MTB Project
Since racing BMX as a kid I have been excited by chromoly push bikes, when I began TIG welding I started to think about the prospect of building a mountain bike.
The process began when I started a conversation with my friend Chase, he came to me with a CAD design that he wanted to produce, I outlined what I was capable of achieving and then we modified the design and came to a point where I could produce a bike.
4130 normalised 0.9mm wall thickness tube and 1.6mm thick water jet cut steel plate was notched to perfection, cleaned setup and tack welded together.
Version 1 of this bike was complete but it took two whole weeks to construct. My lack of confidence with this material thickness and the fact that everything needed to be perfect was tricky.
This certainly wasn’t perfect but it was a great start and the first push bike I had ever made.
The bike was displayed at the Hand Made Bike Show in Melbourne and I had plenty of fun getting to know it on the trail.
The original plan with the bike was to build a downhill performance orientated kinematic frame design with a centrally mounted 9 speed gearbox.
With the ability to run side plates that allow a normal bottom bracket to be installed essentially giving the bike an infinite amount of driveline options.
I had the top tube mandrel bent and we sourced a company in China that machined all our aluminium rear end parts.
I made press tools to form the down tube cone area and this wrapped around the downtube.
Initially I tested the bike with a normal bottom bracket.
The raw aesthetic was preserved with clear Cerakote, I made up an oven in my garage and baked this finish onto the raw steel. Cerakote is thinner than Powdercoat and was much easier to apply as you dont have to cover threads and other precise areas du to the lack of thickness of Cerakote.
Aesthetics are always a focus of mine, I just loved how this platform works and looks better than any other bike on the market.
Two different gearbox’s were tested, the Pinion and the Effigear, I preferred the Effigear due to the shifter design but the weight of the gearbox did amazing things to the balance of the bike.
On the trail the center of mass, center or gravity and lack of weight on the rear wheel gave the bike an incredible feeling.
Summers were spent spinning laps, that same euphoric feeling I get driving a car I built also happens on this bike.
I was just having fun with it.
Gearbox looks good hey!
The goal was to build and sell these and I got to the point of producing around 25 for the worldwide market, unfortunately production costs are high when the demand for this product is low so we called off our plans to go into full scale production.
I learnt a lot about what makes a good mountainbike good, I was able to work with this material with confidence and after riding and feeling the feedback through a self made frame I dont think I will ever not enjoy throwing a leg over this bike.
Thanks for reading.