Deathtrap II

Last summer, Mimi and I spent a couple days building a tall bike, which we held together with zip-ties and dubbed, appropriately enough, Deathtrap. I rode it a couple times around our alley and it certainly lived up to its name, leaning towards the ground at a precarious angle and dropping its chain anytime I mashed the pedals with any force whatsoever.

Nevertheless, I totally caught the tall bike bug and have been fantasizing about building a reasonably rideable one ever since.

So today, the kid and I went down to Haulin’ Colin’s shop in Georgetown and put together two salvaged mountain bike frames, one I found in an alley behind the post office last August and the other from a pile of bikes down the street a couple months ago. Colin welded them nice and tight and even added a brace between the two, so I think the frame’s going to be pretty stiff, at least enough that, unlike with the Deathtrap, the chainline doesn’t flex when you pedal.


So, now I’ve got my work cut out to build it up, but that should be relatively straightforward. I was thinking about doing it the fancy way, with cranksets on both bikes and a chain running between them so I could shift gears, but I think, upon reflection, that I’m just going to make it a single speed.

It’s not like I’m going to be doing a lot of climbing anyway.

One of the desiderata for the tall bike project has always been to do it as cheaply as possible—you’ve got to save your money for band-aids and splints, if not orthopedic surgery.

We’ve already dubbed the new bike, Deathtrap II, and while I’m pretty sure while it won’t be nearly as dangerous as its predecessor, you can bet that it will provide plenty of thrills (if not spills) as soon as it’s put together.

I just hope I’m still in one piece after riding it.