More Projects...

Summer is progressing and Im still doing lots of projecting :)
First up I built some retro-style lamps from lots of cast iron pipe fittings I got from the hardware store... The bulbs are old-fashioned "Edison" style with long thin filaments that are wound in interesting shapes.  I like the result of the lamp stand best :)

 

 

Then I set about building the rest of the night-stand that goes with that Maple-burl table-top that I built earlier. I chose to build it with contrasting woods... The frame and legs are made from Jatoba ( A fairly common South American hardwood with a rich red color) and a pale "tiger-stripe" maple veneer on plywood panels. I joined all the pieces together using pocket hole screws with turned out to be a good system... All the parts are simply cut to size and but-jointed together with screws that are driven at steep angles into the wood (uses a jig mechanism to drill the "pocket-holes" at the very steep angles... Anyway, its very effective and very quick to do with no complicated joinery cuts and no gluing time needed.

I like the result though it looks a little bland at this stage because the wood is new and has not yet developed the warmer colours from exposure to warmth and UV light ( give it a year or so :))

 

 

 

 



And I built another vegie box for potatoes... I used concrete paving slabs stood on their edges for the box walls and I held them in place with some steel straps and masonry screws... worked very well and if I were to build more then Id use the same technique again...

 



The new potato box

The original veggie box is a bit overwhelmed by the yellow zucchini plant at the moment :)

 

 

And since the night stand worked out so well, I decided to build a Hall-stand too. It will be mostly used to put motorcycle helmets in rather than having them cluttering up the kitchen counters all the time ...

And then I built a couple of gifts for a friend... A Jewellery box and a jewellery tree (to hang necklaces on).

 

 And now Im all out of time for domestic projects because another work contract has started.  I think its been quite a creative and productive summer at home this year... But this will only be a short one and I don't know if there will be more to come, so Im thinking I will engage in a bit of a job search... That should be interesting :)

 

Summer Projects

 

... And a couple more months pass...
And Ive finished my work contract so it seems that Im free now for a couple of months over the summer... I know that sounds great to everyone but it also means that ill have no income and lots of spare time... And that spells financial trouble for me since it seems that the only way I know how to fill spare time is with projects!, and all my projects always cost lots of money :)
Oh well, as I said, I dont expect to get any sympathy at all from anyone, and its only a couple of months.
Besides, there are plenty of projects to do at home since the house has been rather neglected for a couple of years while I was traveling in the summer and well, its pretty hard to do anything outside in the winter here with all the rain.

So, the first and largest project was to rebuild the stairs along one side of the house... They were just a jumbled pile of bricks and concrete paving slabs when I originally bought the house, so about a year after that I rebuilt them in the form of a more organised and neatly stacked pile of bricks and slabs... But they moved around and settled and needed constant nudging back into line. So after a decade or so I'd had enough and now Ive done a more solid job of rebuilding... They are still made of bricks and slabs but they are now 90cm wide instead of 60cm and they are now built on a concrete substrate... I hand mixed about 30 bags of concrete mix and rebuilt them one step at a time over about two weeks... Its not perfect but the stairs are now wide and solid and should last for at least a couple of decades :)

 

 

Next project was to build a trellis for a grape-vine that I planted in the front yard a couple of years ago. Its kind of a dividing fence between mine and the neighbours property (should let the low angle sunlight through to the front yard in the winter though when the vine has no leaves).... More hand concrete mixing for the post footings and then just some 6mm galvanized cable for the vine to hang its-self over.

 

 

And now Im working away on another wood work project. This time its a night-stand for the bedroom. I saw a slab of maple burl at a wood shop a few months ago and decided to use it as a small table top. But the burl had several big voids in it that I wasn't sure how Id fill. So I bought the lump of wood and have been thinking about how to work with it over the last few months... And Ive decided what Im doing and have got to work on it... I decided to fill the voids with clear epoxy and an aggregate of yellow/brown chunks of crushed glass.  Its taken a couple of weeks of steady little epoxy sessions to get it done but the table-top is now basically complete and looks like this...

