Chopper / bobber morphs into a recumbent!

www.recumbents.com

www.recumbents.com

10 kW
Joined
May 26, 2008
Messages
951
Location
Chicago area
I have been looking at chopper frames for the past year or so and can't find any that will fit me. I'm 6'6" and they are all designed for little bitty people. Because of that I have been working on a design that fits me. Choppers are recumbent bikes right? Oh sorry AJ saying that probably completely blows the cool factor. Anyway after a bunch of revisions, I think this is close to my final version.

chopper10.JPG


I'm going to build it with 1.75x.049 chromoly tubing. I'm pretty sure I can make those bends with a harbor freight roll bender. I'm not sure if I will be using a Shumaker RC drive or my old trusty BMC hub motor, but there is space for 44v x 20ah of Lipo in the frame. More here

-Warren.
 
www.recumbents.com said:
Choppers are recumbent bikes right? Oh sorry AJ saying that probably completely blows the cool factor.
Click to expand...


No choppers are choppers :roll: ... nothing to do with recumbents, either way
doesn't concern me i dont have either i have two feet forward cruisers. That
drawing isn't of a chopper either choppers have raked out front ends, the
one you have drawn has a head angle less than a downhill MTB by the looks ...
Looks uncomfortable to me, seats too low and hands too high, be like riding
with those ridiculous 'Ape Hanger' handle bars, your hands are going to fall asleep LoL,

best of luck with the build though...

KiM
 
haha yeah all good mate ;) The lower bars sounds like the shot though
get them so your hands are about level with your naval when in riding position
i think it would be a lil more comfortable...

KiM
 
Agreed, in fact thats what mine is closer to also
its a bit of across between a cafe' racer and bobber
if i flipped the bars ... What time frame are you
hoping for to complete this build? slow and steady
or balls and all 3am finishes till its done ?

KiM

p.s if you added another 2 foot to the wheelbase you would have a Burrito bicycle frame ;)
 
Definitely not a recumbent, but a seat with a laid back backrest, and crazy long handlebars or linkage steering and it could become one. Much like crazybike was transformed into a recumbent of sorts. Even though not recumbent, it has to catch a lot less wind than my appoach, the comfort bike style with straight up seat position and tall bars. I couldn't get less aero, but It matters little at the speeds I tend to ride.
 
Dogman: It started with a seat with a back and remote steering and morphed into this, so I guess it morphed from a recumbent into a bobber. On the web page you can see all the iterations I went through to get to this point.

AJ: I really like your built, and it's one of the reasons I want to build a similar bike. I'm hoping to complete the frame this winter.

Here's what I would look like on a uschoppers.com frame. It would probably work for me, but the seat would be really high. I would have to cut and re-weld the headtube so it was not so slack.

us_choppers_frame_sized.jpg


Here's what I would look like on the bobber bike. Yes it's a big bike.

chopper10_sized.JPG


-Warren.
 
I finally broke down and bought a tubing roller from Harbor Freight tools. It seems relatively well made. I also bought the stand. It's a little wobbly, and yes it would work best if bolted to the floor, but I am going to bolt it to some 2x4s to spread out the load instead.
It has dies for 1/2", 1", 1.5" and 2". I am planning on building this bike using 1.5" tubing, so that works for me.

tube_roller.jpg


Here is a short section of 1.5" x .035" 4130 tubing that I rolled. 6" of tubing on each end will be lost. The section in the center is the minimum radius bend that I will need for this bike, so I guess this will work for me. It takes a lot of muscle power to roll the tube back and forth, but that's ok I need the exercise. The tube had a small groove in it at this large angle but otherwise the bend looks great.

rolled_sample.jpg


Next steps are to make a full sized drawing and order some tubing.

-Warren.
 
Gotta love Harbor Freight! LOL

I will be watching this build.
 
Did you look into the Schwinn Spoiler, or the OCC XL? Both are rare, but the XL is nearly impossible to find. There was three Spoilers on Ebay two days ago, and two of them had reasonable prices on them. Personally I would stick with steel myself, but ya et what ya get, when ya buy what ya buy. Good luck, your design looks interesting.
Brian L.
 
I did try to find a frame that would work for me. My problem is that I'm 6' 6" tall and all the pre-manufactured chopper frames are too small for me. Plus I needed an excuse to buy the tubing bender. I have built many bikes with boring straight tubes, now it's time for some sexy curved ones.

BTW, 4130 = chrome-moly steel.

-Warren.
 
Your design reminds me very much of the Dyno Roadster (gone but not forgotten) and its many clones.

