Building a better Tall Bike

How to Build a Tall Bike, one that you can stop safely, and could be construed as street legal in most places. With this method, you'll be able to stand over the bike, allowing you to hop down easily, have two brakes, a full complement of gears, And have a better riding position than two bikes stacked on top of eachother. You'll only destroy one bike, The top portion is bolted to the bottom bike, so if it breaks, or you get tired of it, the bottom bike can be reverted to normal. All in all I think this makes for a suprisingly sane tall bike. Not that you'll look any less the madman riding it through traffic.

Step 1: Gather two bikes, extra bits

You'll need a pretty functional bike for the bottom, and a bike for the top that just needs a good bottom bracket, and a frame that isn't rusted away. I prefer cheapish old mountain bikes.

As far as parts;

"steel seatpost to fit the bottom bike

"full length brake housings/ one normal cable front, extra long cable rear

"handlebar/stem cobo to reach 28-32"

If you want to get multiple gears running you'll need

"two farly well matching drive side cranks

"extra long gear cables

Comments

[wteck]

bike legal pra caramba

[rbhawaii]

Lots of work!!
Easier to just flip the frame over....
I used a bike with coaster brakes

[emopants92]

ok im planning on this i have 2 bikes sitting around doing nothing and will never be used again so thankz for the idea also quick question how can i weld this? being 15 and dont know how to get around the welding step?

[Notbob]

Join shop class, they teach you everything that you need to know

[cmcgann]

In my school, I am not aware of a welding class.

[Madrias357]

Yep. The little I learned in Shop Classes taught me a lot. I can wire a house, build a lighting circuit for a bike, and also weld mildly. Though I prefer Oxyacetylene over the Arc Welding. You can actually see what the heck you're doing and none of the "Striking the Arc" like with the arc welders.

[rbhawaii]

MIG Welders are the bomb! Works like a "Glue-gun"!

[cmcgann]

I began welding arc, still weld arc, and will probably always weld arc. That's the only welding I've ever learned, and it works just fine for me.

[Beauceron]

That's way too far to fall for this old man.

[Dingo the clown]

I use Tall bikes everyday and that design I find to be wobbly.
My friend Topher actually built a pirate ship around one of those.
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/182375/index.html
This is from last year's fleet.

[Pedal Monkey]

Damn it man!! I thought my pirate ship bike was going to be a first! Alas there are no new ideas...

[kanji35]

it's quite dangerous ae..

[bomberman3]

I was watching headline news this morning and some bike shop in New York took credit for inventing it.

[builder08]

can you build a tall bike with a bmx?

[carpe_noctem]

yeah but it prolly won't be very tall. more like a big roadbike as far as seat height goes.

[Full Frontal Graphic]

I had a tall bike I used to ride all over town with my medium sized German Shepherd/Coyote mix dog riding on my shoulders. It was the type some call an upside down bike. Munchkin and I used to get some freaked out looks riding around the San Fernando Valley on it. Tall bike are great in traffic if they are equipped with the right stuff like brakes etc... Everyone can see you from further away, and you can see everything else... It looks ungainly, so people don't tend to pass you with only 2 inches of clearance like they would on a more conventional conveyance.

[Greenehouse]

My dad and I built a tall bike years ago and it was alot of fun. We just turned the frame upside down and modified the handle bars and seat stem.

[johnnyshaman]

Exellent design idea! Just a quick mounting comment - it might make it easier to get the idea if you think of it like this: I'm sure you've gotten on you bike while it's moving by putting one foot on a pedal and your hands on the bars and leaning the bike slightly, basically riding standing up on one pedal like you're riding a scooter. As long as you are tall enough to reach the handle bars this is how you get on/off a tall bike. You put your hands on the bars, your left foot on the left pedal (assuming you are on the left side) and kick yourself and the bike forward with your right foot as you stand onto the pedal. It takes a little nerve to trust you won't go over the other side, but I think you'll be surprised how easy it is...

