So, I need to get a bit of a catalog of bikes & trikes going
here. A good place to start, I thought, would be with some machines I
loved and let go. Gotta make room for more, right? MOST of these are
owned by friends, a couple have been cut up and made into other stuff.
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| The Berserker aka The Trike of Death - Burning Man 2007 - Photo: Tristan Savatier |
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| Member of the Department of Spontaneous Combustion @ camp - 2007 |
Built originally in 2006, the Berserker was made for
Burning Man.
Three 4 foot storm drain sections, laced to aluminum car rims with 96
spokes EACH. About 1500 parts & 8 hours labor per wheel, this was
supposed to be "flashy" over the top and laughable. My great friends,
Ken Beidleman and
Duane Flatmo had built similar wheels before me to use in
Kinetic Sculpture Racing.
Trying to be light was something I didn't need to worry about on the
playa, and as Ken says "Why not?". It can carry four 10 gal (80#)
propane tanks and has two manually operated fire cannons. It HAD
solenoids, but batteries and inverters and playa dust are not friends.
With the
DSC, I was lucky enough to get to bring the Berserker to a couple Fire Art Festivals at the
Crucible, back to Burning Man in 2007 with the roof seen above and then traded it away for some architecture plans.
The
Berserker now lives with my friends Mo and Scott east of Sacramento.
Mo's dad, Michael, has pitched in and they have made it into an amazing
ride! They've been to every Burning Man since!
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| Mo & Michael cruising the improved Berserker - Burning Man 2008 |
The Tiller - a trike with a big left, rear
drive... a central, right, "tiller" type steering wheel... and a
front, left-ish caster (shopping cart) type wheel. The idea was, when
you steer, the front wheel is forced to turn with the machine. Worked
GREAT, except when slow in soft sand. Remember 2008, at Burning Man?
Yeah, no good.
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| The Tiller (L) = Reclaimed / The Evil Eye (R) looking for a good home. |
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| The Tiller
(with Ken Beidleman giving it a test ride) ~ Reclaimed, rode well, but
the frame cracked when a couple BIG friends jumped on it just right, and
it wanted to turn right in soft sand... so, new version below. |
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| With a couple new "wagon wheels" (thx for the idea Tom!) Now: "The Crusher" |
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| The old rear side drive, seat & first drive train = recycled. No pun intended. Hop in! |
The Krez - Also built in 2008, this was a
custom ride for Krez. It also has a fire cannon trailer. Rides great...
except when you hit the brakes hard (on the steering wheel) it turns
and flips over frontwards. Especially fun with a fire cannon in tow.
ah... safety third.
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| Mini Tiller = custom build for Krez. |
As far as I know, it's still kickin' in Humboldt with
it's fire cannon trailer and all! I will post more photos of this
build... then I'll make THIS TEXT a link... (hint: not a link? Not
posted yet)
The Tall Hack (of Death?) -
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| Tall Hack ~ For lack of a better name... |
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This thing flips over in every direction, tall,
skinny and short wheel base make this one of the most dangerous bikes
I've made. Kind of like a unicycle with a bunch of stuff in the way. Of
course, my friend Jacob rode it like a champ after crashing into and on
top of many things at Burning Man, so he bought it. NOTE: Saw blades
were added later. Damn.. looking for a photo. AH! Here...
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| Tall Hack in all it's flat black glory. |
Chain-less tall unicycle - made for my buddies kid,
who can ride anything, a fun & super heavy unicycle. My pal didn't
want to spring for the Chromoly, so, conduit is what it's made of.
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| Garrett's "Trike" |
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| Fun with old saw blades - added a saw blade spinner. |
Beautiful welds! Yes, I learned how to weld at a cake decorating factory. Good thing I'm not a welder, I just build stuff!
The Evil Eye2 -
Made in about 30 days
from thin air, this machine was raced in the 2008 Kinetic Grand
Championship. We won the 6:32 Award for being the first to lose an ACE
because we were too slow. Hey, an award is an award. This machine is
VERY similar to the Berserker, but it only had 3 foot wheels and custom
rolled / built hubs, no car rims. Looking back, maybe we should have
gone "Zombish" - Zombie Amish certainly would have been cooler. The Evil
Eye2 was reclaimed 14 days after the race. Technically only existed in
it's "finished" form for two weeks.... BUT, is about HALF of something
else.. scroll down to see what...
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| Kris (L) and Scotty C. (R) rollin' through the Arcata bottoms. |
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| A quick break
on the way to Dead-Man's - With a few clever ideas from Kris, we DID
pedal the whole first day, we just got to Eureka late. Also, big props
to our awesome pit crew Trevor, pushing his mountain bike in this photo.
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| Water is fun on a trike. Thanks for the pontoon loaners Ken! |
The Duck
Flambé - A machine built on a dare. Well, almost. If you do stuff like
this, you will understand that you never expect anyone to take you
seriously and actually want to pay you what you're worth to make
something cool. But someone did. Bart said the grown-up version of "I
double dog dare you" = "Sounds good, how much do you want to get
started?" 2008 was a good year for building bikes. And so, with a ton of
help from
Ken Beidleman,
the Evil Eye2 was turned into a 4-seater with new 4 foot wheels, WITH
car rims, and a fire cannon that shoots out of the top of it's head. It
also steers from the rear seats, like a barnstormer, and has suicide
doors.
The Duck Flambé was a present for Bart's dad,
Frank. They truck it out to Burning Man every year (3 so far) and it
lives the rest of the year at his
winery in Los Gatos, CA. Apparently it's a big deal in the Christmas and Thanksgiving parades there too! A ton of build photos
HERE if you want to see more.
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| I used the #13
a lot in the original build, strangely, it kept going and we ended up
with a coffin shaped frame if you look straight down on it. Cool &
creepy! |
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| Burning Man 2008 - Bart (L), Frank (back), Henry (front) - Photo: Nathan Berry |
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| Burning Man 2009 - Henry (far L), Frank (driving, in back), Bart (on door) - Photo: unknown |
The "Die Neunzehn" - Made from 19 other bikes... in a day. This was raffled off at a fund raiser / party at the
DSC in Oakland. The guy who won it became a member soon after, so that worked out okay.
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| Pre-Paint = sweet |
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| Flat black is the new Pink |
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| My awesome wife, Acacia, zooming around the hood to prove it's ride-able. |
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| And a little paint pen to add "sparkle" - it came with the rest of the flat black, and a couple spare parts. |
That's it for now. I'll add more when I sell / barter / or give away some more!
Ride dangerously and never look back - Scotty C.
Berserker,
Crusher, Die Neunzehn, Duck Flambe, Duck Flambé, Evil Eye2, Krez, Saw
Blade, Storm drain wheels, Storm-drain wheels, Tall Hack, Tiller,
Unicycle