 

 

Now I just need to build the rest of the night-stand to go with it :)

 

And I also finally got around to replacing the ugly old metal floor vents in the house with some flush fitting ones that I made myself from spare sections of floor boards that were left over from when I installed the hardwood floors a few years ago... It was lots of effort to drill all the holes but I quite like the end result :)

The new flush wooden vent and the old metal vent.

 

 

And another "finally" project is that I got a decent vice for my garage projects, but there isn't really space for a suitable work-bench, so I built a concrete pedestal for it that should work pretty well.



 

And that about wraps up my projects so far... On with the summer break :)

What have I been up to lately?

Its been several months since I last posted on my blog… That’s how it is when Im living a mundane life while not off on some international moto-adventure J

Anyway, at last report I had got back into skeletoning and had just “made it” to the top of the Whistler sliding track. So, to report on the rest of the sliding season, Id have to say things went pretty well, and at the very least, the regular sliding each week kept me pretty busy…

Ive now put in probably about 70 runs from the top or so, Ive gone out to the Calgary track and spent a week training and sliding there (a very different track to Whistler) and there have been two or three competitions to slide in as well. Along the way Ive managed to crack my ribs, split the skin on my jaw and bruise the hell out of my elbows (bad form!) and shoulders/arms a few time… all part of the learning process in this sport.

Its a bit hard to see whats going on, but the whole lower half of my upper arm is bruised a very dark purple!

 

The sliding season has now finished and Im certainly still enjoying it enough to really want to do it again next year but I was a bit disappointed over-all with my own progress… I seem to perform particularly badly on race days too! Anyway, My best stats for this season are probably something like this: Top speed about 131Kmh, best down time about 58.75seconds, and best start time about 5.5 seconds. And to compare that to other athletes in the “local” North America Cup circuit, they would have speeds of about 135Kmh, down times of about 56seconds and start times of about 4.9 seconds.   It might seem like Im not that far off the pace there but believe me there is a very large difference between them and me… Oh well, plenty of room for improvement next season J

But its now getting into the summer season here and the track at Whistler is shut down and so if I want to practice at all then it needs to be on dry land rather than ice…

To that end Ive built a practice sled so I can work on my push start which is an area I can definitely improve at… every 1/10^th of a second faster in the start time translates to 2/10 or 3/10 at the finish time, and Im very slow at the start.  So I need to practice running in that awkward bent over push position. And so I bought a pair of old roller blades, a 2’x4’x3/4” sheet of ply wood and a couple of pieces of aluminium channel…and given a couple of evenings of tinkering etc I now have a push sled that I can practice with on any flat bit of pavement… though not a downhill section cos the sled has no steering mechanism and it builds up speed pretty quickly J

The practice sled. 

And on other fronts, Ive been working on my motorbikes of course… Ive decided to ride the little yellow one this summer so it and the dirt bike are currently registered.

But since I accumulated so much debt last summer with my not working, traveling, paying the mortgage, and giving away the motorbike, I simply cant afford to get the 20’ container I was planning to set up as a workshop this year. So instead I spent a few days over Easter extending the roof on the car-port I built a couple of years ago… and so now I have a sheltered place that I can both park and work on motorbikes in.

Work wise, Ive been doing a six month contract with my usual employer and its been going fine... Its easy to fit back into the systems and tasks that Im used to. But Im getting to the end of that contract now and Im not sure if there will be another contract immediately or not... Personally Im hoping there will be because I need to do some more debt paying for a while yet, but if not then I guess Ill try to think of something cheap to do for a month or three in the summer here - at least the weather here will be nice :)

The extended, postless, self-supporting car-port extension... The car is not mine, it belongs to the guy down-stairs.

 



From the Top

I have finally made it to the top of the Whistler sliding track!
Its taken about a full year of regular practice to get good enough to move up to the top and before Christmas I moved the last step up from corner 3 to the top. Ive since done about 10 runs from the top (before the track shut down for the Christmas break) and have even competed in the local BC Cup race and came in third... Well that's 3rd out of three contestants :)) so maybe not that impressive...

