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316 stainless blade pegs, as fitted to 3 Finger Eddy, now available to order for your build ... #custompegs #316stainless #footpegs #bikesRbuiltnotbought #bikebuilder #custombike
27 Likes on Instagram
2 Comments on Instagram:
thehumboldtcorner: Hmmmmm!!
rocketbobs: LMAO:D a tad sharp? Honest the grip you get on them is amazing ;)
KONSTRUCTIVE SMARAGD
High-Performance 29er Mountain Bike
•Fortschrittlichste Carbon-Fertigungsmethoden
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: SMARAGD XT ELITE Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: Large / 10 kg / 1.150 g
Design Style: Konstructive Ruby Red und Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel halb lackiert
High-Performance 29er Mountain-Bike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: SMARAGD XT ELITE Bike
Size / Bike weight / Frame weight: Large / 10 kg / 1.150 g
Design Style and color: Konstructive Ruby Red and Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel half painted
COMPANY NAME
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on all important details. The era of individualisation has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
We offer products and individual solutions that make cyclists happy.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
UNTERNEHMEN
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bietet komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und das Gewicht des Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
Wir möchten mit unseren Produkten und Lösungen ambitionierte Fahrradfahrer begeistern.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. We develop high-performance carbon and steel bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. Bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, and Mountain Bikes. KONSTRUCTIVE custom dream bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany, and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Quality is king.
KONSTRUCTIVE Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Die Entwicklung und Produktion von KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES findet in Europa statt, um die gewünschte Qualität und Leistungsfähigkeit zu gewährleisten.
S&S Dual Throat velocity stacks. 316 stainless, knife edged and mega short . . . #s&s #dualthroat #velocitystacks #bikebuilder
15 Likes on Instagram
6 Comments on Instagram:
winston_yeh: #godofcustombike
rocketbobs: @winston_yeh #thelordwinstonofcooldesign
den_olivia: @rocketbobs I'd love these on my build shame I can't have them :-(
mixtacy622: I feel your pain @den_olivia i ve sent him 4 of these things and im still runnin a super e
den_olivia: @mixtacy622 damn that's not right
rocketbobs: @den_olivia @mixtacy622 STOPPIT!! NOW YA BASTARDS
KONSTRUCTIVE SMARAGD
High-Performance 29er Mountain Bike
•Fortschrittlichste Carbon-Fertigungsmethoden
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: SMARAGD XT ELITE Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: Large / 10 kg / 1.150 g
Design Style: Konstructive Ruby Red und Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel halb lackiert
High-Performance 29er Mountain-Bike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: SMARAGD XT ELITE Bike
Size / Bike weight / Frame weight: Large / 10 kg / 1.150 g
Design Style and color: Konstructive Ruby Red and Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel half painted
COMPANY NAME
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on all important details. The era of individualisation has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
We offer products and individual solutions that make cyclists happy.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
UNTERNEHMEN
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bietet komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und das Gewicht des Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
Wir möchten mit unseren Produkten und Lösungen ambitionierte Fahrradfahrer begeistern.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. We develop high-performance carbon and steel bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. Bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, and Mountain Bikes. KONSTRUCTIVE custom dream bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany, and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Quality is king.
KONSTRUCTIVE Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Die Entwicklung und Produktion von KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES findet in Europa statt, um die gewünschte Qualität und Leistungsfähigkeit zu gewährleisten.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
KONSTRUCTIVE TANZANITE
High-Performance 29er All-Mountain Bike
•Fortschrittlicher Stahlrahmen
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: TANZANITE X01 PRO Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: Large / 9,6 kg / 2.250 g
Design Style: Konstructive Pure Steel Rahmen und Gabel
High-Performance 29er Mountain-Bike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: TANZANITE X01 PRO Bike
Size / Bike weight / Frame weight: Large / 9,6 kg / 2.250 g
Design Style and color: Konstructive Pure Steel Frame
COMPANY NAME
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on all important details. The era of individualisation has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
We offer products and individual solutions that make cyclists happy.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
UNTERNEHMEN
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bietet komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und das Gewicht des Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
Wir möchten mit unseren Produkten und Lösungen ambitionierte Fahrradfahrer begeistern.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. We develop high-performance carbon and steel bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. Bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, and Mountain Bikes. KONSTRUCTIVE custom dream bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany, and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Quality is king.
KONSTRUCTIVE Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Die Entwicklung und Produktion von KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES findet in Europa statt, um die gewünschte Qualität und Leistungsfähigkeit zu gewährleisten.
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
KONSTRUCTIVE ZEOLITE
High-Performance Cyclo-Cross-Bike
•Fortschrittlichste Carbon-Fertigungsmethoden
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: ZEOLITE ULTEGRA ELITE Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: 60 cm / 7,9 kg / 1.190 g
Design Style: Konstructive Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel
High-Performance Cyclo-Cross-Bike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: ZEOLITE ULTEGRA ELITE Bike
Size / Bike weight / Frame weight: 60 cm / 7,9 kg / 1.190 g
Design Style and color: Konstructive Pure Carbon Frame and Fork
COMPANY NAME
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on all important details. The era of individualisation has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
We offer products and individual solutions that make cyclists happy.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
UNTERNEHMEN
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bietet komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und das Gewicht des Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
Wir möchten mit unseren Produkten und Lösungen ambitionierte Fahrradfahrer begeistern.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. We develop high-performance carbon and steel bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. Bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, and Mountain Bikes. KONSTRUCTIVE custom dream bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany, and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Quality is king.
KONSTRUCTIVE Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Die Entwicklung und Produktion von KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES findet in Europa statt, um die gewünschte Qualität und Leistungsfähigkeit zu gewährleisten.
