Swing Bike

Maybe you like to ride your bike for leisure around town or on the beach. Maybe you have a short commute to work and enjoy the fresh air. I wanted to share a really wonderful alteration that can be made in your “regular” bicycle to make it in to a SWING BIKE

The swing bike has all the normal components of a basic single gear bicycle. At first glance it resembles a beach cruiser, lets say. The difference is the frame has additional bearings allowing the bike to swing. Normally there is only a bearing in the head tube but in the instance of a swing bike there are bearings in seat tube as well. The head tube is the part of the steel frame just below the handle bars, and the seat tube is the frame below, you guessed it, the seat.

By adding bearings to the seat tube the center part of the frame can then swing from side to side allowing the rider to bring the front tire off to the side in a stylish ride.

All you need to do to make your bike swing is have access to a welder, sawzaw, grinder, and a variety of bike tools. Obviously you will need to know how to weld. You also need to have two bikes with the same diameter tube on them since you are going to cut the head tube out of one of the bikes and place it on the new swinger. The bikes that you chose need to be “girls bikes” with the top tube and down tube ideally parallel.

I will not try to reinvent the wheel here, because another author has created fantastic instructions with pictures.
Essentially, you will cut the front bearing from the second bike and add it to seat tube of the new swinger bike. You will have to weld the frame to the new seat tube and may have to cut and re-weld the down tube as well. Check out these step by step instructions below:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-Swing-Bike/

I guarantee you will turn a lot of heads with this stylish riding. Have fun and let me know how it goes. When I ride my swing bike around town people almost don't believe their eyes. They are so accustomed to seeing the normal bike configuration they have to double-take and reprocess what they are seeing.