Cool (Potentially Steamy) Velocity Bike Rims

Bicycle rim manufacturer Velocity markets rims in a wide variety of colours, and now they even have rims with various very cool patterns, everything from clubs to polka dots to skulls. Including a few convincing (especially while moving) wood patterns such as burlewood and teak. Teak is pictured below.

Patterned Velocity Bicycle Rims

Brass. Honjo. Fenders.

It seems our favorite metal fender craftsman is prepping a brass version of his famous Honjo fenders. For a po' Steampunk like me that's pretty much a wet dream. When these come out the Brass Lion will be that much shinier, no offense to Cody Davis (craftsman of my sublime wooden fenders).

Another manufacturer, Tanaka, already has brass fenders.

Night Fire

I received a Down Low Glow "Fossil Amber" light from Rock The Bike for Christmas, much to my delight. I had long wanted one, and the amber light should be street legal as well as very sexy. The low fire glow is perfect for the Brass Lion. Rather reminiscent of the glow of vacuum tubes, or a forge.

Here's a few shots of the Brass Lion burning a hole through mundane reality:

















Yes, I know the bullet headlight is totally period inappropriate as well as rather dim. I don't care. I really must Art Deco up another trike with lots of curving chrome. Mmm. I also know I look a right git with dark goggles after sunset. But the Down Low Glow is just that bright kids! I need'em.

A red Down Low Glow light btw makes for the world's most awesome tailight.

Renovo Hardwood Bicycles

A company called Renovo is custom crafting hardwood frame bicycles that are drop dead gorgeous. Just another bike to lust after. Perhaps with some wood fenders from our favorite guy Cody Davis at Woody's Fenders.

Front Fender Solution For A Tadpole Trike

My recent mudding experience reinforced the need for front fenders on my trike. Attaching front fenders to a trike can be tricky, especially with disc brakes. Different manufacturers have different solutions when they make an attempt at all. ICE and Greenspeed have notably interesting fender solutions, and what we've done has a little in common with how Greenspeed attaches front fenders.

The parts used are Planet Bike Freddy Fenders including hardware (for 20 inch wheels in my case), a pair of nifty aluminum curved bar ends, a couple rubber lined hose clamps from the hardware store (5/8)and some bolts and lock nuts.



The bar ends are attached to the handlebars and extend over the wheels. The curve of the bar ends is absolutely perfect on my RecumbentUSA trike and should work for Actionbent trikes too. If you look at how Greenspeed attaches front fenders you can see they use bar ends as well, just attached differently. The other end of the bar ends attach to the steel mount protruding from the top of the fenders using the rubber lined hose clamp from the hardware store, bolts and lock nuts. One caveat is that at the moment anyway I have very little clearance around the brake levers. The bar ends will only reach so far over the wheel so the fenders pretty much have to be mounted with the bar end that close. This will vary depending on how meaty your hands are and which brake levers.



This alone is loose and bouncey (as would be only using the hardware that came with the fender on one side of the wheel). So I've used the fender stays that came with the fender to attach to the disc brake and the same bolt that holds the bar end to the handlebar. The fender stay that attaches to a bolt on the disc brake needed to be shortened a bit. So I used a chop saw to cut off the appropriate amount. Measure to fit for your trike. The other fender stay I simply bent artfully to attach to the bar end. You could bend and cut it too instead of having the artsy "S" curve but I like it. Note the fender stays in the photo below.



The whole thing is as solid as a fender gets. I rode over the scattered branches left over from the chainsawing of the fallen tree pictured in my previous post and the fenders did not bounce or having any other problems.

Here is a final photo of the bar end over the fender attached with the hose clamp and bolt with lock nuts.