So say you've got a bunch of bikes, and only certain parts of them work. Maybe one has a stuck seat post, or the bottom bracket is shredded. Maybe the forks or stays are bent. Maybe your missing some parts. Then what do you do? You don't just want to throw them away! Well that's when you have to get creative.
It doesn't take too many working parts to get a tall bike going. I've built two so far. Both of them were built from bikes that could not be repaired without extraordinary amounts of work (or money). Here's the story of my first tallbike.
I showed up at the Steiger garage one day, and there was Ben with a tall bike, the first Scallywag tall bike. He had gotten all his stuff together and headed over to the Steiger garage one night, and he and Nikolas welded it up. It was a bit weird looking, cause he'd put this 24" wheel on the front, and it had a 27" on the back. Plus, he'd used some goofy off brand bike for the top one, that i have some weird recollection of that i can't place. Anyway, I gave it a ride, and it was incredibly fun. I decided that i had to get a tall bike built.
9 Oct. 2001 (1a.m.)
Just got done doing the preliminary work for a tall bike. About a week ago, maybe more, i cut the seat and chain stays off my old Schwinn. You know, the one that's seen more incarnations than Shirley McClaine. I acquired it used, after a while painted it goofy and put on a small front wheel and different (cruiser) handlebars. Got hit by a car. Later added two baskets (front and back) and used it as a truck, which eventually broke down. Since the rear stays were still bent from being hit (i had pounded them a bit straighter before doing the truck conversion) and it had never quite been the same, I decided i might as well cut them off and use it for the top bike on a tall bike.
For the bottom i used a 10 speed in my basement that i bought at the thrift store entirely for the pedal clips and quick release front wheel (the old type with wing nuts.) After that, i'd been using it for parts. But it still had everything i needed. I found some wheels in the garage. I mixed and matched some tubes and tires until i found something decent. One of the crank arms on this bike was bent, but those are removed from the bottom bike anyway. I pulled out the bottom bracket and seat, took off the handlebars(all of this stuff I saved to use later), and moved brake and shifter cables around so the bike could be welded together, and they could be set up later if i feel like it. I decided to grease up the headset on the Schwinn, it was a bit dirty, but otherwise great. Cleaned up just fine. Then i stacked them up with a piece of conduit between the top forks and the bottom neck. Looked plenty tall, and like it should work just fine. I also cleaned up a couple lengths of chain and moved the shifters to a better location on the Schwinn as well as removing an old brake lever.
18 October 2001
Built my tallbike today. I've had the pieces ready for a couple weeks. I wanted to work on it last Thursday, but i had to work late. I took off today and tomorrow and went over today to do that. First i helped Nathan (TW) who was setting up a single speed road bicycle, since his mountain bike sort of bit it. Then he had to take off, Nikolas and Sharne took off for an hour, and Ben showed up at some point and helped me figure some stuff out. We also rode around on the Penny-farthing, and Mutt's chopper. Nikolas showed up, and after a while, we welded everything together. There were some problems. Like one pipe was the wrong size, and then the nut wouldn't fit and then it just melted right off after all the work of putting it on. But we got it all together, and then i put the chain on and took it for a ride! Wow! Super nice. When we went for our "victory ride" around the block after Nik welded a mounting pedal on the Penny-farthing, i had some trouble. Every time i went up an incline or took off too fast, i tipped over backwards. I figured it was because the seat was so far over the back wheel that it was just too back heavy. I realized later that Ben's bike had a smaller wheel on the front which sort of balanced things out. But once i had that figured out, i could compensate. I took it for a long ride tonight and had no problems.
Tomorrow i'm planning to hook up gears and brakes, so it'll be sort of a deluxe tallbike compared to Ben's
The top frame was already painted black and green, and i just happened to have black spray paint around, so i painted the bottom frame black. However, it had some nice chrome fork ends, so i taped them off and left them chrome. Then i got around to the gears. I found a cable long enough, and then some housing to make it work. The brakes were a bit harder. I ended up cutting the cable a bit too short, and had to put the brake handle farther in on the handlebars then i would have liked. Ends up that i barely used it anyway, because it was a lot easier to just put my foot down on the back wheel (which is pretty much the standard way to stop a tall bike, since most of them don't have brakes.) Now that Phil is riding it, he uses the brakes; otherwise he'd wear holes through his converse in a day. That was the second Scallywag tall bike.
Here's a picture of the tallbike i ride now. I took this after i rode it home for work one day to show just how practical a tallbike can be. I've got a basket on mine, and in that basket is a box full of smoke damaged bicycles tubes. As you can see, a skateboard fit just perfectly on the bottom frame. That front triangle on the bottom bike is the real practical part of this bike, because any number of things can be put down there. When we rode to Stillwater a number of people hung backpacks off the top tube on the bottom bike. i've seen cases of beer duct taped down there, and have taped boxes down there myself.
So say you've got a bunch of bikes, and only certain parts of them work. Maybe one has a stuck seat post, or the bottom bracket is shredded. Maybe the forks or stays are bent. Maybe your missing some parts. Then what do you do? You don't just want to throw them away! Well that's when you have to get creative.
For the bottom i used a 10 speed in my basement that i bought at the thrift store entirely for the pedal clips and quick release front wheel (the old type with wing nuts.) After that, i'd been using it for parts. But it still had everything i needed. I found some wheels in the garage. I mixed and matched some tubes and tires until i found something decent. One of the crank arms on this bike was bent, but those are removed from the bottom bike anyway. I pulled out the bottom bracket and seat, took off the handlebars(all of this stuff I saved to use later), and moved brake and shifter cables around so the bike could be welded together, and they could be set up later if i feel like it. I decided to grease up the headset on the Schwinn, it was a bit dirty, but otherwise great. Cleaned up just fine. Then i stacked them up with a piece of conduit between the top forks and the bottom neck. Looked plenty tall, and like it should work just fine. I also cleaned up a couple lengths of chain and moved the shifters to a better location on the Schwinn as well as removing an old brake lever.
Here's a picture of the tallbike i ride now. I took this after i rode it home for work one day to show just how practical a tallbike can be. I've got a basket on mine, and in that basket is a box full of smoke damaged bicycles tubes. As you can see, a skateboard fit just perfectly on the bottom frame. That front triangle on the bottom bike is the real practical part of this bike, because any number of things can be put down there. When we rode to Stillwater a number of people hung backpacks off the top tube on the bottom bike. i've seen cases of beer duct taped down there, and have taped boxes down there myself.