Paul’s Wooden Bike

Paul is very passionate about cycling and has been on a bike all his life. He has sampled various disciplines such as cross country, enduro and track. When it came to choosing his leaving cert wood work project in September 2014, he wanted his passion for cycling to be at the core of it. The idea to build a wooden bike was devised.

After some initial hesitation, he approached his wood work teacher and explained the design concept. Under normal circumstances his teacher would have refused him, but in Paul’s case the teacher gave his full support for the project. With his teachers blessing, he started to hatch his plan to build the bike. Starting in September 2014, the plan was to have the bike built and assembled for his submission date in May 2015. To achieve this goal, he calculated that he would need to spend approximately 3 hours a week on the bike

His original design had the bike built from Ash. It became apparent quite quickly that using Ash was impractical. Ash is only available in planks and Paul required a wood that was available in sheets. If Paul had persevered with Ash, it would have meant him having to construct 12 separate parts to build the bike. That would have equated to three times his original work load.

After much research, Paul settled on Marine Grade Plywood. This particular wood is non porous, but more importantly is available in sheets allowing him to build the bike in 5 separate parts. Using a router, he started cutting out the different pieces. In order to reach the desired width, Paul laminated 3 sheets of plywood, 2 x 30mm with 1 x 10mm in the middle. The most difficult part would be the metal drop outs in the rear triangle. They had to be designed to fit into the wooden frame and this was outside Paul’s skill set. In the end he received the assistance of a steel fabricator who produced the parts. Once this hurdle was overcome, he cracked on with the rest of the build. He used a bottom bracket from a Jupiter Atlas. The headset bearings were also taken from the Jupiter Atlas. He finished the bike off by applying 3 coats of ‘Danish Oil Varnish’. This particular varnish helped magnify the grain of the wood.

Paul’s enthusiasm for the project was so much; he finished the bike one week ahead of schedule. At a loose end and with some spare wood left over, he decided to build a bike stand to accompany the bike. Paul submitted his work in May 2015, and was awarded an A1 for his project.