Elbo
pesky scooter kids git off ma lawn
This project was born out of realising that most of my shopping, commuting and everyday casual riding involves less than a 7km round trip into town. There's one big hill between my place and the centre of town. It's not super steep, but it's enough to discourage casually riding a bike to run errands, which is something I think we should all be aiming to do more of. I wanted to get away from being over-reliant on the car; turning it on, driving 5 minutes and turning it off again doesn't do the engine any good anyway. Using the car given the short distance involved just seemed ridiculous, especially when it's not raining, stinking hot or I have a lot to carry. SoI started thinking that maybe I could still ride the bike even if I did have a lot to carry, it just required a better designed bike.
I looked into trailers and hooking them up to a standard bike, but I didn't like the idea of having something wider behind me that I couldn't see when passing through bollards and narrow bridges on the bike path into town. I wanted the cargo area up front, and with a kid on the way later this year, the idea of one day being able to give rides to the kids up front where they could see everything and be an active part of the trip was too appealing. So that ruled out trailers and ute style cargo bikes.
I looked at ready-made cargo bikes, but couldn't justify the huge price tag ($5k for an entry level one), so went DIY and started chopping up an old Shogun Trailbreaker I had in the shed.
Parts List so far:
Issues:
I looked into trailers and hooking them up to a standard bike, but I didn't like the idea of having something wider behind me that I couldn't see when passing through bollards and narrow bridges on the bike path into town. I wanted the cargo area up front, and with a kid on the way later this year, the idea of one day being able to give rides to the kids up front where they could see everything and be an active part of the trip was too appealing. So that ruled out trailers and ute style cargo bikes.
I looked at ready-made cargo bikes, but couldn't justify the huge price tag ($5k for an entry level one), so went DIY and started chopping up an old Shogun Trailbreaker I had in the shed.
Parts List so far:
Part | Details | Cost |
---|---|---|
Donor Frame | Shogun Trailbreaker | Originally bought the bike for $70 |
Main down tube | 50x50x2mm RHS | 2m for ~$20 |
Steerer tube extension | Stainless Steel tubing 1.5" (need to check diameter) | 6m for $60 |
Steerer extension | 1" Stainless steel tubing | Free offcut |
BMX Fork | Sunday(?) with Integrated crown race | Free from a mate |
BMX Integrated Headset and Headtube from old frame | Colony BMX headtube and Colony integrated headset | $50 (thanks to Clint at Colony BMX) |
Front wheel | Novetech seal hub, 6 bolt disc, 20" double wall Alex Rim | $85 |
Tyres | Schwalbe Marathon Plus/Performance (20x1.75, 26x2.00) | $85 |
Steering Rod | 10mm Mild steel Pipe | $10 |
Rod Ends and nuts and bolts | SKF UNF M8 Right hand thread x 2 | $64 |
Steering arm plates | 4mm thick flat bar steel | $5 |
Electric Conversion Kit | Dillinger electric hub-drive kit | $1000 |
Cargo Platform | TBC - 1.5" stainless tubing made into 50x80cm frame with nylon webbing for carrying cargo | See above |
Welding | @spinner with a TIG, gas and a heap of knowledge | Priceless! |
Brakes | TBC - but 4 pot for sure, given the weight this thing will be carrying | |
Rotors | SM-RT66 180mm F&R | $60 |
Cranks | Need to acquire - probably 1x | |
Chain | 7spd Shimano | $27 |
Derailleur/freewheel/shifters, etc | Need derailleur and shifter - 7spd | $25 |
Wasted donor bikes/wrong sizes, etc | $40 | |
Cables/outer | Need to get | $50 |
Stem and bars | Spares laying around | |
Pedals | DMR V8's | $30ish |
Stand | TBC - RHS and springs most likely | $20 |
Paint | Undecided as yet | |
Welding Supplies | Gas, etc | |
TOTAL | $1701 |
Issues:
- General plumbness/perpendicularity of frame: Won't know how good/bad it is until I ride it. We've welded this thing by eye and lining out straight edges, but I think it's pretty good for a one off. I think a jig would be overkill, unless you're going to be making multiple frames.
- Tube sizing availability: I used Phil Vanderlay's cargo bike plans as a launching point and immediately ran into problems. Imperial converted sizes aren't available in mild steel here in Australia (apparently), but stainless steel diameters are converted from imperial and 1" tubing fits perfectly inside a 1 1/8" steerer (to extend it) and 1.5" tubing makes a great longer headtube. Welding stainless to regular steel the way we've done it isn't the best or strongest, but these parts aren't under a heap of load and just have to actuate the steering rod and support my upper body weight and force pulling on the bars. We'll see how it goes.
- Integrated BMX headset: We basically needed the front end of a BMX as a donor fork/headtube/headset. I tried doing it bit by bit and wasted money on incompatible parts.
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