As some of you know, I go out to work in the alps quite a lot, and was there for nearly 2 months last winter.. Only managed a paltry 8 days this winter so far.
As the only skier of my colleagues, they occasionally join me on our time off on the mountain on a hired 'ski bike' or snow cycle, easy to ride and good way to enjoy the mountain pistes, but they are quite costly to buy and hence hire..
They usually look a bit like this:
So I thought I'd make one, as i'd stumbled across kits to convert mountain bikes and BMX frames online, but also quite costly, and quite simple..
I had a friend donate me 2 old mountain bikes he was going to throw away, so the first looked like this:
An hour or 2 with spanners and snips, and we had this:
I needed to get some short skis. Cut down regular skis was an option as they need to be a metre or less each, but ideally still need to be waisted so it'll turn properly. Luckily such things exist, called 'snow blades', mini skis for beginners or stunts. A 2nd hand pair was purchased for £25 from gumtree.
WIth the boot bindings stripped off here:
I needed to make the mounting brackets, and a way to attached them to the skis, so some thick metal plate i had lying around the shed was cut up and cleaned off:
Attaching using 4 of the original 8 binding holes.
The skis can't be fixed solid and had to articulate over bumps, and the best way I thought of was some threaded m8 rod with wide connector nuts welded to the brackets, that could also be used to mount to the bike forks. I made a bracket incorporating the rod and nuts:
Starting to weld up the rest of the bracket:
Test fit rear:
Front welded up looks a bit like this:
I needed to add some kind of peg or footrest, so cut down the pedal arms, ground flat a bit and drilled out and bolted to where the crank was:
Welds ground down a bit, brackets painted.... Finished bike ! :
On the nursery slopes in St Anton, with my friend Paul driving:
video here, of another guy having a very lesuirely go...
http://s1331.photobucket.com/user/chevy ... 8.mp4.html
I works pretty well, and the concept is a success.
Only changes maybe are to bolt the mounts to the skis straight through for strength, as the mountings are currently only self tappers, which worked loose, and maybe move the rear ski further forward to help stability. The rear rod/axle bent a little, but I think it won't get worse. Front pegs on the forks might be good too..
