Nice Rack !!!

Well, after last nights Chariot crash and a sore chest from laughing so much. I decided to start the day late and do a fun little afternoon project I could finish by 6 pm.

Brie's little Prototype SS Nina on the messy table ready for some fun.

My goal - Build a sick rack for my girl friend Brie's bike, because she works as a bicycle courier in San Fran, she often gets the call at 1 am for a solid cube of Natural Ice beer delivered to a party ASAP or the more common $150 dollar order of Chinese food to a house party. During the day she is doing legal paper work deliveries and light work and the basket isn't as needed that much.

Saturday morning she recieved a call for a load of coffee ( 6 large cups and other baked goods ) to a bed and breakfast, I happened to be there with her and seen how hard it is to make this certin delivery on time without the basket, so I decided I needed to make her a rack that would do everything from a bag of food all the way up to hauling a person if needed.

But like I always try to do it, make a quick easy job, a hard complex job by adding to much detail, so here we go, check it.........

done 4 hours later

Custom Koa Wood panels from Hawaii that Andrew at the shop cut for me ( he said its $$$)

OK you ready for this.......

So she can pick up normal orders like this because its got a 12"x12" load area

big enough for a good sized load

O yea and the shiny tubes are road bike handlebars from a 1970 Schwinn road bike ( perfect bends ! )

If she gets a huge order

The front extends out and can add an extra 9" to the front load area for light stuff.

well enjoy- I had a blast this afternoon building it, hope she enjoys it. 

4130 chromoly to the streets of San Fran !

"Courier #4 on Route! "

kamikaze passanger

Party Time

Justin and I took out the Chariot last night to a good old Berkeley College party! 

Loaded with enough Colt 45 beers to kill a horse, we blazed the beast into the night without any lights, stealth style running from the heat under the radar....

The beast worked great and the ride is so smooth on the chariot seat (not shown in picts)  but on the way home we came across some railroad tracks and one of the quick release bolts holding the chariot broke in half sending me on to a unknown journey into traffic...

Lucky no cars were harmed in this breakage, O yeah no one got hurt either.

this picture doesnt have the cranks and seat

Good old Schwinn Approved wheels

old camera phone picts

I ran across this old photo of the first days of building the Pabst dragster years back. I think I was just out of high school when I started the build.

From This ......

To this a few months later ....

If you want to read the magazine article heres the link to Hot Bike Magazine

Chariot build day 2

I haven't put to much time in to the project maybe 5 hours now, my goal was one day of work but now I am on a second day.....

either way, I want to make sure that it goes out the door and goes out the door with some style.

So now you get the point minus the 26" wheels

The tube that hooks to the bike isn't attached to the chariot yet, its sitting really high being held by the PARK stand, just for photos

Since she can pedal it, it needed a Bottom Bracket

But.... I figured down the road it may be used without the BB so its removable

Note for the Techies - its a 68mm!!! ha ha

Score of the day!!!

$20 replacement Aluminum hitch from REI off a tag-along bike

I couldn't have made anything look that good for 20 bucks.

Monkey Likes Shiny Tribute pedals

Well, once years and years back when I was a young lad, I ran in to a person by the name of Erik Noren, a welder for the company Croll bicycles in Minneapolis. Who later started working for Quality bike (QBP), this was about the time my brother was working at Quality. Erik decided one day to start up a company on the side called Peacock Groove where he used is connections of Quality and his skills learned working with the legand builder Walter Croll and try his hand at his own business.

From bike #1 the good old black monster with hand carved skulls over all the exposed tube ends, I decided to build a set of pedals that copied that same skull. I started making them way way back about maybe 6 or 7 years ago but really never got to pumped about making them until a friendly machine shop decided to make them for me.

 My brother got me on to the idea of using the Igis composite bearings which are really just crazy composite plastic bushings that that pedal axle rides on with no moving parts, plus it reduces the thickness of the body and drops some weight, this also allowed for me to make the axle bigger and stronger without making the pedal thicker. I am almost done building them, just a few more little things to finish like threading the titanium axles and some simple machine work on the 7071 aluminum bodies.

stack of the Monkey Likes Shiny Tribute pedals

They allow toe straps but only single straps

Over all I think Erik needs a tribue pedal because he is one of the few bicycle frame builders still making it thru the slow times, even though he switched to Hamms and Ramen noodles as his only meal of the day.

Cheers Erik !

Minneapolis I miss you...............

I seen this link posted on Jeff's Blog Bike Jerks and couldn't help but post it on my blog because I miss Minneapolis so much. As Jeff said it, "watch it, and you will smile".

"I Ride My Bicycle" City of Minneapolis • Bicycling Safety PSA :60 from Cole Koehler on Vimeo.

Roman Style

Well.....

Sorry for the good old month of freedom I took from the shop and the blog. Its been an exciting time working and living in the San Francisco bay area. It reminds me of the Twin Cities in September because its a bit colder and there is no BUGS!!! Plus to add to all the other great things PEOPLE LOVE TO RIDE!!!

I have been working at this new company as a concept fabricator and so far they are really happy with how I make it happen. The guys I work with, are my age times 3 or 4 and together they have hundreds of years of fabrication and crafting experience, so walking in to that shop everyday with my head hung low ready to learn.

So out of the blue, I recieved an email from a lady from LA asking if there was any way I could help her with an idea and if possible help her turn that idea in to something more then a pen and paper drawing.

The idea was to create a project for BurningMan coming up that would allow her daughter to be able to enjoy the weekend with everyone and have something neat to really show off and enjoy.

The catch of the project - her daughter has very very limited use of her legs forcing her to use a wheelchair for most of her day to day tasks. This build has to be very special to allow her to put the wheelchair aside and enjoy bike rides with the whole crew across the salt flats of Burning Man.

I thought really quick and the first thing that came to mind was a tag along bicycles and use hand pedals, kind of a copy of the bike I built months back for the dude that had no legs and was driven to ride a bike pedaling with his hands. After talking the lady about the project for her daughter, she decided that 2 wheels might be more safe then 1 so the next thing that came to mind was a Roman Chairot that you would sit in and pedal by hand. As soon as I said that, I could feel the smile over the phone and I knew I had brought up the right idea.

Time to Build the first project in the new Berkeley workshop.....

here is my first concept I quick drew up....

just kidding I didn't draw that.

about 2 hours in at this point, most of the chassis is done

the chariot will look like a tag along bicycle from the side profile in how it attachs to the bicycle in front.