Kids kick bikes

I'm kicking myself a bit now for not taking some better pictures of these things before I gave them away earlier, but here are some pics of my kids kick bikes that I made as christmas presents. They were literally finished 2 hours before Jennifer and I got on the plane to Minnesota. I put the last paint on them on Monday night, put them together on Tuesday before Christmas and we flew out that night. I just kinda winged the design and put them together based on what parts I could find for cheap. The shaft is bamboo, the legs are wood covered with fiberglass and carbon fiber. I was able to salvage some forks that had been damaged from the bike shop, and I got some seats for cheap. Unfortunately, they were out of white seats, so I got one that was incredibly pink. Yikes.

Since I was running out of time, I ended up not being able to get the surface of the carbon/fiberglass as smooth as I wanted, so I decided that a bit of bondo and some paint would be the best option. The single color black or white did only so much, and so I ended up getting creative with it, and spending an enormous amount of time with the new airbrush toy that I got from my friend Donnell. Airbrushes are cool, but they're also a great way to kill an entire weekend. On the bike for Shiloh I ended up painting a sunset theme, fading from blue to orange to yellow and red. I tried to make it reminiscent of a midwestern sunset over a farm, and even got inspired to paint a little farmhouse and tree on one of the rear stays. It looked pretty good. On the bike for Levi, I was inspired by the pattern of the carbon weave on the stays and went with a trout pattern. I got some awesome greens, white and some pink coloration and was able to do what I consider to be a decent looking rendition of a trout. Marye has promised to send me some action pictures when Levi gets old enough to really make use of the bike. Both of the kids are a bit too young for the bikes, but I wanted to make good use of our brief stop in Minneapolis this Christmas.