NERD my ride

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Mark Skulls

Bike too cool?

Nothing says 90′s nerd like barends on your commuter. Climb like John Tomac or get aero in your skinsuit.

So after a quick nerdabouthenet I found these bad boys on ebay with bonus integrated tool kit nerdpoints.

Stashmodathon! I thought.
Having already modded my keys and tools into one I wondered what else I could fit in there.
Take that shit apart.

The built in tyre levers are quite good so I got rid of everything else and found some useful stuff to cram in there like glue and patch’s and quick-links and how about a tire boot? Sure why not.

While your at it you might as well grind down your security skewer keys to fit in there too.

Lets hope no thieving bastards are reading this!

2013-04-12 19.41.56

Job done! now where’s my helmet mirror?

But wait ! I still have the problem of no spare tube…. and no oversized seattube/steerer/stem to stash it in on this old steel frame.

So this calls for some old school ghetto style stashing.

In the baggy it goes

This ones called the mule.

This ones called border patrol
But in the end I went for the classic up ya bum.

Key multi tool modz

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Mark Skulls

I cant take credit for this one, I was just thinking one morning how annoying keys are and how they dont fit very well together on a keyring, so a quick google later and I found this cool hack mod on instructionables.

I just so happened to be useing one of the crankbros multi tools aswell and thought I should try combine as many of the tools and keys INTO ONE!

Step one.

Take everything apart.

Step two.

Cut up your keys (you might wanna go get spares cut first). I had to drill out the holes a bit bigger to 6mm and file the kryptonite plastic bits flatter.

Step 3.

Put it all back together. This is the tricky bit, deciding what tools to keep and working out the best order to get them all to fit together snug. Took me hours of taking it apart and putting it back together and added little washers here and there but the result is TIGHT!

Ends up no bigger and fits in your pocket better minus some redundant tools.

GT update

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Mark Skulls

So there isn’t a bike I’ve had recently that I haven’t added town bars and a front rack to.

New parts are… Cheap XLC ergo town bars.

Salsa stem.

Sram X5 shifter.

Stripped TF 1″ fork.

14bike co barends.

CNCed tecktro levers (nicer and cheaper than pauls?).

Rotor cranks and suntour ring.

Handlebar mount beer cozie from Mannies Lowrider shop in Venice Beach.

Mods on this build are lowrider mount front light and rear mudguard light cable run through heatshrink down the gear cable and up the mudguard stay. Fiddly!

Gettho

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Teva

Just made a few handmade SBC tshirts for the arrival of our great grandiose bike-o-nerd-for-life, El presidente, the ruler supreme, the fearless, the brave, the held-high-in-esteem, Mark Skull.

L&S Creations 26″ Cruiser

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Justin Henehan

This is my L&S Creations cruiser. These frames and parts are being reproduced by Boss BMX founder Carlo Lucia to the exact specs from back in the day. Carlo started out making frames for Patterson and Panda before going on to start Boss. After Boss folded, Carlo set up L&S Creations.

People either seem to love or hate the paint, which is cool. Rather than trying to buy a patina, I was going for something I’d seen at the Old School BMXhibition I put on a few years back. Andy White had picked up this rad Titan BMX with this crazy textured paint job just like the mini in the pic below. Hutch also did a run of frames in the same colour/finish which they called Futuristic Black. They were super rare and freaky looking.

I just really liked the texture of the paint, which Josca aptly described as looking like it had been pulled out of a tar pit. I reckon it has a kind of 80s sci-fi feel, like Bladerunner meets Robocop. Tim at Procoat knew exactly what I was after and nailed it first time.

T.Whites Bikes sorted me out with all the profile bits, including an awesome looking set of blood red mini hubs.

Tim White, the choice dude that he is, gave me a brand new set of Jive Tentacle grips complete with Jive nuts. Rad!

The rest of the bits were mid-school parts that I had picked up from here and there, including a new Odyssey Svelte saddle, chrome GT layback seat post (Adventure Cycles find), Odyssey Pozi-stop seatpost clamp and an Odyssey pitbull brake.

Pt Chev Master Brewers beer competition

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Justin Henehan

The next round of the Pt Chev Master Brewers competition is scheduled to go down in eight weeks’ time so I thought I’d post some pics from the last one.

The last competition was all about IPAs. This time we’re brewing stouts, so Orlies is fixing to brew up some black metal beer. Does anyone know of any Mexican black metal bands?
This time round we have a new entry from two-thirds of the SBC hiking squad, Teva and Conrad.
Here are a couple of bikes from the last brew comp too:

My O’Brien

Stu Jacob’s Independent Fabrication.

