Bike from the Dead's Mockup Mash

[Bike from the Dead]

I mocked up my new idea earlier yesterday. First, I used a narrower set of wheels to help pinch in the tires more.

Second, and more importantly, I used a pair of 26" x 2.125" "Walmart whitewalls" I've been sitting on for a while. Not only do these tires have a rounder profile than the other tires I had mocked up before, but they're also not as wide as other balloon tires. They're still wider than a set of 1.75"-wide middleweight tires though, so they still manage to fill the fenders fairly well without rubbing as badly as the other tires!

All that's left to do as far as this mockup goes is to make a few slight adjustments to the fenders and maybe the frame to help clear the tires that much better. I haven't decided on paint schemes yet, but I feel like this bike needs something vintage and mellow. This isn't some wild and crazy custom bike; it's just a nice, classic cruiser, and I want something to reflect that.

 

[Miq]

While I like beefier tires on my bikes, I did acquire a matching pair of perfectly good 26" x 1 1/2" Kendas that I'd like to use on something. I tried throwing one on a skinny wheel, but I could not for the life of me get it to mount to the wheel. This wheel had a 26" x 1 3/8" tire on it that came off just fine, but this one wouldn't go on even without a tube inside! Anyone know what the problem may be?

I’m guessing the wheel you have will work with the Kenda K23 (37-597 ISO). It is the only new tire offered that fit these certain old 26 x 1 3/8 rims. Or you can use old tires that fit that size.

I’m totally into the idea of building a custom lightweight lately. Thank you for sharing some different looks! Here is an old one @rustjunkie posted in 2014 that I liked a lot:

 

[Bike from the Dead]

I’m guessing the wheel you have will work with the Kenda K23 (37-597 ISO). It is the only new tire offered that fit these certain old 26 x 1 3/8 rims. Or you can use old tires that fit that size.

I’m totally into the idea of building a custom lightweight lately. Thank you for sharing some different looks! Here is an old one @rustjunkie posted in 2014 that I liked a lot:
View attachment 2078163

Thank you! I think I think I just need a little help mounting that tire. Some tires just tend to be harder to work with, I've found.

I'm not really a lightweight guy, and neither are my bikes, but I always like to try new things. I've seen some nice lightweight bikes before, so I figure it'd be fun to build my own custom skinny-wheel bike.

That's a nice one! Simple and elegant.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Whipped up a few digital mockups of my AMF Pilot step-thru bike last week. I don't know if I can find some brown and cream tires that'll fit this bike right, but If I can, I'd really love to paint up this bike in a blue, brown and cream motif! I just don't know which shade I like best...

This could also work well with a nice sage green in place of blue.

And while grey or silver isn't my favorite choice for this bike, I still think it works.

I tried coming up with a few designs that could still make use of the whitewall tires I have, but I'm not sure I've found a color combo I like just as much if not better than the blue, brown and cream paint schemes pictured above.

I still have a few more ideas for paint schemes for this bike, but I like most of what I came up with so far.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Earlier this month, I continued my Mockup Mash with a rusty prewar Monark I got at Haysville earlier this year. I originally thought it was a Murray, but after looking for build ideas on Google and the forums, I learned I had something arguably even less common than a Murray from the same era.

On day one, I felt it'd be cool to build this Monark as a step-thru board track racer, but I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to build it.

After throwing on a few parts, this bike started to look better fully built-up than it did stripped down.

That didn't stop me from trying for a more stripped-down look though.

Day one produced some interesting ideas, but I still had several more parts to mock up a couple days later...

 

[Bike from the Dead]

The next day, I started off with arguably my craziest idea for this bike: I threw a lowrider fork on it! While I'm not a big fan of the twisted bits, I honestly kind of dig the stance the fork gives this Monark. It looks fast, especially with the flipped handlebar! Something else I only noticed as I began editing this post is that the chain stays and the lower part of the fork legs seem to share the same angle, and the angle of the twisted truss rods seem to mirror the angle of the top tube! I'm not as into lowrider bikes as I am lowrider cars, but honestly, I think this bike could change my mind. I mean, with this setup, the top tube comes down as low as the axles! You can't get much lower than that with a 26in bike! Honestly, I think I like this idea more now than I did when I initially mocked it up over a week ago...

I also threw on some ape hangers, but I don't really like them as much as the lower bars.

After mocking up my Monark as a lowrider, I went the opposite direction and tried mocking it up as a BMX-style klunker. Can't say I was feeling it though.

I kept playing around with it more, but I just couldn't find the look I wanted.

I may not have quite figured out how I wanted to build this bike that day, but I still had even more parts to mock up a little bit later...

 

[Bike from the Dead]

I tried a few more Monark mockups last week, mostly playing around with 24" front wheels and forks, but nothing really clicked for me. This may be one of those projects where I need to trace over it in Photoshop and get everything to be the same color in order to really see the potential of this bike. It's kind of hard to make an accurate judgement on how a bike looks when everything's a different color.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Took advantage of the cooler weather between yesterday and today to continue the Mockup Mash on two step-thrus!

I didn't make a ton of progress until late last night, as most of the parts I threw on my prewar Monark that day just weren't working. It wasn't until I threw some recently-acquired parts on that I saw the potential to turn this bike into something wild. I threw on this iron cross chainring, some funky chopper bars, and one of my nicer saddles to go along with my lowrider springer fork, and I got to say, I'm digging this! It's weird, but I've wanted to build something weird for a while now, and this bike just might be it!

I did play around with some other handlebars just to see if I had something better than those other bars, but nothing really meshed as well with that seat as the ones I had mocked up last night.

I still wanted to try one more thing. The ape hangers were a bit too close to my other seat, so I mocked up a banana seat to see how that'd look. I like it! Gives it more of a traditional lowrider bike vibe! That said, I don't have a lot of good banana seats in stock, and I don't want to go out and buy a new one at this time. I definitely think this look is worth coming back to, and it'd be easy enough to swap the seat and handlebars to give it a whole nother attitude.

 

[Bike from the Dead]

I also spent a little time today mocking up my recently-obtained curved seat tube Elgin. I don't know if I'll go this way or not, but it was fun to play around with either way!

 

[Bike from the Dead]

Now that the Off Road Build Off is over and I got some new parts and projects to play with, I figured this past Monday was as good a time as any to do another Mockup Mash. Plus, I need to really narrow down what frames and parts I need to get rid of, and there's a swap meet coming up in less than 2 weeks that I need some inventory for. I mostly did some fast and loose mockups at the storage building where I keep most of my frames and parts.

First, I threw some wheels and a fork on this custom Murray frame, just to see how far back the headtube was raked. I'm still unsure what I'm going to do with this frame, but I can worry about that later.

Next, I did a floor mockup of this Schwinn straight bar I've had for a while now, and I think this might be about the direction I take it.

One piece I spent the most time mocking up was this trike axle I had for nearly 5 years now. I know I want a trike, but I don't know what kind I want. Definitely had some fun mocking up all these trike concepts though!

I really love the attitude of this one.