 

And in fact there were two separate races and in the other race I came in fifth out of six contestants ... but the sixth guy crashed badly, separated his collar bone and did not complete the race!
And on that note, it was in fact a pretty rough week at the track with another guy crashing hard at the same spot on the track (exiting corner 6 is where many of the crashes happen) and he broke his collar bone... Its a mean track when you slide from the top... You have to drive every corner, and if you get it wrong, you can get thrown about 3m in the air and come down onto rock hard ice at a speed of 80-100Kmh... Itll mess you up!
I don't think you could get thrown out of the track and you cant hit any obstacles head on, but dropping 3m onto ice from the prone position can and does do serious damage to the human body.

For myself though, Ive learned to respect the track and Ive been progressing slowly and carefully... But that style does not seem to be very prevalent in other sliders (like those to injuries I mentioned). It seems pretty obvious to me but when you have a rough run and your not sure exactly why then its probably best to take the next run a bit slower. Now its not like you have any brakes on the sled and in fact trying to slow down by dragging feet actually makes your sled very unbalanced and more dangerous (so mostly you should just let the sled run and keep driving it) but its the easiest thing in the world to not run as hard at the start and so have a slower run over-all... But no one seems to do that but me... Those two guys that got hurt... They had both had a series of five or six or more quite rough runs immediately before their crashes... all the warnings were there! But at the start of each run they were still sprinting flat out and trying to launch as fast as possible.... It makes no sense?
There seems to be a huge amount of testosterone in the sport... They seem to think that the most important thing is speed regardless of being out of control?... I think its because you can get away with it on most other sliding tracks where the speeds are lower by 15-25Kmh and your body can survive the hard bumps... but not at Whistler!... But still, if that's their attitude then I guess they got their just deserts!... one is now out for the season and the other for several weeks.

But like I said, I try to take a different approach... slow and careful. When I started from the top I chose a time when the weather was warm which made the ice soft and slow. And for my first few runs I started with zero speed and dragged my feet as much as I dared to keep the speed as low as possible (which as I mentioned can actually make things significantly more difficult it turns out). And Ive only just started to do a few jogging steps now before I lay down onto the sled, and it will still be another 10 runs or so before Im confident enough to realy start to go for faster starts.
My "zero speed and dragging feet" starts gave me a disadvantage of about 10-11 seconds from my friend Matt who has been sliding from the top for a few weeks longer than I have (and hes doing full sprint starts now). And then once I stopped dragging feet but still had a walking speed start it was down to about 5-6 seconds disadvantage. And now with a few jogging steps, my times are only about 1 second slower than his.

Matt loading onto his sled after a sprint start at the top of the track (picture credit Dave Eastwood)

But now we have had a couple of weeks off... It will be very interesting to see how I feel from the top when we get some really cold weather and the track gets fast... scary fast!... Im sure it will scare me then, and Im sure sooner or later Im gonna have a really rough run and probably come off the sled at some point. But when I do, Im not too proud to slow things down again and go back to a walking start. :)

A Cautionary Tale

It seems that my motorbike importation odyssey is finally over... and its a complete failure!

At the conclusion of my ride through Africa I had to export the motorbike from Israel... I could not sell it there and I could also not just leave it or "lose" it there (Israel often detains people with customs/immigration irregularities in their paperwork on exit as well as entry to the country)... So I had to export it and so I shipped it to Canada.
On arriving back home in Canada I set about figuring out what I needed to do to import it here... And that turned out to be an extremely difficult task... Its easy enough if the vehicle was originally made in North America or for the North American market (but the XRV750 was never sold here) and its easy enough if the vehicle is 15 years old or more (but the bike is only 14 years old), and its easy enough if you are a foreigner and only want to import your vehicle temporarily (on a tourist or working visa etc)... But my situation did not qualify under any of these options and so the "door" was firmly "closed" to me bringing the bike in.  And so I tried to find ways around the problems and time and again I thought I had it worked out but every time there would be a catch... I must have had at least a half dozen highs and following lows as I attempted to make things work, and frankly I had become quite tired of the struggle by the time the bike finally arrived here in Vancouver on about Dec21st (Nice Christmas timing to try to get anything through customs and government too!)
And so when I finally went down to the customs office to try one last time, I was not overly surprised nor actually overly disappointed when they said "NO"... You now must either export the bike immediately to somewhere out of Canada or have it destroyed here at your expense...And Id already looked into trying to send it back to South Africa or to find someone in Britain who wanted it... Id have given the bike away for free if they would pay for shipping... But alas, No takers were found.

