ricardo kuhn

I work in the Motorcycle aftermarket and everyday I see this typical comments "I'm building a new Bike" or "I'm Making a race bike from the ground up" anyway sadlly most of this frases refer to the guy seating at his Computer ordering parts on line, maybe the max efford is to refilling the credit card account, and then letting the shop do all the work..

so my question is....anybody here actually gets Dirt , greasy and Bloody and comes with improvements or inovations of his own....??
hell from what I see even building your Own wheels will do..

if the answer is YES... Please show us or at least tell us how you came to that point..

the way i see it if you keep waiting for somebody else to make your dreams come true, you are going to be waiting for a lOnG loNg time..

please bring your funky and pennytech ideas into the forum for others to get Inspire and learn a few things along the way

Ricardo

mandovoodoo

I built my first tandem frame from aircraft tubing & misc seat & fork tubing. I'm sure it is still out there somewhere! I modified the then available derailleurs for wider range. I built a bunch more tandems, but never for myself. I've got a Fisher mountain tandem and a Santana at the moment. Nice bikes.

Fortunately there's so much stuff on the market that I don't feel any need to make parts.

TandemGeek

Yes, I build my own wheels and have done so for about 22 years, but just about anything else I need is available... notwithstanding a few little odds and ends to "tweak" some of the aftermarket and speciality parts that we use.

ricardo kuhn

so is safe to assume the santana was better than your bike...???

sorry for the bad joke.
the few frames I made over the years, I rode and i rode until they feel apart, Is just something really special about riding something that you made your self, even is if not so great..

personally i'm designing a Full suspension tandem at the moment and hopefully i will start to make it soon, i'm going to try to implement a few things on it,,(kind of crazy) a similar tranny to the davinciwith a petespeed internal tranny plus full range of gears , a DW link rear suspension and provably a Leading link fork similar to a early mert lawill fork.

will see I will keep you Gals and guys updated for sure.

ricardo kuhn

Oh yeah making wheels is one of my favorite passtimes, is just so peaceful is almost letargic..

good for you mister tandemgeek, I'm sure you make some awesome wheels.

mandovoodoo

Certainly it is much more modern! Mine was 650B wheels, stiff but relatively heavy. Every tandem I made after than seemed better. Mine had TA cranks (all I could get). Triple x 5. A bit clunky. Rode well for thousands of miles. I ran into a different tandem, a Fisher mountain one (Gemini) that was certainly stiffer and tougher with better everything, so I got it and sold the other. The Santana is new to me, a 1991, works well. Doesn't seem all that stiff, but it is very comfortable. It is for the girls, anyway, I'll have my son on the Gemini still. He's 6. We'll be slow, but we'll get there.

stapfam

Many moons ago I was in Karting, and had my own business as a mechanic. This is one of the sport where personal engineering skills come into the final product. I used to design all my parts for my use and then have them Manufactured by people that I could trust to make them properly to my specs and design. I could bend the frame tubes and tack them but I used a top quality welder with better skills than me to do the job properly. Similarly on the components. I could design all the parts but did not have a $100,000 lathe at the back of the workshop. No!! I found it better and safer to have other people with better skills to manufacture my parts. However- I would not let any one else rebuild engines, and my customers knew this and my reputaion was that My engines were Fast and never failed. Along with the Karts themselves that were built properly in the first place.

When it comes to Tandems, or bikes in general, I find that it is difficult to find a part that is not adequate that is not on the market already. Even when it comes to wheel building- I cannot build a wheel as good as my wheelbuilder. I build a wheel that to me is perfect- as good as I can get it, then pass it over to him to check and true, and once he has finished with it, it IS truer, it does ride better, and as he keeps on telling me- he could have built the hub onto a rim for less than I paid, and he would have used a better quality spoke than I used. Why bother?

What it comes down to is that Bike components are good, within reason according to price. What is not good though is the way bikes are put together. My mechanicing skills still come into the final product. That coupled with my experience choosing the parts in the first place, means that I have a Bikes(S) that are always in top condition, always ready for a ride, and NEVER let me down.