[the_burrito_master]

sweet! lol thats so funny

[knexmaniac]

cool... but how do ya get on. i'm only 5 ft tall

[the gizmoman]

how the heck do you get on that thing??!!

[cantthinkof bettername]

lol i was about to ask the same thing

[sasquatch14]

my friend made one of these but like wassaw turned the frame upside down

[wassaw]

mine was made by flipping the bike over and putting the front forks in upside down.I used a frame from a 26in bike and a fork from a 20in bike that mahe it tip forward easer to control that way

[cleethomson]

any pix of you (or someone) riding it? It looks hard to mount/dismount, but it would be cool to be so high up.

[maxwell]

I really do need a picture of myself riding it up, will take one tommorow. In the mean time, here's a picture of some friends riding, as you can see one is a double decker, and the other is built from very chopped up frames with the same goals as my design. Somerset, on the double decker looks like he should be falling backward, and that's how you have to get off and on. Without a top bar, you can simply drop down if need be. It definitely is cool being up that high. Alec, pictured in the green shirt, exemplifies the effect, he's about 6'3" and the riding position on his bike is almost standing, so he's almost nine feet tall when riding. When hopping down though, his bottom bracket is actually a hair lower than mine, less than 18" higher than a normal bike, so you're really not that high, like standing on a stool. As far as ease of mounting, it is a bit of work, stop and go riding is like a stairmaster if you can't avoid stopping to foot down. for ease of mounting, the smaller the bottom bike, the better, for extra tall but more work, a really big bike.

[wassaw]

I built one of these when I was 12 am 52 now and in the planing stages of making a new one

[lucapaooka]

max its me luca umm i have relocated to cincinnati and really want a tall bike or a genuine track bike i see some people selling horizontal dropouts could i weld them on or is it even possible? ps. I MISS LOS ANGELES!!! :-(

[lucapaooka]

max its me luca umm i have relocated to cincinnati and really want a tall bike or a genuine track bike i see some people selling horizontal dropouts could i weld them on or is it even possible? ps. I MISS LOS ANGELES!!! :-(

[KoolKat]

Sweet!

http://www.atomiczombie.com

[bhell13]

Nice.
Check out these crazy guys....
http://www.tallbiketourbritain.com/

[simco]

Why would you want gears on a tall bike? Isn't the point of these to be as trendy as possible? You can't do that unless that shit's a fixed gear, son.

[Ghostman]

I used to have a Tall bike back in 1985 and had lots of fun with it. I'm now planing to make one again this summer. There was a picture of me ("Riding High") riding it on Oct. 8th, 1985 Courier Post Newspaper Section B page 1. Anyway, what I want is to use 2 bike frames cutting off the back part of the frame thats going to be on top, weld it to the bottom frame where seat goes. my question is should I cut off the top 5 inches of the fork pipe that holds the stem and extend it with a welded pipe so I can use the head of the top frame as support? I intend to have a stering wheel instead of a handelbar dont like those long handelbars. Last time I had welded the pipe all the way from the fork with no support and was too wobbly. E-mail me at: [e-mail] and I'll explain better. Ghostman

[WingDings]

Surely the next step would be some stand that automatically deploys when the bike stops or slows or can be activated by the rider, maybe like the Peraves Ecomobiles?

http://www.peraves.ch/schwarze.htm

This wolud be the perfect place to show how something like that was made.

[nak]

Tall bike! :) Looks like alot of fun

[ekboyer]

nice bike.

[ekboyer]

ok, you do that.-

[BigToach]

Me and my buddy did this same thing a while back. Although all we did was flipped the crank so it peddled backwards, flipped the front fork so the tire was on the top and handle bars on the bottom, then welded a seat on the bottom and extended the handle bars. Then we rode the bike with the frame upside down. Makes it so that you dont need to do the crank assembly because it brings the crank up with you.

[maxwell]

I might try that with a cruiser, for a rugged singlepeed tall bike,