The missing piece of my playa bike finally arrived from Singapore, and it got me SOOO excited about my bike again!!! Had to share it here. This is the only pic of have of my bike actually, ohhh well! Taken just before we loaded it into the truck. It was my virgin year this year & working on the bike definitely ramped up my creative excitement for the Burn. I don't think going again is in the cards for me next year as I'm getting married next Sept, but I'm definitely going to work on the bike and take it for spins around my city.
Started with an old beaten up blue ccm bike. Backpedal brakes that don't work that well but otherwise in fine if rusty shape for a playa bike. I had no idea where it would evolve from there. The french horn & trombone are welded to screws so they can be removed if needed. I added extra padding to the banana seat & covered it in purple velvet, (handlebars to match). A bit painstakingly added the el-wire following the curves on both sides of the french horn, with the battery pack underneath the seat. I was torn on colour and couldn't find the right shade of purple for the frame, so I ended up messing around with some gold as well and was realllly happy with the result.
The best part for me was finding a little round speaker that actually could pump out bass and had colour changing leds in it to fit in the bell of the french horn. So I could have music bumpin' as I was riding along, and it faded between colours and lit up the bell pretty nicely. My boyfriend helped me drill a hole in the horn to stick the ipod cord down.
The pièce de résistance was supposed to be a teeeeny tiny modified bubble maker in the 'tailpipe' or bell of the trombone so that bubbles would trail out behind the bike when I pressed a button BUT it didn't arrive in time so I put an LED strip with some sweet effects in there and it looked pretty cool and probably lit me up better anyway. (Singapore snafu, although they ended up refunding me and shipping it for free in the end.) I still really love the idea of a bubble maker in the 'tailpipe' but after having been to the playa, I'm not actually sure how well it would work...would the mechanism get all gummed up? (What do you think?)
Improvements -
- 1. Make damn sure the speaker is in there bulletproof stylee!
I flailed the speaker on a particularly bumpy road over in the 9:00 area on Thursday night. We went back for blocks and blocks searching for it, but could only surmise that something with colour changing leds might have been scooped up by someone else? Moop shame!
2. spring for a taller sissy bar. I knew the seat was too low, but damn it did kind of hurt my knee after some long distance biking
2. get some of those pretty wheel leds that are so bright! those looked dope!!
3. cup holder! I had a leather belt holder thing hung from the handlebar that worked, but it did not allow for easy access to drink on the go
4. ditch the windmill for something cooler - it worked some of the time, but then was pretty screechy loud as it worked FAST
5. uh, kickstand. duh. luckily with the french horn if leaned against another bike they would support each other perfectly and not fall
/end novel about my bike haha
