Cycle Truck Finished
I did some finish work on the Cycle Truck and sent it off to be powder coated a couple of weeks ago. It was coated by Seattle Powder Coat in Ballard. They did a nice job at a reasonable price and with a very quick turnaround. The paint is red to pay homage to the donor frame and fork that were used to build the new one (both were also red). The rack is a silver/grey. I modifed this pizza delivery bag (thanks to James Black for telling me where to get one cheaply) to fit onto the rack. The bag is 20×20x12 inches and fits perfectly.
In this photo I’m carrying a roughly 50lb load of bird seed, cat food, and random bits from the hardware store. I think this bike works well for bulky loads (better than a porteur) and okay for heavy loads (the closer they are place to the headtube the better). I don’t think it does great for loads which are both large and heavy. It isn’t good if there is a lot of weight too far forward of the front wheel. If I build another one of these I may put the front wheel about a foot forward. It would complicate the frame and it would no longer fit on standard car/bus racks, but it wouldn’t increase the bike’s overall length and I think it would improve the handling with some loads.
Finishing Details
The rack support rails have been closed off and snaps were added for holding the pizza bag:
The a downtube shift boss was added which connects to the original U-brake. That makes a very nice parking brake. V-brakes mounted on the seatstays provide the main rear braking.
The back of the cargo tube was sealed with a little bit of steel plate. This area ended up being fairly complex. Next time I might try ovalizing the cargo tube where it joins the seattube to avoid this extra work.
Here are a couple of other shots of the final bike:
Fork Fixture V-block
This weekend I also did my first major project with the new milling machine. I made a V-block for clamping a fork steerer tube. This will be the basis of my fork building jig and my fork alignment system. If you are interested in how I made it then click on the picture to see a gallery with more info. The new mill is working out very nicely.
Hi Alex,
Congrats on finalizing the cycle truck! It looks GREAT! I know how long this idea has existed for you, and even as a bystander it’’s exciting to see it realized — so I can only imagine the huge sense of satisfaction you must be feeling! To say I”m envious is probably too obvious.
Cheers!
-Jim G
Very nice. I love all of the design details you put into this.
She’’s a beauty Alex, there’’s few things better than a useful bicycle. Parking brake on a bike – Brilliant!
Hi Alex
Could you comment on how you extended the length of the steer tube, on what I assume is the existing fork. I could not help but notice the long head tube and threadless stem.
I have been thinking of extending the length of some steer tubes on some old forks to make them threadless and raise the hight of my handel bars.
Did you take out the old steer tube and braze in a new one or did you extend the old tube with a interior or exterior coupling?
Tom Perkins
Madison Wisconsin
Tom — I extended the existing steerer tube instead of replacing it. There isn”t really a good way to replace a steerer on a unicrown fork, since the blades are brazed or welded directly to the steerer.
I cut the original steerer off just below the threads and faced it on the lathe to get a very straight edge. I brass brazed in an insert of 1″ x 0.058″ tubing and then placed a 1 1/8″ x 0.058″ extension over that and brazed it in place.
This joint is the one that I”m the most nervous about in the whole frame. I”m pretty confident in my brazing skills, but it is a joint which I can”t easily examine. It is also hard to visually see how well the brass wicked up through the joint. I did a bunch of practice ones first so that I could cut them apart and examine them.
I may build another fork for this bike now that I”m getting my fork jig together.
If you just want to raise your handlebars on an existing bike I”d suggest using a stem with positive rise (Origin8 makes nice ones that are inexpensive) or using a steerer extender such as the Zoom Headsup.
alex
Very nice!
Looks great! I like the parking brake detail. are you considering putting a kickstand on?
Rory — I”d like to put a kickstand on. A rear one probably isn”t that functional. A front one would be nice (like the old Schwinn Cycle Trucks), but isn”t really necessary with the parking brake. The bike doesn”t move with the brake engaged and leaning up against something.
I think this one is pretty much done. After I”ve built a couple of normal bikes I”d like to revisit this design but move the front wheel forward 20-30cm.
Very nice work Alex. It’’s really inspiring to see someone getting into framebuilding be able to pull off a design like this with such class. As I”m sure you know, just following what passes for the beaten path is hard enough.
How well does that front drum brake work with heavy loads, and which hub is it?
Thanks Nate.
The front hub is a Sachs 5000VX (or something like that…I think all Sachs hubs use the same drum mechanism). It works well if you operate it with a cantilever brake lever. I”ve seen a lot of people set them up with V-brake levers, and then they don”t work so well.
alex
Thanks Nate.
