I talked to the creator of this bike (Herr Doktor Frankenstein, I believe), and really want to see his studio. Each of the different colors shows that piece is from a different bike. Except red – all the red pieces are from different bikes, too.
You sit on the seat, put your feet on the pedals, and I believe the bars are under the helmet. The whole front end turns, like a pennyfarthing. There’s a “floating chainwheel” in the chain as a tensioner. Cool. He says he goes out to the dump and buys a pickup load of bikes to cut up for these rolling sculptures. “$10 or $20, depending on what they have.”
The builder said he considered a second drivetrain to the rear, and a second seat, but thought that was too crazy. I’d kind of like him to look at my “hinge-in-the-middle” tandem design…
There were a couple of other “small wheel, high-saddle” bikes at the Bike Expo. Chain-drive ordinaries, of a sort. I complimented one of the guys on his bike, and he just gave me the barest nod of acknowledgement. Classy.
This other guy seemed genuine and cool. Plus his bike was nicer.
