spoke guard on the rear wheel. The seat was modified to fit on the long frame and re-upholstered with some camping foam and some pearlesque fabric from a local store. The fenders were cleaned up, taken from junkers in the Choppercabras yard. So I got an awesome bike for around 100 bucks. DIY bikes rule-screw buying whole bikes on e-bay, fighting off all the geeks and yuppie scumbags. Creating an original Kustom is much more rewarding than owning a very expensive vintage muscle bike. People don't take their Krates out for a spin because they're afraid they will get stolen or damaged. So why have it except to feed the "I had that!" urge that many of us have? This bike rides like a dream. Very smooth and shifts beautifully and as you can see, it looks bad-ass! Yes, bikes are meant to be ridden, not hung up on a wall as if they were sculpture. The Choppercabras never own bikes that they don't ride or aren't rideable. Paul deValera |
Paul deValera: Orange Whip |
The orange whip has humble origins as a Huffy "dirt" bike that was used in a bike rodeo as a rammer with a detachable ram mounted to the front. Before the BMX thing developed its own style, bike manufactures were using muscle bike frames and adding knobby tires, BMX bars, and motorcycle styling. The Orange Whip was one of these bikes. After it's triumphant use in the Bike Rodeo, it was taken back to LA where it was stripped and the frame powder coated a nice creamy orange ($45.00). Over a period of several months the various components that were going to comprise the Orange Whip were collected. The handle bars, tires and springer forks are cheap lowrider accessories, and the tassel grips were NOS all coming from the local swap meet for a total of $37.50. The 26" springer is one of the Taiwanese lowrider forks. They are pretty flimsy but if you get a length of brass tubing from a local hobby shop and sleeve it in the bolt assembly it will greatly improve the rigidity of the fork. The shifter was found on E-bay for 8 bucks shipped. It's a dual stick shifter from Shimano that mounts on the top tube of the bike. The dual stick action allowed it to be a ten-speed cruising machine. Since I was not going to use a chin guard I used a chain ring from a Schwinn Varsity, always plentiful and a good source for parts. The chain ring has a chrome chain guard on it so more chrome is always a plus and will look better than a bare chain ring. The sissy bar was 7.50 at a local bike shop. The Orange Whip has front and rear drum brakes. The rear being scavenged off a Schwinn tandem bike and the front brake is actually a rear that I picked up in a junk bike shop with a pile of other stuff, I'm guessing about 10 bucks for the hub. Real front drum brakes are hard to come by and can be costly, so I used the 28 hole rear for a front. It looks fine, no one seems to notice that there are some threads on it. I spaced it out with a bushing so the wheel sits in the middle of the springer fork. Drum brakes are great for Kustom bikes because they don't need anything touching the rims, especially if you want painted rims and it's the only thing that you can run in a bigger springer fork that looks cool. I had my pal Tom (a bad-ass bike building guy) lace the hub for me in some scavenged rims. The sprocket and cranks came from a Schwinn Varsity as well as the |
spoke guard on the rear wheel. The seat was modified to fit on the long frame and re-upholstered with some camping foam and some pearlesque fabric from a local store. The fenders were cleaned up, taken from junkers in the Choppercabras yard. So I got an awesome bike for around 100 bucks. DIY bikes rule-screw buying whole bikes on e-bay, fighting off all the geeks and yuppie scumbags. Creating an original Kustom is much more rewarding than owning a very expensive vintage muscle bike. People don't take their Krates out for a spin because they're afraid they will get stolen or damaged. So why have it except to feed the "I had that!" urge that many of us have? This bike rides like a dream. Very smooth and shifts beautifully and as you can see, it looks bad-ass! Yes, bikes are meant to be ridden, not hung up on a wall as if they were sculpture. The Choppercabras never own bikes that they don't ride or aren't rideable. Paul deValera |