The front hub is a Sachs 5000VX (or something like that…I think all Sachs hubs use the same drum mechanism). It works well if you operate it with a cantilever brake lever. I”ve seen a lot of people set them up with V-brake levers, and then they don”t work so well.
alex
Alex, I”ve been waiting to see this bike finished for some time now. That’’s some excellent work you”ve done. I hope to have one finished next year at some point.
MS — When you finish one please send me an email with a link. There aren”t many modern interpretations of these on the internet.
Hi, just found your site and it is great. The bike looks beautiful. Just a comment on parking brakes, my tandem has a thumb shifter to the drum brake and on the touring bike I have a wedge that holds the rear lever open to lock the brake. Both really help.
Will do. Right now I”m financing the club fee to join our local TechShop. This is considered phase 1 of the project. Then I have to consider whether I want to incorporate an Xtracycle into it all.
How about just drilling a 28.6 mm diagonal hole through the red horizontal “truck-bar” next time, and silver-soldering it to the seat tube, with the seat-tube passing through the truck-bar? You can still close the backside of the truck-bar with a flat plate, it might be simpler.
The next project might be a hinged 3-part rack so when its in use it looks like this : ___ and when its not being used it can look like this |_| for city traffic!
I understand now it was a donor frame, you probably just replaced the downtube and steerer. Still, I think you could silver-solder the truck-bar to the seat tube, with a U-shaped miter, and do something nice and clean-looking on the backside of the truck-bar (the rear-wheel side). – Don
Congrats on finishing the bike. Thanks for posting about the process.
Don — piercing the cargo tube with the seat tube wouldn”t work with this build. I didn”t build the frame from scratch and used a donor mountain bike frame instead. The rear triangle was not modified or removed. If I build the next one from scratch then I probably will double pierce the cargo tube, once for the seat tube and once for the head tube.
There really isn”t any reason to narrow up the rack for riding in traffic. It is only 18″ wide and narrower than the handlebars. It even fits on a bus rack without taking up two slots.
Really nice job on this! If I had more upper body strength I”d go front-loader instead of rear-loader, but beautifully done all the same. And I LOVE that you kept the rear U-Brake! Happy riding –BH
with this bike there’’s no excuse not to bike even with load of cargo. beautifully done.
It’’s not a truck it’’s a freighter.
I”m glad the CT got posted on Bike Commuters (http://www.bikecommuters.com/2008/12/01/another-cool-front-loader/) because (1) it showed the bike I saw fleetingly as I was out biking a couple weeks back and (2) introduced me to this blog. Am now a subscriber via RSS.
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Alex — do you know the RAL code for the red color? I”m getting a frame powdered this winter and am looking for a good red. thanks, Dan
Sorry, Dan, I don”t know the color. If you go to Seattle Powder Coat (and happen to be in Seattle) it is the red in the upper left of their chart.
Can I have you make one for me?
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hi alex,
thank you for the work.
can you tell me what HTA, fork A-C, and fork rake worked the best with this bike? how far does the support bar lead out in front of the bike? is the support bar a standard 35mm tube?
thanks,
mpp
On the first one I used 73.5 degree HTA and enough rake to get 40mm of trail. That one handles well, but the wheel isn”t far enough under the load.
On the second one I used 72 degree HTA and enough rake to get 30mm of trail. I prefer the 40mm of trail, the 30mm of trail is a little fast.
I helped Soma with the front end geometry for the Tradesman and think they ended up going with 72 degree HTA, 40mm of trail. That is an easy bike to get a test ride on.
Use the correct A-C to get clear your desired tire.
The cargo tube is 1.75″ and 0.058″ wall thickness. A rack that is about 20″ wide and 16″ deep seems to work quite well. The original rack that I made was 20″ deep and that allows the weight to get too far ahead of the front wheel.
Sorry about the late reply, I was on vacation and missed your comment.
Hi Alex,
Love the Cycle Truck.
I have an idea for something similar but I have no experience so I intend to start out the same way as you have, find an old steel Mt bike, cut the HT/DT off and go from there. When you cut the HT off, did you just use a hacksaw or grinder and go straight thru (vertical) or did you give a curve to it? I”m afraid of making the TT too short, but I may just be over thinking things.
Anyway thanks for the inspiration.
Jeff
I mitered the top tube to fit the head tube nicely, that is necessary to get a good and safe joint. It is a lot easier to do this with a milling machine, but I did this cycle truck before owning a milling machine. I””m sure that I did the miters by hand using files. I probably lost about 1cm of top tube length.
You can see the mitered top tube here:
http://alexandchristine.smugmug.com/Bicycles/Framebuilding/Cycle-Truck/i-KJffsKQ/A
Rory’’s donor bike had a lug, so that makes it easy to see how little top tube was lost:
http://alexandchristine.smugmug.com/Bicycles/Framebuilding/Rorys-Fuji-Turdhauler-SL/i-8XmWDNP/A