Bob’s Colnago Super.

Turbo NERD

Posted on March 1, 2012 by admin

So this post about the dirt tracker might be the most insane and over thought of all time but I guess when you obsessive over thing this happens.

The bike has been done at hopehickman this week with Grant wiring the bike for me. This kind of shit takes time and hopefully should see it next week, but good things take time.

Color has been my next plan and this is the nerd shit right here. Below is what she looks like right now.

And below is an artist impression on how it will look,

For the exact color and gold graphic will hopefully be something like this Norton

And the logo below

KUSTOM KORNER

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Mark Skulls

The Kustom category has changed to Kustom Korner and is now a menu bar item as well so we can have all sweet modzzz in one place.

If you post a mod make sure you tick Kustom Korner in the category menu.

SKULL STASH MODZ

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Mark Skulls

I been thinking about hiding things inside my bikes lately.
Here’s one I did yesterday.
First thing …. take that top cap off and knock your star nut all the way down to the bottom of your steerer tube.

Then get yourself a little kit like this…. Nitto handlebar bag, sks sub 60 pump (light ass skinny pump that fits in head tube) patches, glue, sand paper, rubber band

Then jam that sucker in there

Now find some kinda cap or cork or something you wanna hide that shit with. Dunno what mines from but it fits perfect.

Now I couldnt fit tyre levers in but with a longer steerer or shorter pump you might. Thats why that 3mm allen is in there so I can get into my seat tube!

So the tyre levers are in my seatpost with a 1″ carbon expander plug holding them in. Next I cut up and old 15mm spanner to make it fit in the seat tube (27.2)

So the spanner can be used with the short little 8/6mm allen to get into the seatpost and are wrapped in a bag jammed into the post using the expander plug.

I looked into a couple of other ideas too like….

Tube folded in thirds in a bag in the seat tube

valve forced into the carbon expander plug for extraction (not the same TPI)
But I was a bit worried about that tube getting stuck.

Got some more ideas coming up. Gonna be all set for summer rides with teeshirt shorts no bag.

Seat Shaping

Posted on January 31, 2012 by admin

I am almost there in the seat shaping department. Today when the boss was out I had the small grinding wheel and sandpaper at work getting the required look.

This is the before photo

And the after photo.

Sorry for the shit photos, but you get the idea.

Dirt Tracker Back On Track’ish

Posted on January 26, 2012 by admin

It’s been some time since the last Dirt Tracker post and I have been pretty busy setting up the new shop. The weather in the AK has been on point the last couple weeks and after quite a few good days riding my other motorbike I am feeling the juice again on the tracker.

As you might rember the seat section was to big for the frame so I needed to slim it down.

You might remember Tom from this previous post “http://www.skullbikeclub.com/news/?p=2753” after a couple phone calls I was around in his shed watching the wizard at work.

Like any Dirt Tracker mod, a diagram is key

Tom getting into the action with the Jig saw. I was surprised at how well the fiberglass cut.

This is what my $180 seat looks like cut in half.

If your working on the bike you need some liquid to keep you sanity at bay. If not you might make some good decisions.

And this is the stitching back together stage, what you don’t see here is the smell. I drove home from Toms and felt pretty all right.

This is stage one of two for the seat, keep an eye out for the second part.

munto bene!

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Teva

Hello there,

DIY has always been a kiwi thing. now combine that with a bit of balls out and shanty town-ness you end up with good ol’ tom making a frankenstein gt pulse.

AFTER pictures

And AFTER-AFTER pictures

we let you decide on the whole thing.

it’s super mega rad in flesh. don’t worry we re-dish that wheel and bleed the brake to function a little

Let the wiring begin

Posted on October 18, 2011 by admin

All right

Monday always get off to a great start when you receive a package from Christchurch.

Does it get more custom? don’t think so players. Check the packaging.

This is the drawing I emailed Chris and the finished mount fit like a glove. Somehow I measured it correctly.

An underside photo shows the detail Chris laser cut into the mount. And also the close fit of the headlight. All looooking PRO.

This was a new addition from Chopper Paul, a nice new headlight. Not to big not to small,

The rear light also got mounted but the mount is pretty lame and will be hidden by the seat so it’s all good.

The Tracker needed some nice old school BMX grips with a more motorbike feel. I had this set of Toadstool grips on an old set of bars and were in great condition. Classic.

What you see in this photo is a couple tricked out bits combined to make a tricked out cockpit, BMX legend and all round champ Mr Paul Beadle made up some extra smooth riser mounts. He also machined the cap of the fork compression bolt for the race look. We do however still need to countersink the stem bolts.