| The bike (as designed) is constructed of .049" wall, 2" diameter
chrome moly tubing, has a medium wheelbase of 44 inches and uses 406mm wheels. The front
boom is aluminum. I decided on a headtube angle of 75°. The seat is a sling type
using aluminum tubing. As I couldn't spend the time to construct a bike this year, I was
able to get Len Brunkalla, a machinist, to proof the design, and build the frame for
me. He drew the plan at full scale and discovered that I had more pedal overlap on the
front tire than I thought I would have, so we extended the forward portion of the head
tube mounting tubes 1 inch. Use these plans at your own risk. Click on the plans below for higher resolution plans. 
Fairing Plans:
I have always been impressed with the moby fairing, (a la John Simon's
"Encyclopedia"). I would like to build one for the Barracuda chassis, but after
seeing how long it took Rick Wianecke to build his fairing (blood, sweat and gears) from
the moby molds, and after hearing how much all that exotic carbon fiber costs, I
decided to get as close as I can using blown components, and Coroplast. Here is my
original drawing of the fairing sideview outline:
I am planning on making the nosecone (up to the line behind the cranks),
and the windshield with blown components. The nosecone will be constructed of a right and
left blown bubble. The remainder will be Coroplast. Here is the same outline, after some
artistic rendering (I'm really not planning on painting it pink):
Parts:
I obtained the tubing from various aircraft parts mail order places, and most of the bike
parts through another WISIL member, Earl Russell.
Wheels:
The wheels came in kit form as spokes, rims, and hubs, and it was up to me to build them,
or find someone to do it for me. Because I'm cheap, and enjoy a challenge (up to a point),
I decided to do it myself. Bill loaned me a great book called "the Bicycle
Wheel" by Jobst Brandt, which does a great job of explaining all the in and outs of
wheel building. One of the first things I had to do was cut the spokes to the correct
length. I was able to find a number of programs on the web
that allowed me to calculate these lengths (three different lengths!). After the spokes
were cut, I had to roll threads into them with a spoke threader. This machine kind
of smashes the threads into the spokes rather that cutting threads. I originally thought
that I had cut the threads too deep for the spoke nipples to get a grip on the threads,
and ended up discarding a number of spokes because of this. I later found out that the 14
gauge spoke nipples don't grip too well on the 16 gauge spokes (Doh!). Once I used
the right nipples everything was fine. I then laced up the wheels as instructed in the
book, and trued them. Will I do this again? Probably not. There is a reason wheel building
is considered an art form, and those that do it well are well worth the small amount of
money they get for building wheels. |
