Holy molly......it's got wheels on it!

Last night, after a couple of hours of scraping & sanding, we hung components......bottom bracket, cranks, pedals, headset(s), fork & front wheel. It's really starting to look like a vehicle which is scary. Up till now the concept of riding this thing has been an abstraction, a distant idea clouded by our focus on the details of structure. Now, however, the reality of riding a wooden bicycle that we built from a sheet of plywood comes to the fore. Throughout the evening Jeff & I kept pausing just to look at the thing and although I had never considered this a beautiful form, just a stepping stone to something else, it has started to grow on me. I like it's rugged simplicity & seductive curves, the clean edges and expanses of smooth blond wood. Jeff & I had a divergence of opinion about edges. Being a died in the wool modernist I like crisp, clean edges. Jeff, being someone who deals with the reality of boats bobbing around in the water and crashing into things, likes nicely rounded corners.

We have a couple of issues, albeit minor, in that the bottom bracket is about 1/2" too low and the rear head tube (the one we attach the handlebars to) is a little low. We will have to be mindful not to pedal through sharp turns and a pair of BMX handlebars will be required to get that nice upright Dutch feel. I also think the cargo bed is too high. Everything else came together pretty easily. Currently the bikes weighs in at about 41lbs with probably another 6 to 10lbs more to add in components. This is well within our target range and gives us plenty of leeway in terms of adding material for strength & rigidity. My gut feeling is that the bike, while being ride-able, will fall short in terms of rigidity and load capacity. But I'm not worried....we have identified several areas where we can design in more strength going forward. The fact that we are even in the ball park bodes well for future iterations. And as we rush to complete the assembly and ride this bad boy our thoughts and discussions have already moved beyond to the next version.......

meanwhile back at the shop..........

Toolpathing: the ninth circle of hell........

Never again will I utter the phrase "something that we can cut quickly & easily on D's awesome CNC machine....". Not because it isn't totally awesome (which it is) but because of the Tron era software required to program the toolpaths. In excess of eight hours were required at the computer to enable four hours of cutting. My hunch is that the designers of this software went on to write the federal tax code or perhaps the terms & conditions of your medical coverage. A more utterly opaque and unintuitive interface would be hard to imagine, however, hours of slow torment paid of big time. Once everything was set D's Multi-Cam fairly tore around our sheet of 6mm Russian birch ply (check the video below). We cut out our proof of concept! High fives all round! Admittedly we had a few do-overs (depth settings seemed to challenge us) and a couple of parts that failed to stick to the particle board and were thus munched by the cutting tool. At one point there was a voltage fluctuation that shut the machine down. We had to unscrew the collet, manually push the gantry back so that Jeff could crawl under the machine with a flashlight & a voltage tester, check and then reset the machine.
But it was all worth it........at just after midnight we beheld a pile of plywood parts representing the sum of our efforts so far. I have to say that my first impression was; 'is that it, did we forget some parts?' and then 'are we seriously going to make a bicycle out of this pile of scraps?' It just seemed so physically insignificant but as we started slotting the parts together the form took shape. The accuracy of the machine is impressive and all the truss frames slid with reassuring firmness into the slots. Obviously our work here has just begun. Next we meet at Jeff's shop for the long process of sanding, assembly, jigging and gluing. Some of the parts, particularly the blocks that house the bottom bracket shell and the head tube, are still to made and we haven't decided yet if we will CNC the dropouts or just cut them by hand. And don't even get me started on the steering. One of the interesting things to discover in the weeks to come will be how light & how stiff? Ideally we have a target weight of 80lbs for the fully assembled bike and currently the dry weight of the frame parts (minus glue and epoxy) is around 14lbs. If it turns out to be excessively 'noodly' then we will have to add material and re-assess how we mitigate lateral flex.

Right now we are the are the happiest wooden cargo bicycle builders this side of the Willamette......

All change..........

A month long hiatus of intense development and deep exploration of process and purpose. The last time we went to the shop we decided to put the fork-less steering system on the back burner as it was clearly proving to be a distraction. The more we delved into it the more we realized that we were heading down a rabbit hole of cause & effect that would end up draining our will and focus. Fork-less steering was a concept, we agreed, that could be more profitably explored further down the road when other more fundamental issues had been resolved. Instead we shifted gears and strategy and brainstormed the fastest way to create an all wood proof of concept. Basically a down & dirty sheet material form that slots together and could be cut quickly & easily on D's awesome Multi-Cam. A long couple of weeks followed at the computer bringing the form to fruition in Solidworks with many stop, starts and revisions in response to Jeff's woody worldlyness.

But a funny thing happened on the way to creating what we always thought of as a stop gap, a stepping stone to Renovo-esque fluidity. As we started to look beyond our proof of concept to model #2 there seemed to be an enormous disconnect between the formal volumes we were envisioning and the functional realities of what we were trying to achieve. I had always imagined that the CNC'd monocoque, fluid, sculptural & organic was were we were headed but the further we dug into it the more the proof of concept started to display an elegance and simplicity that we found compelling. Conversely my sketches that tried to marry the various hard points via the monocoque process became cramped and unconvincing. Clearly I had hit a conceptual wall. As the Dude famously said;"My thinking has been all uptight about this....". Something had to give.

On the night of the Oregon Manifest Launch Party as Jeff and I slowly weaved our way home from the Lizard Lounge via the Springwater Corridor (that HUB organic lager is quite strong!) we discussed the different approaches. Considering what we were building, was the Renovo way the correct one? Was our flat-stock, slot-together idea more suitable? How realistic was it to try and combine both construction techniques?