Dyno%20Roadster.JPG


Seems to me that you could use a frame like that, if you made a subframe to carry the seat a little farther back. (Same idea as a banana seat with sissy bar, but smaller and stronger.) I don't think you'd have to place your seat any more rearward than a traditional pillion position.

Building your own from scratch has its own virtues, and I have built many a bike frame and component myself-- but I hesitate to make anything from raw materials if I can buy something else cheaply and adapt it to do what I want. Seems like the going rate online for a Dyno Roadster clone frame is $180, or about $300 for a basic complete bike. That's cheap.

For many years, I rode a chopper based on a shorter Dyno Glide Deluxe frame like this one,
2703177952_6a7aabb20e_o.jpg

retrofitted with a 25" long fork, 18" ape hangers, and 20" wheels. I'm 6'8" tall and 350 pounds with a relatively long-legged build, and the only parts I had to make were a very long, strong seatpost from 8ga chromoly tubing, and a special steer tube to convert the triple-tree style fork to a stacked crown conventional fork.

I recently converted that frame back over to 26" wheels and a normal length fork to make a power-assist bike for my wife, but I can still ride it with no fit problems. I used a BMX handlebar to allow a spacious cockpit that works adequately for both my 5'8" wife and myself (though the bars must be tilted differently for best fit).

Chalo
 
I finished the full sized drawing and started rolling tubing. The drawing isn't high enough contrast on the brown paper to show up on the camera, so you can't see that the final drawing is just a bit different than the last drawing above.

Img_0458.jpg


The tubes have turned out perfect so far, except for the bottom tube with the compound curve does have a couple artifacts where the bend transitions. It only takes about 20 minutes to bend each tube.

-Warren.
 
Great stuff Warren... any chance of a link to the bender you bought?
i have been trying to get a roller bender cheap for 3 years anything in Australia
is 800 dollars plus too much for the amount i will use it...

Best of luck with the fab mate, will be a goer when shes done!!

KiM
 
Looking good Warren!

AJ, do you have harbor freight in ozz?
http://www.harborfreight.com/tubing-roller-99736.html
china specials that will get you going......now that i think about it, you have a friend doing some lost foam castings....whip up some bending dies in the correct radius for the tubes & your hydrolic tube krinkler (pipe bender) may suprize you. Just give em to danny & he can cast em next time he has the furnace fired up.(i have one myself i been going to make some proper dies for)

looking foward to seeing FULL AERO (clear of course so we can see your handi work :wink:) on that uh...bobber W. :mrgreen:
 
Thud said:
Looking good Warren!

AJ, do you have harbor freight in ozz?
http://www.harborfreight.com/tubing-roller-99736.html
china specials that will get you going......now that i think about it, you have a friend doing some lost foam castings....whip up some bending dies in the correct radius for the tubes & your hydrolic tube krinkler (pipe bender) may suprize you. Just give em to danny & he can cast em next time he has the furnace fired up.(i have one myself i been going to make some proper dies for)

looking foward to seeing FULL AERO (clear of course so we can see your handi work :wink:) on that uh...bobber W. :mrgreen:
Click to expand...


Nagh i wish ThuD, any machinery here cost shitload more than you get it in USA..The pipe bender is useless but all i
could get in my budget...I think its easier to just buy one Thud, than wasting hours making dies
if i could get that HF bender landed for ~300 bucks i would be happy as pig in shit! I wont be
making anymore frames with bends in them until i get another bender anyways, the thin
wall tubing just doesn't bend without crinkling int he pipe bender, i have the correct shape
dies for the tubing i been bending, they just ain't made for this kind of work i'm afraid... :-(

Thanks for the link anyhoot Todd appreciated... When i have spme spare $$$ i'll see if they delivery to OZ
and see what the cost is, i dont need the stand just the top unit, maybe that will reduce the price?

KiM

EDiT:- doesn't look like they ship out of USA Thud...when the time comes any chance i could throw money at you to send me one?
 
Finished bending tubes. Now comes the hard part, putting it together. Here are the tubes all mocked up. That shiny thing below the frame is a 36" steel ruler. Yes, there are parts that need to be cut off...

Img_0460.jpg


Thinking about some rear suspension. I like this design, very compact.

suspension1_sm.gif


Next step is to obtain the head tube and bottom bracket, and to gather the frame fixtures.

-Warren.
 
Here is is with the tube ends 'shopped out.

Img_04602.jpg


These are big tubes, but very thin. Nonetheless as Brian notes, the bike will not be a lightweight.

With big monster Fat Frank tires, will it be worthwhile to add the rear suspension? I don't think this will ever see more then "cruiser" duty.

-Warren.
 
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