TOPICS

Paul's Homepage
Racing stuff
Stuff I've built
Toys
The fam
Rants


1/ Bezerk 2004
3/ Bezerk 2005
5/ Interbike prototype
7/ My second racing trike
9/ Early construction of leaning trike
11/ Leaner studio shot
13/ Rear of proto leaner
15/ FWD bike, parked view
17/ FWD, side view
19/ Front view with me on it
21/ Version#1
23/ Stripped down version
25/ First trike
27/ John's "Xevon"

Stuff I've Built


2/ Amielle with unicycle
4/ Commuter SWB
6/ First bike project!
8/ Monster brakes
10/ Spider for Profiles
12/ Custom stem
14/ Small downhill bike
16/ Our first tandem
18/ A low GTR
20/ My first recumbent
22/ Reworked model#1
24/ Old faithful

Back to
Greenspeed

My new
venture
Bezerk
Cycles
I get requests to build various weird and wonderful machines, and get a real thrill making customers ideas/dreams become a reality, esp when others tell them it can't be done. Most of the following are things that I have built for myself, but I'm sure customer stuff will pop up soon...please, anyone with pics of stuff I have built for them, please email me :-)

As I'm way too slack taking photos of my own work, I'll have to scrounge to find some photos that others have taken.

Pics 1&3 are the trikes I designed and built for the Wonthaggi 24hr, see the racing section for more info.

Pic 5 is a prototype I built for Interbike 2004. It uses a Velokraft carbon/kevlar seat, folds like a GT3, aluminum front axles and weighs in at 24.2 lbs (11kg) It also uses similar steering geometry to the Wonthaggi racers. This is the basis for the X-Series of trikes to be released 2005. A hammock seat can also be used as the seat fits on using elastomers and a bolt like the GT3.

Pic 7 is a trike I built to race in the OzHpv event. I made this some time ago (about ten years) and I think it weighed around 12kg, but not sure. It accelerated awesomely and had pretty good speed capability. Front wheels are 451's and the rear a 406. Photo 25 was the first trike I built. It was the first trike that was all chromoly and a fixed seat. It had a really wide track that proved very stable. It was too wide for getting through the traffic though, so that's when I built the second race trike.

The leaner in pic 9 was an interesting project. The 24hr events here in Oz, only allow you to race a recumbent with three wheels or more. From personal experience, I knew that bikes corner a lot faster than trikes eg. they don't scrub tyres and slow down in the corners, so I thought why not make a trike that leans like a bike? Basically there is a headset in the middle of the rear axle that is parallel to the ground. The whole front section of the frame pivots in this headtube. The steerer is connected via tie-rods to kingpins on the ends of the rear axle like a parallelogram so that the outer wheels lean the same amount as the rider/frame (pic 13). To add to the coolness factor, I added a lean brake. This was a piece of aluminum attached to the rear axle and the disc caliper attached to the frame.

Riding this trike at Wonthaggi was awesome. I intended to go out for around three hours to simulate one riders stint out of eight, but had that much fun I think I did six. You basically just hold the lean brake on get rolling, then you let it go and just imagine you are riding a bike! So you balance it via the steering as usual. I remember having the trike on full tilt (45 degrees) in the hard corners with the back sliding across the asphalt while I was still pedalling and correcting as I went, AWESOME! This trike would still have the fault of any bike though, slide the front wheel and you're history.

I like playing with unicycles too, so here's one I built in pic 2. It can be interchanged between the 26" wheel and a trials 20 x 2.5" wheel in about 5 mins, cool fun! I made some off-road unicycles called "muni's", with 24" downhill tyres and "V" brakes for a couple of brothers, they get some km's up in the near by mountain ranges.

Pic 4 was a SWB that I built for myself for commuting. I tried to include everything that was needed for this task including lights and front suspension. This got sold off.

Pic 6 was my first ever bike that I built using the arc welder and mild steel, a real budget job. Can't remember what happened to it though.

Pic 8 was my answer to "V" brakes. I built these before the infamous Shimano version showed up, inspired by Marinovators at the time. The first version used bushes for the pivots, but this version has ball bearings instead. Everything about the pads can be adjusted seperately eg height, toe, spring tension etc. These are true one finger rim crushers and have been used on all of my MTB's. Pic 10 is just a spider I made for my Profile cranks. Pic 12 was one of two stems I made from a block of aluminum, lots of sanding to get that polish...

Bezerk was the company I used to own, and pic 14 was one of the downhill bikes I built. At the time when six inches of travel was heaps, this performed pretty sweet.

Pics 15&17 are the FWD bike I built for the OzHpv challenge. This was also my first TIG project! Quite an interesting bike to ride, loves to be pedalled but not as happy to coast. The drivetrain is obviously very simple and direct.

Pic 16 was the tandem that I built for my wife and I. It actually has four brakes, two pairs of drums and two pairs of cantilevers. Built this ages ago and we sold it through lack of use.

Pic 18 was another OzHpv inspired trike (the third) that I used to great success. I used a fibreglass nose cone from D&H Enterprises that slid on in about 1 minute. This trike became the inspiration for the GTO.

Pic 21 shows yet another OzHpv race bike. It was very effective with another notch to the belt ;-) It included in the first version, an intermediate drive with I think 5 gears with large jumps and a nice tight cluster out back, course shifter on the left hand and fine shifts on the right, still my favourite gear change.

Pic 23 shows when I went to town stripping some weight out of it. I got it down to 9.5kg and this thing really flew. I raced it at Sandown racecourse to take another series of victories. When I designed it, I really wanted it to be as aero as possible. Pic 19 shows how the feet push their way through the air and the rest of your body follows behind. Still have this one in the collection, maybe some short cranks are in order!

Pic 20&22 are of my very first recumbent project. This too had an intermediate drive with two cogs up front. I reworked it it a bit later, can't remember all the changes or what happened to it, but was a great bike albeit heavy.

Pic 24 was the mountain bike I used for a crap load of miles MTBing with friends and XC racing. Eventually got replaced with a full suspension bike I built.

Pic 27 is of John Kuljis's "Xevon", read about it here.