Sunday 26 February 2012

My Inspirations...


Building a bike is no easy challenge; each step taken to build the bike is more time consuming than the next.

The first step is to find a design of a bike that you want to “mimic.”

I immediately turned to my favorite bike brands to find some pictures and some geometry charts. 

There were three models of bikes that grabbed my attention;

The Parlee



The Moots


The Baum






It will take a few hours to create some samples of geometry for the bike, which are made with a special program called bikecad.ca/ the bike will be designed using this program, then the blueprint will be printed off and handed to my Boss/Frame-builder to discuss and to start building the bike.

First Post..


Hello,

and welcome to my blog for my personal project!

At the beginning of the year, I faced the tough challenge of starting a completely different lifestyle, the tough leap of moving schools to the Mount Scopus Memorial College. When I started my first day, I was confronted by my Homeroom teacher (mech) about starting my personal project and if there was anything specific that I would like to do before the two term deadline.

Knowing what my friends were trying to do for their projects; writing cookbooks, making daily planners, online fantasy football teams, I wanted to give myself a ‘proper challenge’ which will keep me enthused for the whole two terms. Thinking deeply for about two whole days, I came to the conclusion that I would want to build my own custom racing bike frame, a frame that I could actually use to ride on, not just hang up upon the wall for decooration.

Ever since I’ve started riding, I’ve always wanted to manufacture and build my own personal bike, just for me; something that I can ride and just enjoy. The idea of building a bike was inspired by many custom bike brands such as, Baum, Parlee, Moots and most of all, my lovely boss, Vince.

When thinking about what type of bike to build, I thought to myself, what could I build? Inspired by one of my co-workers and ex coach, I decided that I would want to build a cyclocross racer.

Cyclocross is a type of cycling that is very popular in Europe and in the United States. Although cyclocross is very uncommon in Australia, it is slowly growing with the immergence of small races all around the nation.

The differences between a road bike and a cyclocross bike confuse many people. The main differences between the two is that a cyclocross bike is a bike that can be ridden on the road, as well as riding on dirt tracks due to the large clearances and thicker, knobbier tires.

 Completing this humongous feat will not only be extremely difficult, but it will also require a whole lot of concentration and hours to complete.

my aims for the bike and the project are:
frame under 1900g.
bike under 10kilograms.
finish by due date.
race on it in a competitive event.

Hopefully, with the help of my Boss, it wont be ‘too’ challenging.


Stay tuned for more posts!