My life is a side project. I bounce around from one activity to another in an ADD kid sort of way. That's OK I dig it that way. I've been working on some projects that I've been wanting to do for a while now...handlebars and stems and eventually racks. I got some sweet new stem steerer clamps from PMW and have been super excited to turn them into something. First up is a pair of Bull Moose bars for Scott the Hobot. I figured this would be pretty quick...man was I wrong. I think all told it took three days....maybe more. The coolest part about all this though was the brain puzzle. It involved breaking down the elements of steering geometry into its axes to change very minor design elements of a handlebar (width, rise, and particularly sweep) while keeping the hand position of the rider essentially the same. Bending the bar alone took the better part of a day. I bought a mechanical bender for 7/8" pipe off of ebay for $100 a year ago and have yet to really use it. After a little modification to the holding mechanism, it works pretty well. It bends accurately and consistently and the bends are pretty smooth at that. I wanted to keep the moose bar consistent with the look of Hobot's bike so I sleeved the stem interface and bulged them out with fillets on either side. The pictures will probably explain the rest but not one bit of this project was easy. Hopefully the next set will only take a day or so.
Elder Heinchez' bike got colored in real nice with sky blue and a shiny clear coat. I left the moustache rather scruffy to offset the sheen. Check it out.
More soon now.
Yo....awesome bars....well the bike is awesome as well. I'm going on a hunt for different size belt pulleys that I can turn into benders....like the looks of yours. Dig the stem clamp. hope all is well....your stuff is beautiful, as usual.
ReplyDeletebelt pulleys sounds like a good idea. I've given your bat wing bars the full test on the voodoo this winter...from winter commuting to Tucson shredding. They're holding up so far. When am I going to see some more pictures of Scarry?
ReplyDeleteHoping to finish the seat stays up in the next few mornings. If all goes well I'll get some pics up soon. Im happy to hear the Bat bars are holding up. Again...the blue bike is the jam..nice job, very nice.
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