Ski Bike

thanks for the ideas but Instead of the hokey 2 x 4's I bent some 1/8" Galvanized from Home Depot. Only problem is with two sets of shocks it weighs over 20 pounds plus I;ve just added an extra wide seat that probably weighs 3 pounds.  How do you hook it to the chair when riding up?  

Thathanks 

 im going to make one i think im going to put two skis on the back

i thik this not a good idea because two skis in the back are inestable...

 Doing that will affect your slide turns as you will have 2 different planes not aligned.

 i did it my way and it worked perfect im trying to find out how to make a good jump for it iv crashed like 10 times already havent broken yet!!!

I'd love to try making one of these, but I live in the South and we get snow maybe once a year; there aren't going to be any old skis in the thrift stores.

Still, this is so awesome I may have to give it a shot anyway.  I'm not crazy about the pedals though.  What if I just put a bar through there to rest my feet on?  Do you think that would work?

Im in the making of one of these bikes and i have been thinking about using skateboard trucks to attach the snowboard to the bike. What do you think? good idea or not?

i find the best way to do it is to have 2 skis on the back fork or whatever you want to call it and one on the front fork to steer

What about some sort of strap or spring that keeps the skis tipped up if you do catch a little air ?

there is a great way to compensate for that effect. When you mount the front board angle it up a bit so that you dont run the nose into the ground

Ths is a pretty good instructable. I made a few designs of something like this. Except for the front I had two skis mounted to a device that allowed you to simply remove the front tire of any bike and secure it to the fork. Then the back tire I would either leave so I could "drive " it around on ice or in low depth snow. I also designed a rear attachment, but it was about as wide as a snowboard.

i saw this page and what every one was up to and i thought it was really cool what everyone was building. i also wanted to post a picture to give you some more inspiration. this is a ski bike that i made last year and road in the french alps last easter.
hear is a link to a video of me useing the bike in france, last season. i had a lot of fun. i am working on a new and better and refined bike for this season. will keep you posted on what it looks like when im finished

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hO5VMQNK70s

Please tell me how to make the adapters that connect the skis to the forks on the bike.

hey, can you please tell me how you made that, because i was wanting a ski bike or a north legion smx or something. and i like your bike a whole lot better!

Those are nicely made adaptors!, I was watching your vid' thinking that it all looked very familiar, then I recognised 'Apocalypse Park' and realised that's the very same resort I took my ski-bike to last month. I'd love to see the progress on your new bike, is it another BMX? Did you find the lift staff restricted you to the bigger chairlifts? Props for attempting that wall-ride, It's pretty imposing in the flesh. I couldn't find the guts to try anything harder than the bordercross runs myself.

well tanks for the interest for what im getting up to with my ski bikes. i realy did find the staff a problem, the problems that i had have encouraged me to creat the the new bike. the new bike is built from the same bmx but the frame has been modified so it can stay in between my legs when im on the chair lifts just like a snow skooter as aposed to holding it out to the side of the lift. seat tube is removed with one twist. have you got any picks of your bike? thanks rob

Le boeuf has pretty much coverd it i used the screws that came holding the cheep plastic bindings on the the blades. I did have to shorten them tho as the metal was thinner than the binding, i just ground the end of them off with a bench grinder. i was told that if you are removing screws and refitting  them to the same holes its good to put pva glue on them before refiting tham as a type of lock tight.

can i ask, how did you attach your skis to the actual bike? just countersunk bolts and such? i am having that problem right now, trying to eliminate anythink sticking out the bottom of the skis.

I can't work out who your post is directed to (Instructibles bot e-mailed me though) but I'll reply regardless as I can't help but stick my oar in.
I 'cheated' by using the existing screws which hold the plastic binding of the snow-blades to the ski itself.
I actually used most of the binding as well, I just removed the wire toe and heel parts of the binding and used a bunch of screws up through the plastic binding to secure the binding to a plate of thick plywood(!) which in turn allowed me to attach the rest of the device.
To be honest robert6909's solution looks much better, perhaps you should ask him how he does it?( sorry if your question was directed to him not me).
I know that snowboards sometimes use internally threaded metal inserts which are drilled through the board from below, and are then covered up by the P-TEX which is applied to the base of the board.
These give you a nice metal thread which takes an ordinary bolt.
Beware though, if you use bolts that are too long you will end up pushing against the bottom of the P-TEX and causing bumps on the bottom of the board surface.
That's the method which I plan to use on any more ski-bikes that I build.
Try googling for ski or snowboard repair to see what I'm talking about.
Hope that helps!.

