Why wear out your good bike on the trainer (if you use one)?
In progress:
“Finished”???
Not really finished but I have 379 miles on it so far. The goal was something a little more like a piece of furniture than a trainer.
Anybody else done something similar?
That’s a great idea! I think making it from steel is questionable (having seen too many rusted out steel trainer bikes!) but, we do what we do, right! If I could weld aluminum or Ti, that would be a better material choice. I can imagine really going wild with the furniture aesthetic and making swoopy tubes and that sort of thing. Clever!
Duane, I’ve made sure not to paint it, for maximum rust accumulating.
In all seriousness though, it will get some paint. This is just the “parts bin” initial build that I inevitably end up riding for a year or so. Also, since weight wasn’t a factor these are all straight gauge .049 or .058 tubes. It will take a while to eat away those.
Oh yeah, I just have thing for (against?) grungy bikes that have lived on trainers! HA
I made something similar. I bought a cheap bike for £10, to get all the parts like a BB shell etc., and was going to cut it up and make it into something like you have. But the bike I got was kind of a nice vintage Peug (a “Mixte” one from the 80s with “HLE” tubing or something), which I felt like it would be a shame to damage, so I just made a kind of frame that the back wheel dropouts went into and which completely replaced the fork, with a 1 1/8” tube that went straight up through the steerer into a kind of custom handlebar (the person it was for wanted a high stack and a flat bar anyway).
That’s a nice bike. I always wanted to make a trainer bike, but I got my current one for free. And it’s aluminum so I don’t mind sweating on it.
I feel like it needs two front legs for stability. But then again I’m always worried about trainers falling over and they almost never do!
Well, if it were just a regular bike on there it would also be balanced on just one point, right? I’ll grant you this: it does have a lot of flex for a frame made of such stout tubing. I like the flex, personally. A more high-wattage rider might not be so into it.
