How We Roll: Laird’s Chopper Tallbike

Here’s something cool, Laird Rickard’s Tallbike-chopper-tallbike. Sometimes it’s a chopper…

Other times it’s a tallbike. As you might guess from the photos, Laird lives and rides in the Bay area. Yes that is a trombone, cuz ya never know when a jam might break out.

There are certain advantages to riding a tallbike. Being high above the crowd is one. That people are trying less hard to kill you is another. Tallbikes seem to bring out the best in people, friendlier reactions, and less hate. Plus a better view of where Flock Of Seagulls are playing later.

I had never seen such a thing, so I was rather impressed. But apparently, there’s a bunch of information on the internet provided by people who do this sort of thing. Yes, It’s a thing. A thing that “Makers” make. You know how to weld? And grind? If so, all you’ll need is a “Huffy” or other department store suspension frame, steel for the extensions, and gas shocks for the up and down motion. The gas shocks come in different lengths and strengths, so you will need to be careful about selecting the right shocks for your weight and the bikes geometry.

And you’ll need to be able to fabricate an extension to the fork to create a chopper fork. Back in the day we used to cut the legs off of one fork and jam them onto the ends of another to create a chopper. But heck, if you can weld you can do pretty much whatever you want.

Simple as pie. Right? Well, you also need to extend the rear triangle. Laird did this with a piece of rectangular steel, but I’m sure you could use something else as long as it is strong and not too heavy.

Check out the video…here…