And so just to rub salt into the wound I was left trying to find a local wrecking place that was licensed to destroy the bike at my expense (to try to minimize the cost of the procedure!), but it was looking like it was going to cost me another $1000 to destroy a perfectly good motorbike!

But during my phoning around I found a place that exports bikes from Canada to Europe for sale there cheaply... And the guy was willing to take the bike off my hands for free... So he will get to sell the bike for whatever he can get (probably at least a couple of thousand dollars I expect) and he will only have to pay shipping costs (he ships used bikes in bulk in containers so the shipping cost is likely only about $300-$500) and import costs at the other end (which I think are of the same order).
... So I think hes getting a pretty damn good deal there. But Im not going to feel bad about it at my end cos it saved me another $1000, and the bike does not get destroyed... It goes on to be enjoyed by someone else.
And so its done... The bike is gone and all up including shipping and Carne (all lost money), the whole Africa motorbike thing cost me about $10,000.

Story closed.... but let it be a warning to anyone else.... Look very carefully into import details BEFORE you ship something back to your home country... or be prepared to lose it outright :)

A Good Run (on the Ice)

Ive been "skeletoning" several times since I got back from my travels... The winter is here and as of November 10th the Skeleton/Bobsled/Luge track at Whistler has been open. Im taking it more seriously this season and am intending to slide at least twice a week throughout the season. Its a lot of driving to and from Whistler but there are a couple of others who I ride share with and Im definitely enjoying it.

Me coming up the finishing ramp

Me in the bottom corner  (#16) at about 125Kmh

 

We have a new coach this year and one of the "tasks" he gave us was to write a detailed account of what a run feels like to us so that he can assess what our current skills are and where we have difficulty/what we are working on... Its really hard for coaches since they can only ever see one corner of the track at a time and we blast through in a second or two (at 120Kmh or so)... Not a lot of time to see whats happening!

Anyway, I thought Id share with you my description of "a Good run"

...

Im in the athlete’s waiting room at the mens luge start. Its between turns 2 and 3 of the 16 turn track…not quite the top of the track but Im sure Ill get there soon enough. Im fully dressed in my sliding gear with my track spikes on, a lycra speed suit, gloves, and my streamlined helmet hanging on the wall… waiting… It’s a few minutes before its my turn on the ice. There are a couple of other athletes in the room but I don’t really have anything to say to them and for the most part I just want to be in my own space… Lots of athletes use this time to “visualize” their coming run, but I don’t really go in for that much and I prefer to just walk quietly around the room. I do try to think through what Im going to do on this run with specifically what Im going to do that I try to always do and also what Im going to do that’s different this time to try to get a better run. I go over my intentions a few times but I don’t really visualize it per se.

Anyway, the tower calls the slider who is up before me to the ice and about a minute after that I collect my helmet and head outside to the track as well… There are less people there and I like the feel of the cold air for a couple of minutes before my run. The other slider is just starting down the track now so I go get my sled and walk it to the edge of the track. We (me and the track crew guy who will “release” me to slide) wait the minute or so till the previous slider has finished their run and the tower calls my name to come to the track. I walk out onto the track and lay the sled down. The track guy sticks his boot in front of one of the sled runners and I stand behind the sled and wait a few seconds more with one more mental run through of the main personal intention for this run… like maybe “hold up for a moment at the end of 6 so I can drive hard across into 7” or some such). The tower announces “one minute to start” and I pull my helmet down on my head, sinch up the strap, check the alignment of the sled and then lower myself down onto the sled in a face forward prone position… I feel the cold of the ice on my face through the visor just a couple of cm away. I feel for my correct position on the sled and inch forward or back just a bit to get it just right. Then I set my heels together and point my toes while tucking my shoulders slightly together and pull my elbows into my sides and firmly grip the hand holds… I stay looking down at the ice rather than forward down the track for the moment. I wait till the track guy asks if Im ready and I nod and start craning my neck so I can see along the track ahead… The track guy pulls his boot away and tells the tower over his radio that the “skeleton is in track”…

