Re-Hacking An Old Hack

I built the above bike a few years ago. Although it was fun to ride and I rode it quite a bit, it was too tall and the extended steering tube I made wasn’t straight. Those were just 2 of many issues it had. A while back I tore it down and cut the top addition off and saved the bmx frame and all the parts.

Monday I decided to rebuild it to make it shorter and straighter. I dug through my scrap frames and tubes till I come up with something that would work.

Here’s what I come up with…
I aim to get the most amount of fun with the least amount of effort. Meaning the more I can reuse of the existing frames and the less cutting and welding I have to do the better.

I didn’t take a photo but I used a piece of water pipe to extend the steer tube on the fork.

Once assembled I stepped on to test the height. It was shorter… but only by a half inch or so. Somehow/where I mismeasured. Now I realize if I would have butted the 2 seat tubes together, the height would have been right and I wouldn’t have needed to do the seat post clamp hack. Oh well.

I took it for a short test ride to see if it was worthy of any more time and effort. Decided it was.

Tuesday I tore it back down, did some grinding on the welds, applied some Bondo and gave it a coat of primer. Today I reassembled it and went for a 20some mile ride.

It’s once again a fun little bike and now with fewer flaws.

In the future I may try to hide the seat tube gap and paint it.