A couple of days later I sat down at the computer and started model #2 but within an hour I was stuck. Nothing about it produced that 'aha' moment. I deleted the model and started again pretending that I had never set eyes on a Renovo and knew only of 6mm birch ply. It is at moments like these that I want to kick myself because the model came together with such ease and inherent consistency that clearly this was the direction we should have pursued all along. I was gratified when Jeff had the same reaction when I showed him the model that evening. Suddenly it was like the log jam cleared and a torrent of ideas followed. Forkless steering was firmly back on the agenda as was cable steering, an idea I had floated previously but had abandoned through timidity. A bunch of problems we had envisioned evaporated with the new direction and ideas came tumbling out faster than we could sketch them. It was exhilarating!

Of course all of this euphoria will have to surmount the obstacle course of reality but right now we are stoked! So this is what we think it might look like...........

What was & what's next........the story so far

So first comes the forkless steering proof of concept prototype. The image on the left shows the basic idea: take a steel frame (in this case an old Raleigh MTB) and weld on an extension to mount the forkless steering. Originally I had scrounged up some 1.75" tubing from a child's swing set. However Curtis pointed out that mitering the tubing accurately, especially with our $40 Harbor Freight tube notcher, would be extremely difficult so we sprung for some 16ga, 1"x2" steel tubing. The rectangular section will be a lot easier to cut, weld & fixture. It's probably overkill for our needs but it's better to overbuild than have the thing fold on the first test ride. One challenge will be welding the stout rectangular tube to the relatively light gauge down tube.

In preparation for all this we created 'frankenjig' to secure the frame. With a lot of tweaking and applying of spirit levels we can achieve pretty good alignment (or at least good enough for our purposes). The process of building the jig was a lot of fun and we now realize that we could have created something much simpler. The collision of concept and reality is always illuminating. Before this project Jeff & I had never worked on anything together so it was gratifying to see the level of synergy and cohesion in our collective efforts. As I start to learn the layout of the shop and discover where everything is kept this will only get better.

The next stage is to cut, prepare and fixture the rectangular tube and the components needed for the steering mechanism. The steering will require some head scratching. I understand the principle of how this works but I imagine reality will intrude and require some changes. One of the features I have incorporated is the ability to change the 'head angle'. My feeling is that the steering geometry should work just like a conventional bicycle steering where the interplay of head angle, fork offset and the resulting trail should be broadly equivalent but that is just a notion uninformed by experience. The ability to alter one of these parameters will allow for some experimenting without having to grind and weld. The other concern I have is the do with the fact that steering to the right will not feel the same as turning to the left as the plane of the wheel is offset to the right of the head tube. I have no idea if this will be a factor or not. All is yet to be discovered........

Why wood?

As I've mentioned previously this project is about creating a wooden framed cargo bicycle. As we are enamored and familiar with 'bakfeits' style, two-wheeled, cargo-in-the-front cargo bicycle that is the pattern we have chosen to follow. While 'longtails' and tricycles all have their merits it is the front loading, two wheeled (in line) type that we feel has the most potential in terms of function and aesthetics. I list aesthetics because our goal is not to create a 'better' cargo bike but a more beautiful product that resonates on an emotional level. That is not to say that function is not our concern. On the contrary it has to 'function' in a way that would merit the term 'cargo bike' (i.e haul loads safely & efficiently). We just feel that function has a subjective component that can never be fully met and that the aesthetic of utility bikes, bar a few exceptions, has been given a back seat in the development of this form and type of transportation.

So why wood? Well, first of, let us be clear that we don't come at this from some half baked notion of creating a 'sustainable' or 'green' product. Every time we drive out to the shop we burn hydrocarbons and the tools we use to rip, saw, shape & weld material to our will are powered by the coal burning Boardman Plant and the salmon killing monolith that is the Bonneville Dam. The meager wind powered portion of this metric is merely a salve to our guilty consciences and another derivative of hydrocarbons. Construction of this project will involve volatile organic compounds, exotic glues, paints and epoxies not to mention waste material that might or might not be recyclable. Wood products contribute to deforestation, habitat loss, mono culture and global warming. They require the burning of more oil to log, process and transport them to where they can be sold at maximum profit. So, no, our wooden cargo bike will not be saving the world anytime soon.

So we chose wood out of happenstance and a genuine fascination with how this material can be applied to a human powered vehicle. We foresee no business model here so it is unlikely that this will offer any 'real world' solutions. In other words this is a selfish project that sustains deeper needs and desires that have nothing to do with notions of utility or sustainability. This project is, at its root, about process. It is about the minutiae of the journey from concept to manifest object. It is about the day to day discovery and how we adapt and deal with the limitations imposed by both our aspirations and the tools & materials we hold in our hands.

From a straight forward technical standpoint wood is an excellent material for a bicycle. It is, as Ken Wheeler of Renovo stated, natural carbon fiber comprised of cellulose (the fiber) and lignin (the binder). High performance aircraft and boats are still fabricated from wood as are bridges, buildings and furniture many of which have stood for decades if not centuries. In many cases properly engineered wood can out perform steel, aluminum and even carbon fiber. The question is not whether wood is a viable frame material but rather why aren't more people building wooden bicycles?

in the shop.......

After a day spent at the computer sending out resumes and chasing down contacts it cannot be overstated the satisfaction of making something manifest with your own hands. Words are few and deeply focused, actions are predicated on results and lead to more insightful actions...............deep joy