, because of its price, and also because if this frame cracks, i want to be able to strip the paint and re-weld it.

Here are some updated pics. Bike weighs right in at 22 lbs, which isn't too shabby in the bike world.
Just a little over 300 into the bike. Kept it within budget, but still with some very nice components.

LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!!!!

yes, aren't blogs the epitimy of "Look at me! Look at me! Mom! MOM! You're NOT looking!!!! AAAAHHHHH".
Yes Spring, I'm talking about you and how you show your kids off to the world. Haha, just kidding, I love seeing my niece and nephew in their cutest moments... the silent ones... Haha again.

I have spent the last two nights, totaling over 9 hours, in the garage working on my most recent project.
A road/fixie bicycle frame.
I measured the dimensions of a bike i like at work, Bought some parts from a local Idaho Frame builder, some parts from Italy, and some steel at Pacific Steel here in IF.
all in all I'm into the frame about 55 bucks. Mostly I did this project for the WOW factor, and also for the experience.

the welds dont look pro, but they should hold just fine

 

this is where i made my custom seat tube clamp, super sweet!

 i used a spare axle to get my drop out spacing just right

 I put some large holes every 2.5 inches for the look effect, from my understanding, the tubing will be sufficiently strong enough even with these holes

 I was very excited to see that my wheels lined up almost dead center of the frame, just a little bit of tweaking and it will be just right

 all the angles came out dang near spot on, I am very impressed with myself on how well i did without a proper frame jig. Red Green always did say the eyeball was mans most accurate measuring device!

I plan on painting the bike Matt black, with the stem, pedals, and wheels being purple. Ill update when i get it that far done.

New Wheels For the Drift Trike

Today I worked for a bit in the garage on some new wheels for the drift trike.
My boss hooked me up with a set of go-kart wheels we had in the back.
I got some 8" PVC pipe from a local pipe supply shop.

I was able to squeeze the wheels and tires into the PVC pipe and air up the tire to keep it snug.
Now we just have to wait for the roads to clear and the fun will begin again!

drift trike part 2

So today, Tyson(my coworker) and i went up towards Thunder Ridge mountain and rode the drift trike down the panorama hills street.
we each did 2 runs

This is my second run
2nd run

On Tyson's second run he didnt get his foot out of the way when turning and the tire buzzed his leg. he got some rash from it, but all is well, as you can tell my my laughing at him
Poor Tyson


When i made the axel for the wheels i did a stupid thing.
Thinking that the plastic wheel turning on the metal axel would wear it out, i pressed a metal pipe sleeve into the wheel and that rotated around the metal axel. This created alot of friciton and melted the wheels quite a bit. the hole in the wheel used to be about 3/4 inch, not it is more like 2 inches. Back to the drawing board!! it was fun anyways
BEFORE

 AFTER

Here are a few screenshots i took of the better parts

drift trike

My coworker Tyson and I were inspired by the following youtube clip to build our own drift trikes. We are each building one of our own so that we can race each other rather than take turns. But he is currently doing full time school as well as part time work. Where as I am only working right now and have nights off. So... after about 6 hours of garage and Lowe's today, here is where I'm at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf0PaH-hE9g

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Tool Box continuation 2

I got it back from the powdercoaters today, painted it Textured Black. It is SOOOO SWEET!!!!
I bolted it down to the bed of my truck today and put all my stuff in it!! I'm very excited!

Continuation of Tool Box

I picked up some hinges and a lock clasp at Lows and put them on my box today.
Thing weighs about 80 lbs now!
I took it over to East Idaho Powdercoating today and he is gonna spray it matt black on monday!

breaking my back in the garage

So, today i went and picked up 90 dollars worth of metal, and tonight i started building!

I have a little 2 door mini pickup that has no room behind the seats(subwoofers take up all the space :) )
and you cant fit anything under the seats,

So.. everything i carry with me either gets wet in the bed of the pickup, or hogs all the room on the passenger side in the cab. This prevents me from offering rides to pretty young ladies. This is unacceptable!!

So i made/am making a tool box that i will bolt down to the bed and put stuff in!!

Couple snags i ran into was that i measured wrong when ordering the metal, and ended up getting a piece 2 inches short. DANG!
and I thought it wouldnt be a problem to bend the metal myself, Just grind a relief groove where i wanted the bend, and just bend it by hand right?! Ugg, that sucked!

new stunts!

This is a new basic stunt I'm learning. Called a ZERO. it is where you turn the bars all the way and ride circles no-handed using only the rear brake to control the balance of the bike. On my friend Mac's bike. so much fun!

kellys trip Labor Day

I reached a point in the Hawleys gulch trail where there were two 4 wheelers stopped, taking up all the trail. It turned out that the wife got scared of a big root in the trail and made her husband driver her 4-wheeler up it. so i went around, But as i was going around, I thought,
"Hey! my mom could ride that no problem!!"
But then again, my mom is an exceptionally special woman,

bicycling that same night

we went up for a night ride this same night, this video is from the first run before it went completely pitch black.

Kellys Canon 9-1-10

I went for a moto ride by myself Today,
(Spring has me call her before and tell her when I'm leaving, where ill be, and when ill call her and tell her im safe)

i got about 15 miles in and recorded all of it,
Here are the highlights



first one is of a fun lil trail up on the north side of the upper road from the kellys Y intersection



this one is of a little hill climb i did, it switches mid video to where i come down it so you can get perspective of how steep it was



this one is of the sneeky way into Hawleys Gulch, which the forest service is trying to close down.




This one is of trying to cross the creek that we just walk across with our bicycles, it was possible to just ride a wheelie really fast across and hope to make it, but i was by myself and didnt feel like dumping it over and getting wet.





this one is of the single track on hawleys, and my scarring a cow with the motor