I've been working on this Retro for about a year and finished it two days before the Rockford gathering. I've never had a cruiser before, so I wanted one to ride around the neighborhood with the kid on his 29er (Thanks for the 29er PEP!).

I really need to thank the guys who helped me out on this and share some pictures with everyone. Chip, for the chrome, powder work, and great advice. Lee Berube for the awesome decals. And John De Bruin for machining the brake arms I designed. Top notch stuff from all.

That is a nice build. Are those brakes cut from real Dia-Compes? Those are sick! I'll take a set! Great job.

Yes do tell us about those brakes!!!!

Sick build too!

jk

The brake arms were designed by me. I was working on this bike project with Chip, so I put a C4 decal on them. The brakes are an homage to the old MX-1000. I wanted them to have sort of a side pull action. A little tougher to tweak because one side has to have more spring tension, but they do work pretty good. Had it out tonight riding it around.

The backstory;
I sent the CAD files to John because he did a great job on Chip's pit hack motomags. I gave John ownership of the design in exchange for the first couple protos, so you guys can hit him up with some comments on the design. It's all up to John whether or not you'll be able to get them some time in the future. At least there's a chance. I would never be able to do more than a one-off of them anyways. Simply beyond my means to manufacture these and I had to cannibalize two other brakes for the hardware. I printed these out in 3D before sending the CAD files to be sure everything fit and looked good. That was almost a year ago...

CAD image (inset photo of Juan's bike)


3D printed prototypes....

Very cool brakes! I would be interested in a pair if they work well. How do we get in touch with Chip?

jk

Beautiful build! I love the brakes and the chrome stays.

That's really cool... great bike.
brakes put it over the top.

WOW! Great build..those breaks are sweet!

Thats an awsome build! I love that a lot.

Awesome.....the RL's painted like that are my absolute favorites...dope.

And the brakes look sick too.....

A work of art all the way around. My mouse came to a screaching halt when I saw those brakes too. Very nice concept, thats the coolest retro new school idea I have seen yet.

I love the brakes! Man they look Reeeeeetroo!

Speechless. Bike is awesome too! Speechless.

That is a killer build. I was thinking the other day about how to do a set of brakes like that. You answered. Awesome!

WOW - I'm seriously impressed - the attention to detail is second to none

Great Build
Thanks

hands down the best retro I have seen here. love all the detail that has been put into this, speechless....

Those brakes are awesome looking!!!

JDB had a couple of pair of the brake arms on his table at Rockford, are they going to be a production item or not?

I don't know. Only JDB would know.

That is a incredable build love it! very cool brakes.Kinda like petes f.w. cruiser..undefined

wow! Those brakes are awesome! I'm VERY impressed! Nice work!

Thanks Ed. Still, not enough to overtake the 24" Knight Performer(s). PICS of it yet Ed?? Or did I miss them? That baby deserves a thread of it's own.... Congrats!

BTW, thanks for the grey Tuffs I won at the raffle. Don't know what I'll use them on, but I'll think of something!

Awesome build and like everyone else I'm digging the brakes.

Well, John knows how to make money, so it stands to reason he would produce these brake arms.

Not to produce them would be saying no to Bill. - Mr. Dollar Bill.

thread just gone up on UK forum defonate interest in the brakes , v nice build too

Thanks! Do you have a link to the site?

Man, I was really impressed with the brake, and was going heap all kinds of praise upon in, but everyone beat me to it.

I am also a fan of the bars. Too bad Redline doesn't make those anymore.

Yeah, the forklifter bars have heritage. I wish Redline would make them in chromoly with the tapered tubing like the old school Forklifter bars. With modern sizing. Wish they would have made the transition on these aluminum bars more gradual and the crossbar a smaller diameter. That said, they are cool as is.

I tried to go with almost all Redline parts for this build. I passed on an '07 Redline Pivotal seat because the design would have distracted from the nice lines of the overall bike.

I may continue this build with a custom number plate (forklifter style) and maybe a padset. What do you guys think?

Go for it. I think they used to make pads for that crossbar -- they were really short and fat. Maybe you can dig one up somewhere. I'd really like to see a modern, custom, forklifter-type plate for it. that would be really cool.

WOW that is completely sick! The powder looks wet, the brakes are awesome looking time well spent in the design. Digging the Retro Flight 24 decal. What kind of hubs? How about a close up pic of them.

Beautiful! I really like the build and the brakes are phenominal!

The hubs were a local bike shop score. They are Redline sealed hubs. They have mid-school Redline logos on them, but I can't identify the year they were made. I happened across them when I noticed a plastic tub with some bmx parts buried in the corner of the store behind a bunch of wheels. I started digging through out of curiosity and found these hubs. They looked clean and simple and they were Redline so I snatched them up. I originally had white Tuff Wheels on the bike, but wanted something that ran true. Didn't like the feel of the Tuffs. Had fun lacing them up and I put a White Industries ENO freewheel on it.

Gary, The bike is beautiful as all your retro bikes are. Keep up the good work


Rob-

I was corresponding with the President of Dia-Compe last year when Gary approached me with the idea for these. The timing was good and my hope was that Dia-Compe might be persuaded to run with it. I machined 4 sets: 2 for him, 1 for me as a sample, and 1 extra in case I needed to send it off to Japan as a working prototype.

The only way to really make these is to invest in the forging dies so these can be made production-style, and I am not interested in taking it to that level. The run-time on the CNC with the small cutters and small details is what takes a long time. They are a very cool item, but unfortunately it isn't practical to make more. I will bring my extra set to Interbike in September and see what he thinks, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Ironhide, you pulled off another superb retro design with those MXs !
you most certainly have a knack for this kinda stuff.