Another B.T.R. Build.......

I measured the outside diameter real quickly, comes out to a little over 27.5". It actually might be a little bigger once they are mounted on the narrower rims I have on the way...





And just for fun, here's one next a 26" Felt Quick Brick...





The picture doesn't really do justice to how much bigger these are than the Q.B.'s

I haven't started on the frame yet, I'm still collecting parts for mock-up, etc. I'm thinking I will use 1.25" od tubing for most of the frame and I'll be real happy if it looks similar to this Indian...

Yea, I was planning on all .120 wall dom, but was thinking 1.25" might look better scale wise. I plan to take a side shot of an Indian and scale it to my tire size so maybe 1" will be fine. It would be nice as I think 1" is a lot less expensive.

The rims showed up today, They're used but in good shape other than some paint chipping, double walled, with large spoke holes. I didn't take a picture with a tape but the outside diameter of the lip is right at 22". This rim size is 1.6" wide but since they're so thick the outside thickness is about 2.5"....





I stuck one of the tires on a rim and measured the overall o.d. which now is a little over 28"!



I didn't measure the width of the tire on the rim because it's not inflated yet but as it sits it is closer to 2.75" wide...



Overall I am very pleased with these and can't wait to start building.

harry76 said:

Cool they look like the MX rim i have, is that what they were off?

I actually quite like that tyre

Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure they were MX rims.

Mr. B, thanks for posting that video, I love that bike.

I ordered some 9 gauge spokes for the rear wheel from Newsonsportec in Taiwan. They arrived today and thankfully I did my calculations correct. Here they are packaged up, the hub was offset so it required some dishing...



They make the 11 gauge spokes on another bike look pretty thin...



All laced up, I still need to true the wheel...



I'll hopefully be ordering tubing for the frame at the end of May and will have some real updates soon.

So I've been drawing up my frame and had some questions. Through looking at different pictures of old bikes, specifically Indians, I have noticed there seem to be some with shorter wheel bases. There are the street bikes with all of the bells and whistles that have quite a bit of room between the rear tire and the seat tube and there are the stripped down racers that look like there is only a couple inches. The Indian below is one the shorter looking bikes and has the looks I am going for on my build. Can anyone confirm if there are shorter B.T.R.'s or are these just visual illusions from different pictures. If there are shorter bikes, does anyone know the wheel base on them?



Here is a Cyclone that I based my drawing off of, I changed the bottom tube and scaled it to fit 27" tires.



I know that scaling it down will make the wheelbase shorter but it seems like it shouldn't have changed as much as it did. I also changed the head tube angle to give it more trail which pushed the front tire out more. What I'd like to know is even with the trail I have will the short wheel base make the bike squirrely at speed? I can probably add an inch or two in the rear triangle but that still only puts it at 52" where as I've read on here 55"-58" is best. I don't want to lose the look of the compact Indian above so without going to larger tires I don't see another way to make up the wheel base. On a side note, if anyone has more info on the Indian I'd greatly appreciate it if you shared because it looks like it has modern tires and rims which I think are the same size as I'll be running yet still looks proportionate to the frame.

Ok, I stretched out the frame a little and got it to 52 7/8", It'll probably be more like 53" with the rear dropouts, I'll also probably lower the middle tube an inch or two but I think I'm overall happy with these dimensions...

I played with the drawing a little more and stretched both the front and back out till it was at 55", I also lowered the middle tube leaving an even 5" for the tank, I think this will be it, time to order tube...