Tools maniac... my english wheel

I've been thinking about getting myself an english wheel for a long time now.
Given the S&S being at the paintshop and the fact that I planned to add an aluminum insert across the rear fender, I felt it was time to plunder the savings acoount.
I'll be like a little boy for weeks now, playing around with my new toy....

Harold, buddy, here I come!

Hope he's got the coffee ready tomorrow morning early.
Time's are exiting once more, can't wait for the final result.

Final prep before paint

Its been a long time since I worked on the S&S rebuild.
For good, lets ride the wide open road, reasons. Needed to get the final things done before I drop the bike off with the painter. Harold from South East is going to do his magic (he'd better, hahaha....)
Fitted a brand new chain to make sure the mounting and the clearance of the rear fender is correct. With some playing around with the brackets and the sissybar, I think its DONE. Last pictures in its raw appearance.

Shaft drive in Hardtail frame, continued!

Have seen that there is quite some interest in how I made myself the mounting brackets for the shaft drive construction in my hardtail frame, here are some more details.

The basics are pretty simple. Get yourselves some thick mild steel plate. Mine are 12mm thick. With some cardboard you make yourselves some templates, copying the holes from the axle and the mounting bolds of the shaft drive bell. Since you must be able to move the drive shaft a bit when mounting the rear wheel into the frame, I made the 2 plates detachable by drilling and tapping some mounting holes into the side plate.
If you keep these 2 plates nice and square you will have a strong supporting structure to be added to your hardtail frame.
The reason for making the sideplate (welded to the frame) as long as I did is that this allowed me to weld alongside the pipes (frame tube notched around the plate). This way the twisting forces of the shaft drive bell are supported by the full frame triangle which is about 65cm long in my frame. When you make the length of this triangle very short (by welding the 90 degree support bracket directly to the frame), the vibrations will eventually break your frame.

Hope this helps a bit and enjoy building your own.

Back from Holiday in France

All the preparation paid off, the bikes performed wonderfull. NO issue's at all.
We had a great 2 weeks holiday riding our bikes through the south of France. For you who are interested, we rode our bikes through the Cevennes and the Haut Languedoc mountains. We took it easy riding the bikes from campsite to campsite through little back roads meeting the local frenchies on the way. Always funny and interesting having a conversation about our chops without really speaking the language, but somehow we always manage.

It is a shame its over, but.... like a big Austrian guy once said. I'll be back...