William’s Custom Tricycle

This was sitting under the tree at my brother’s house on Christmas morning. I made it for my nephew, William, who is turning two this January. It might be a little bit before he’s able to ride it by himself, but it should be pretty epic once he can.

Here’s the design that I started with, which I got a lot of help from Aaron Hayes of Courage Bicycle Mfg.

We started designing November 30th, and it went to paint December 14th. I was able to get it done in such a short amount of time because of all the help I got from Andy Newlands, Aaron Hayes, Albina Pipe Bending, and Spectrum Powderworks.

The trick was making it small enough given the restriction that the smallest quality wheel I could find to build it around was a Velocity 16″ (405) rim. The main tube and reinforcement tube are 4130, .049 wall bent by Albina Pipe Bending in Tualatin, OR. They did a great job especially in a pinch.

The rear step plate is a piece of laser cut stainless, which bolts to an axle that runs between the two rear wheels. I had originally planned on leaving it bare or bead-blasted, but in the end I decided it looked better painted the same color as the frame. The pivot is made from a Mountain Board truck, with the axles cut off and bolted upside down to the plate. There are two tension screws accessed from the underside that tighten or loosen the side to side travel of the trike. This was something I really wanted to include from the beginning, and ended up pretty close to how I conceived it. Since Will is the only one that will be able to test it out, the actual performance of the pivot remains to be seen.

I made the fork to accept an oversized 42mm bearing unicycle hub. This one is a 36 hole Kris Holm with an Isis tapered axle.  I fabricated these dummy bearings, which fit around the dummy axle of my Anvil frame fixture. The crown is Pacenti’s Paris-Brest.

The handlebars are custom bent 4130 with steel rings and caps that Andy Newlands turned down for me on his lathe. They were then brazed onto the bars before Oregon Plating did the chroming. The saddle and grips are what I feel really brings the whole thing together. I couldn’t find an aftermarket saddle that was small enough, so I took the steel saddle from the little Radio Flyer trike I used for a model, and brazed two fabricated saddle rails to the bottom. Luckily I found Jed Hollenbeck, who makes custom motorcycle seats for custom choppers. He wrapped the steal saddle in leather and made grips for the bars to match. The result is pretty next level to say the least.

If I were to make another one of these there are a few things that I might change, but not much. I might try to make the wheel-span a little shorter, and maybe even less head tube angle to get the cranks closer to the saddle. All-in-all I feel it’s a pretty successful first attempt.  Thanks again to everyone who helped on this project. I think it was a pretty special Christmas for little Will.