That looks great! nice work. I especially envy your adaptors, but the low back end to avoid getting trapped under low chairs also deserves a special mention, nice one. Sorry about the length of the following post but I think this might come in useful to others considering doing what we've done. One of the friendlier lifties (and another less friendly one) showed me the printed regulations that they're supposed to adhere to (In Les Arcs at least), and explained that in the winter the lifts are restricted to snow-sports. BUT the WAY the restriction is applied is by banning anyone who has no ski's or board attached to their feet( i.e. walkers and climbers, but us too). Several lifties suggested to me that if I had the tiny ski's used by the Ski-bob crowd on my feet they'd have had no issues with the bike, I had none and couldn't find any to rent there though. I was also required to have the bike attached to me by a lanyard, presumably to reduce the risk of me dropping it on another punter ( this just seemed to apply while on the lifts), I used a climbing sling from my belt and a carabiner clipped to the rail of the saddle ) The other concern they seemed to have was 'non sliding' passengers getting clocked in the back of the legs by the edge of the chair as they get off, I never experienced this though, everyone else seemed to have much more problems getting off than I did. My bike is a damn sight heavier and more complicated than yours (probably unnecessarily so!) but they didn't seem to care about that. Rather than hold my rig out to the side of the chair I'd just wait in line for the chair along-side everyone else with the bike pushed out ahead of me slightly so that I could sit down with everyone else (or fractionally earlier) and using a hand on the saddle keep the bike ahead of the chair slightly until it started to lift, I'd then immediately pull the bike back against the edge of the seat( to one side of my legs, although I reckon it'd work fine between), pull back on the saddle to raise the front ski a few inches ( by now the other passengers were lowering the safety rail, sometimes a little early and I'd have to shout 'wait a second' ) and once the rail was down I could allow the front of the bike down to pull the saddle forward to hook onto the rail leaving my hands free for the journey. Getting off just meant pulling back on the saddle enough to free the nose of the saddle from the safety rail, lifting the rail as normal, waiting for touchdown and stepping off the chair while keeping the bike pushed out ahead by the saddle. I had no problems with this method at all. By explaining it in this detail I've made it sound complicated but in practice it's a piece of piss. My rig does have a handy interruption of the seat tube which is just the right height to hook onto the front edge of the chair( see the yellow monstrosity in my post further down ), this helped a lot when pulling back on the saddle to allow the safety rail down before hooking the nose of the saddle on. Getting on and off the lifts is worth planning well, as the smoother you look the more likely you are to be allowed to use them. I'm going to try to get a pair of those stupid 'foot-ski's' to smooth the way too. The weight of my rig doesn't matter to me at all (after all I'm not having to pedal it!) but I think a lightweight set-up like yours might find more favour with the lifties? Where do you plan to ride it? Rod

dont worry about the long massage, it was all pretty interesting, it was good to hear how you have been using the lifts and dealing with the lifties. i am impressed by your ride, i think having suspension would make the ride feel really nice. i had thought about useing suspension a lot i was just worried about loosing the feel of a bmx. It is funny you talk about the small foot skies because i am just work on making a set at the moment. i joined a ski bobbing forum that spoke a lot about the rules of ski bobbing in France and they suggested that i used foot skies. i didnt want to use the exact skie because i did not want to use ski boots on my bike. i have started to make my own skies that will fit to my shoes on the lift and when i get to the top will come off the fit into a back pack. I am making them from the old snow blades from my first bike, and fitting the binding that o got on my new blades. i will then modify them the fit my shoes by using straps. i have been working on them this week so when i have got the finished i will post a pick up on here. i am going to be taking the new bike to Val Thorens and i will be going there on the 3rd of april for a week. Are you going to be ski biking again soon? where in the world do you live?

Looking forward to seeing your binding/strap solution for the mini ski's. One of the reasons I'd rather 'ski-bike' than ski or board is that I have a dodgy knee from crashing my mountain-bike, so it's ironic that I'm now going to be forced to add a slippery device to my feet to make getting off the chair-lifts 'safer'!. Maybe other resorts will have different policies regarding access for these sorts of devices. Like you I'm going to make some mini-ski's that'll be use-able on ordinary boots, and will detach easily before descending. I live in Edinburgh which gives me some limited access to the Scottish ski resorts, but with the end of the season approaching fast, work commitments mean that my 'real snow' opportunities may have all expired this year. There's always the local artificial slope to keep me going till I can afford a proper trip next year ( credit crunch allowing ). Good luck in Val Thorens, take some more video!