And we’re off… very slowly the sled starts to move forward toward the first turn… It’s a very gentle turn and with such low speed I can do little to steer other than drag one or other toe to try to direct my sled to one or other side a bit… I want a good line here because if it’s a bad line the sled will skid and skitter for a while till gravity gets it in the right line and that slows the run time down a lot. I drag my left toe just enough and the sled takes a good line into three and the white track walls slide past smoothly as I gain a little speed through three and then out into a short straight section before a sharper right into four and Im starting to move along now, into four there is still not much I can do to control things but there is little need to anyway… My only concern is to be not skidding. Im running good so I simply self check and make sure my heels are together and my arms are in and Im hanging on… firmly but not too tight… I want to stay flexible rather than rigid. Coming out of four Im now at a speed that I can start to do a little and I give my neck a twist to the left to get ready for the coming twists… The line is now starting to matter and I want to be on the right side (early) but my line is good and I wait till the sled starts climbing the ice at the start of five and then I sort of mentally pull myself through the corner, driving gently down with my right shoulder while I crane my neck a little to the left to try to see around the corner.

Five is short and gentle and as I come out of five I let off the shoulder pressure and Im moving pretty quick and the tendency is for me to want to raise my chest of the sled as I approach six. I mentally resist the urge and push my shoulders back down and again start mentally pulling myself through the corner and twisting my head to the left and craning to look up in the direction of the track as hard as I can. There is the rush of air and the sound of the runners is now significant as I feel the G forces push firmly on me for the first time… Six is longer and stronger than five and the exit is important to get over into seven. For the couple of seconds that Im in six Im again driving the sled with my right shoulder pushing more firmly on the sled than my left… Im feeling the gravity and seeing the white walls scudding buy and Im watching hard to see when Im getting toward the end of the corner and a bit before I see the exit I reverse my shoulder pressure to try to hold the sled up on the side wall just a bit longer than it wants to be there, and then as soon as I see the exit I swap the pressure again and drive my right shoulder down hard… Im out of position here with my left shoulder up off the sled by a couple of cm cos I really want to get as far to the left as I can going into 7. The short straight between six and seven flashes past and I see someone standing there on the right at the corner seven start ramp but I have no idea who it is and I don’t care because Im totally focused on seeing my line and how early I am going to get into 7… This run is good and Im over early and as soon as I start into seven and before I feel the Gs, Ive swapped shoulder pressure again as hard as I can to steer back  right into seven. Seven is long and firm and for me has two or even three “swoops”… I feel the Gs build somewhat and as they peak I ease up on the left shoulder and go neautral as the sled is up on the wall and I just want it to stay more or less there.. But the sled fades down a bit before climbing again and the Gs come on a bit more again and I drive with the left shoulder again... and I hold it all the way through now till Im out into the long and not quite straight eight. Ideally I would not touch the walls here but the risk is that I will come into nine late and that’s hard to fix so my intent is to have a gentle hit on the left wall to reflect me into a good line for an early entry to nine… I hit the wall and hear the grind of the ice and know that cost me speed and also upset the sled… Im instinctively tempted to drag a toe to straighten out the sled after the hit but this time the reflection is pretty smooth and the sled line is on target for an early nine so I just focus for the moment on getting my limbs all back into form with shoulders down and heels together.

