Just had to

With things lowing down at work and having massive amounts of freedom and a big bin of old scrap metal, i got to jump into making something that i have been toying with in my mind for many moons. This tandem is very obviously a great candidate for a custom front suspension. Yes I did, or am busy with it at least.

So i went off to a local bicycle shop and got hold of a little BMX fork for R55 (it about $6 US), all I really needed was the stem. I did not want to cut the original fork, just in case. Here is the comparison:

I cut and welded and made excessive use of the grinder. Every bad welded needs a good angle grinder... The down pipes looked really nice when i first pushed everything together:

Lots more cutting welding and grinding was done and it eventually got me this far:

Bad nighttime photographs with too much flash - sorry. everything is pretty much held in the air with over-tightened bolts and a piece of wire, with the bike suspended from the rafters with a tie-down. big balancing act that you wont see in the circus. i have got some springs that will be going in the gap. now that i have actually got it in the frame i could get some much needed measurements to carry on with the fabrication. 

The chain in the kit needed to to be MUCH longer for the tandem so i decided to just buy a whole chain instead of joining and linking things together. I managed to find a place in Durban that had the correct size chain, and the chain is currently in had. it does look like I'm going to need to use the bulky chain tensioner from the kit as well just to solve some clearance issues. but more on that when there is something to say.