Just remembered that I've got newer pic's of my rig completed. This is how it was in the Alps except for the thing attached to the bars. This is a quick release device to allow me to use the poma or button tows. It uses a spinnaker release and was suggested by the helpful people at the adaptive skiing centre in the Cairngorms. If I were to fall off the bike while using the poma the strap on my wrist pulls the thin red cord which releases the bike from the poma so it doesn't continue on its own to the top of the hill (and back down again on an un-manned tow!) Sorry about the epic length of that last post. Rod

thats epic

do you have pegs on that thing because you so should.

yes mate, i have pegs on it. i did use them in the les arcs snow park, they where pretty hard to use. ice and grind rails do not mix well.

Hey Rob what are the triagular connection pieces you used to connect the bike to the ski? Any close ups? Can you email me? vtkitesports@yahoo.com Thanks

it would be smarter to put a track on the back instead of a ski, and connect the track to the chain

i'm also thinking about putting 2 skis on the back. but idk, it seems like a lot of work.

has anyone done a jump with it? does it get wrecked easy from a fall?

I think you should've kept the pedals and connected it all to a sort of fan so you don't need to just go down hill

does it carve nice?im gunna use a very small bike for this project

Carves real sweet, I'm 5' 11", heavy, and the frame you see is a small. I found myself following pretty much exactly the same line snowboarders were taking, or I could choose to straight-line it, no stability issues to mention. A colleague (another bike mechanic)and I also made an (as yet incomplete) BMX/snowboard bike but we have yet to try it. Having ridden this for a week now I can assure you that the balance leaning into turns is great, no need for more width, might even cause problems (that's no reason not to try it though!). I even managed deep 'crusty' powder without problems as long as I kept my speed up and weight back. Crashes were very rare, when looking back over my shoulder I'd 'catch an edge' with the rear ski very occasionally, but that never caused any crashes as the bike instantly straightens up and self corrects, and momentary panic turns almost immediately into hysterical over confidence. Having said all that I think the perfect all round ski for this particular bike would be wide 85cm blades like the K2 fatty's or Head big easy's which would make carving the deep stuff a little easier at lower speeds. Steep, narrow,icy chutes were pretty damn scary though as you can't edge straight down like you can on a board or snowplough like on ski's(wide planks could maybe help here?), but even a week was enough experience to make these much more enjoyable by the end. New parts are going to have to wait till I've dug myself out of the financial hole created by my 'fact finding' in the Alps though.

ohh yeah.. i think it woulkd work better with a half a snowboar din the back for better balance when u lean into a turn

Ok, here's my effort. These pics shows it unfinished and unpainted but It's finished and has spent a day in the Cairngorms and I've just come back from a week in Les Arcs in the French alps. Wish I'd documented the construction 'cos it's incredibly complicated but works BRILLIANTLY, carving turns, high speeds, small jumps and drops have all been easy and a lot of fun. I've used wheel hubs connected to the skis via bmx stems to articulate the ski's, but I'd much rather have one of the commercially produced conversion kits, they seem impossible to get though. I'm certain my adaptors are strong and reliable enough for everything I've thrown at them (French blue, red, border-cross courses and off piste powder so far!) but they're heavier than strictly required. Footpegs are an old pair of alloy bmx grind pegs bolted through the b/b with a 14mm bmx axle, rock solid, but iced up at the ends till I drilled a bunch of holes on top to let the snow through, and sliced a chunk off the bottom to allow it to fall away. Getting permission to take this up the chairlifts was a real pain though. If you're taking something like this to a resort make sure it's REALLY professional looking and do LOTS of 'getting permission' from the people who operate the lifts prior to your trip, THIS REALLY MATTERS.

use pegs for foot pedals or whatever.

Im currently working on a type of sled that has a sail like a ship.... it uses your axle design. Thanks, Happy Sleding

looks like you need to do the chain up on that Haro :()

I was thinking about making something like this for a long time but i never got around to make it!!! Quite intresting

im working on my own, but I used galvanized pipe instead of 2x4s and put 2 skis in the back. can't wait to take it to the mountain. ill try to post pics soon.

For a place for your feet, what if you put a metal tube in the crank case of the bike extending 5 inches or so on each side? Maybe a broom handle and some duct tape?

i wonder if there is some weird way to petal fo flat gronds

i have a old kick scooter.can someone please tell me how to make it into a snow scooter? ill upload pictures soon

there are thing called snoscoots that you can look up online there big everywhere but the us. Making something like that with a snow board wold be ideal if you have a large scooter with bike typed wheels but if you have a razor scooter or alike i recommend that you buy the attachments that razor sells to make it a snow scooter.

I built my first bike similar to the 5yrs ago, It didn;t hold up well. Bunny sled hills that should work for you. But my bikes and riding have evolve from that. to this:[IMG]http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q256/deweydude/ThePine12-8-06006.jpg [/IMG]
with big mountain back country skibiking. On Mt. Hood OR and multiple resorts for lift access shreddin..
Duane