Speed is good now and nine is a solid left that gives me a good push down into the track. I resist the push but try not to let my shoulders come up. Im not really driving in this one but as I come out of the turn Im craning to look ahead into ten which is another left that’s stronger because of my extra speed. The short straight flashes past and Im into ten and Im concentrating again just like in six … Im driving around ten with some right shoulder pressure and my mental “pull” but toward the end of the turn I ease up to try to let the sled hang on the wall a little and as soon as I see the exit Im driving as hard as I can with the opposite shoulder to again try to get over to the other side of the track to get into eleven early… I vaguely note the closed barriers of the corner eleven entry point as it flashes past but there is no one there watching this time. Again I seem to have a good line on this one and as soon as I start into eleven I start driving to the right with my left shoulder. The Gs are pretty strong now and I try to ease off on the drive as the Gs peak and I wait through the long dip in the middle before the Gs build up more again toward the end… I drive with the left shoulder again and I also drop my right toe and let it drag for the last pressure hump of eleven. Then its out of eleven and as the Gs abate I lift the toe and get back in form. I see twelve racing toward me at the end of the short straight and there is no time to do much of anything other than to remember that I want an early entry … if not then Ill get a strong hit on the left wall on the other side but again it’s a pretty good line and the short straight flashes past and Im into the sharp left of twelve. Again the Gs push me down and Im struggling to see ahead but I need to so I can time my left foot dab… I only manage to remember to do this about 50% of the time coss things are happening so quickly, but this time I get it right and I hold the left foot down for a few tenths of a second as I exit twelve and I enjoy a good clean exit with no wall hit to unsettle my position or the sled line and Im heading smoothly into the gentle right of thirteen on a great line… With a good line through seven, and eleven and no hit out of twelve Im really moving fast now and things now just come at me and Im largely along for the ride!... I see the entry of fourteen (strong left) rushing up and Im hoping for an early entry… It looks OK and I brace myself firmly, holding on with my arms and resist the surge of Gs in the corner.. I am no longer pulling myself through the corners and Im “driving” by instinct, letting the turn hold down the right shoulder while I resist with the left and Im looking straight down at the ice rather than ahead as the forces try to squish me into the wall… This is a fast run and I literally let out a short loud groan/grunt as I flash through the pressure point and out into the short straight. Im having to hang on quite firmly here as the sled rolls suddenly back to horizontal and then Ive got just a moment to look forward again and brace myself for fifteen which is a mirror image of fourteen… Again I am wrenched around as the sled rolls onto the wall and again Im crushed into the sled… another grunt and Im through the pressure and the sled wrenches my body around to flat again while gravity seems to disappear for a moment and I try to get my bearings… It’s the final corner now and moments later I feel the crushing Gs of the first swoop of sixteen. I know I need to drive here so while Im desperately trying not to get my face forced into the ice, Im pushing down hard with my left shoulder and trying not to let the Gs push in on my right while I am again shouting a long arrrrrgh through clenched teeth.. then the Gs reduce as the sled comes down off the wall a bit as the colours of the painted “Whistler” in the track ice flash past and I try to stop driving right but in truth Im always late letting the steering pressure off… But no time to worry about that now as I feel the second pressure build . I can barely see anything and the world is flashing past at ludicrous speed. Im shouting again and resisting the Gs with all my strength but I know I have to steer here so I drag the right foot till I feel the pressure reducing again and I struggle to get my head into a position where I can see the exit… I lift my foot again before the turn ends and Im flashing out of the corner and into the straight and up the exit ramp. I dabbed that foot just enough and my line is pretty central in the exit run. Im over the red finish line now with speed reducing fast and then out from under the roof and into the open. I can see the track crew and first aid people beside the track as I slide up the finish ramp toward the dock. I know I did a fast run because my speed is holding and Im going to go high …I let go of the sled and raise my shoulders and get ready to get off. As the sled comes to a stop a couple meters below the crest, I get up and push it over the crest and onto the flat. Then I stand it up and undo my chin strap and push my helmet up off my face, wearing it as a hat and I man-handle my 25Kg sled out of the track and rest it on a rack to wait for my next ride to the top.  I head into the warmth of the waiting room with a smile on my face… A good run.

