My Rickshaw

This bike started as a way for me to take my daughter on a ride and still carry groceries or diapers. Never liked the original dark blue color but lived with it. We then had another baby and this bike sat outside for a few summers. I thought I could build a larger basket for it and take both of them on rides. But first a color change was needed. The bike felt like everything was a quarter turn too tight from the factory so a full strip down was necessary. I took a rough pad to parts for painting, cleaned them and let them sit in the sun before paint. Sprayed a few coats of paint and put them inside to dry. It’s hard to let things dry for a few days but I held strong and waited. Started putting it back together and was surprised how nice it was looking. This is becoming a totally different bike from a color change.

   Built a simple wood basket out of plywood, trimmed it out and stained it. Next was the seat. Ripped some ¼” oak into 1” strips cut them all to length and primed and spray painted them. Lightly sanded the lifted grain off and did one more coat. Stapled them onto basket and borrowed some seat belts form our wagon. Nice and shiny and the white seat shouldn’t get too hot in the sun.

 Time for a shake down. Rode to the store with the girls, everything was going good until I realized I had no way to carry stuff other than my girls. No problem I have a huge basket in my shed I will add to the bike. This basket is very big and very silver. It’s all I see when I look at the bike. Hopefully a little more spray paint will help tone it down. Ahh that’s better. One last thing for this project an umbrella at a yard sale should add the finishing touch and turn this once ugly bicycle into a full on rickshaw.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures it has been a fun project. I even get some thumbs up from people when we go on tour.