 

... and all that took about 1 minute!, and I get to do that a maximum of three times in an evening for which I have driven about two hours up from Vancouver and will have to drive two more hours back down after the session!...
 

Yeah, I know, Im crazy :)

Gravity Bike

Ive started a winter project...

Im gonna build a "gravity bike" and see how fast I can roll down a hill.
Ive thought about all sorts of possible configurations for things with the ultimate aim of going as fast as possible on a road while being propelled by nothing but gravity.
Essentially that brings two different forces into play with gravity pulling you down hill, and friction resisting your motion... The two forces will balance out at some point and that's your maximum speed... Im aiming for something above 100Kmh.

In order to minimize friction I want to be as stream-lined as possible and with the smallest possible frontal area. To maximize the forces from gravity I want to be as heavy as possible.
... and (letting survivability have its say) I also want sufficient control to be able to avoid obstacles, stay on the road, and stop in a hurry if I have to.

And Ive decided that Ill take the project in steps too so that I can prove out different aspects of my design as I proceed and don't go spending large amounts of money on things that wont work.

Initially I was very attracted to the idea of starting with a recumbent trike that I could modify a bit and build a stream-lined fairing for... But a decent trike is a very expensive piece of hardware (minimum $2000) which was a bit much... So, then I considered building something from scratch but that would cost me a lot too and Ide end up with less functionality than the commercial trike route.
So then I decided Id consider two wheels rather than three, though the idea of getting a flat tire while traveling at these speeds on a bicycle does scare me quite a bit more on a bike than on a trike!

So I looked into recumbent bicycles but they still cost about $1000 minimum.
And so I finally settled on something much simpler as a start point... A BMX bike.

Im going to modify a kids BMX bike as a base platform.
It may sound a bit strange but it has a bunch of the features that I want: Its got a very low centre of gravity with the small 20" wheels. A kids bike is usually well made but uses thick walled heavy gauge steel tubes... which is fine for my application as it adds weight and strength. I can get one with disc brakes too and that makes it way cheaper than having my own set of custom 20" wheels built. And finally of course its much cheaper than the fancier options.

So, I looked at quite a few second-hand bikes on Craigslist and they are often very cheap or free but I couldn't find any disc-brake bikes around (new teck for BMXs). But I did find a relatively cheap new one and I went and bought that for a couple of hundred dollars.

 

The BMX bike in original configuration.

 

And now Im going to modify it significantly for my purposes. But for the moment Im going to try not do make any mods that are permanent so that if things don't work out as Im hoping then I can just put the bike back together and sell it for close to what I bought it for.

So, the mods so far include:
Remove seat, peddles crank-set and chain... I will not be peddling this anywhere :)
Invert the bike frame... It gives the head-set a steeper rake that makes the bike more stable at speed.
Invert the handle-bars... Lets my hands be much lower and further forward.
Add foot rests to the rear axle stubs and put spoke covers on the rear wheel.

And the bike currently looks like this:

 

And while that looks really odd for a bike, its not really a regular bike any more. All I have to add now is some foam padding to the top tube for my body to lay on, a strong rear wheel fender so my back-side does not rub on the rear wheel, and a couple of knee/shin rests that will attach to the seat-post. Then it will be ready for some test runs.

It is ridden something like this (and yes, absolutely, I will be wearing full motorbike riding protective equipment!:

Photo copyright J. Maus

If my road tests are successful then I expect Ill be building a full body streamlined fairing for the bike... I may continue to use the bike frame as is or I may decide to do some cutting and welding to lengthen out the wheel-base (more stable ) and maybe also try a fully prone riding position (probably good for straight runs but not so good for twisty roads).

Oh and just in casy you were wondering, a bike like this is in fact completely legal on the public roads (assuming it does not exceed the speed limits) because it has standard bicycle brakes and can stop and turn the same as a regular bike (unlike street luge or skate-boards etc).

Anyway, that's my gravity bike project that is "underway"... Ill post again when there is something to say, though that may not be till next spring!