KONSTRUCTIVE IOLITE
High-Performance 29er Mountain Bike
•Fortschrittlichste Carbon-Fertigungsmethoden
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: IOLITE XX1 PRO Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: Large / 8,3 kg / 1.150 g
Design Style: Konstructive Pearl White und Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel halb lackiert
High-Performance 29er Mountain-Bike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: IOLITE XX1 PRO Bike
Size / Bike weight / Frame weight: Large / 8,3 kg / 1.150 g
Design Style and color: Konstructive Pearl White and Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel half painted
COMPANY NAME
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on all important details. The era of individualisation has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
We offer products and individual solutions that make cyclists happy.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
UNTERNEHMEN
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bietet komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und das Gewicht des Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
Wir möchten mit unseren Produkten und Lösungen ambitionierte Fahrradfahrer begeistern.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. We develop high-performance carbon and steel bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. Bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, and Mountain Bikes. KONSTRUCTIVE custom dream bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany, and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Quality is king.
KONSTRUCTIVE Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Die Entwicklung und Produktion von KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES findet in Europa statt, um die gewünschte Qualität und Leistungsfähigkeit zu gewährleisten.
Tank work... #newlogo #artpaint #custombike #bikebuilder #shovelhead #teeshirtsoutsoon
46 Likes on Instagram
KONSTRUCTIVE RHODOLITE
High-Performance Rennrad
•Fortschrittlichste Carbon-Fertigungsmethoden
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: RHODOLITE RED PRO Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: 56 cm / 6,3 kg / 850 g
Design Style: Konstructive Onyx Black und Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel halb lackiert
High-Performance Roadbike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: RHODOLITE RED PRO Bike
Size / Weight of the bike / Weight of the frame: 56 cm / 6,3 kg / 850 g
Design Style: Konstructive Onyx Black and Pure Carbon Frame and Fork half painted
COMPANY NAME
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on all important details. The era of individualisation has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
We offer products and individual solutions that make cyclists happy.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
UNTERNEHMEN
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bietet komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und das Gewicht des Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
MISSION
Wir möchten mit unseren Produkten und Lösungen ambitionierte Fahrradfahrer begeistern.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. We develop high-performance carbon and steel bikes, high-end accessories and functional clothing. Bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, and Mountain Bikes. KONSTRUCTIVE custom dream bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany, and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Quality is king.
KONSTRUCTIVE Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Die Entwicklung und Produktion von KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES findet in Europa statt, um die gewünschte Qualität und Leistungsfähigkeit zu gewährleisten.
I had the privilege of shooting some promo photos for the guys down at Sacred Steel Motorcycles in Los Angeles. Here's a detail shot of one of their rad new builds called Indigo Moon that was featured in the first episode of their new TV show on the Discovery Channel, 'Sacred Steel Bikes'. Check it out Mondays on Discovery and help support some good dudes who build old school choppers right!
Photo/©: Travis Haight Photography
LA, CA
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
I felt very emotional about this award. Because it was not for the best looking Sunflower on a townie bike's wicker basket with nice colour path ways, this Blue was judged by some very experienced life time frame builders. Yeah, I teared up a wee bit.
Slow progress cleaning the surface rust off the frame, gently using a scotch brite kitchen scourer. The head stock had been hung in a tub full of vinegar for a couple of days, with little effect. It's reassuring to see there is something under all that surface rust.
So long 2014, killer year, too good. All due to the people, friends, customers who support us, massive love hope 2015 is ace for all of us ... #bullfrogrun #custombike #bikebuilder #rocketbobs #2015isgonnakill #originaldesignsonly #ertw #ifyouregonnabuildabikeyouneedanengineer
26 Likes on Instagram
10 Comments on Instagram:
smacu1: How bout a breakout fender that will accept a 2up oem seat
rocketbobs: @smacu1 it's definitely the next part we are making ;)
rocketbobs: @den_olivia we are gonna have a blast 😘😘
smacu1: Along with the oem turn signals
smacu1: Pete ... This is impressive as another jamo and ginger goes down
rocketbobs: @smacu1 LMAO :D happy new year dude 😄
thehumboldtcorner: My bike will be ready on wendesday Wich happens to be calling for 60 degrees whoop whoop I will be out it is lookin great ;) happy new year brother !!
rocketbobs: @thehumboldtcorner ace 😄 lookin forward to seeing it Bud
KONSTRUCTIVE RHODOLITE
High-Performance Rennrad
•Fortschrittlichste Carbon-Fertigungsmethoden
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: RHODOLITE RED PRO Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: 56 cm / 6,3 kg / 850 g
Design Style: Konstructive Gold und Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel halb lackiert
High-Performance Roadbike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: RHODOLITE RED PRO Bike
Size / Weight of the bike / Weight of the frame: 56 cm / 6,3 kg / 850 g
Design Style: Konstructive Onyx Black and Pure Carbon Frame and Fork half painted
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
Konstructive_Cycles_Berlin_Kalender_2017
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive_Cycles_Berlin_Kalender_2017
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
I felt very emotional about this award. Because it was not for the best looking Sunflower on a townie bike's wicker basket with nice colour path ways, this Blue was judged by some very experienced life time frame builders. Yeah, I teared up a wee bit.
Frame rollin for the flathead #indiaro #bikebuilder #amd #worldchampionship #custombike #t45 isaidt45baby
8 Likes on Instagram
1 Comments on Instagram:
rocketbobs: #rats
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
Konstructive_Cycles_Berlin_Kalender_2017
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike:
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
KONSTRUCTIVE RHODOLITE
High-Performance Rennrad
•Fortschrittlichste Carbon-Fertigungsmethoden
•Handmade in Europa
•Beste Schwingungsdämpfungs- und Komfortwerte
•Optimales Steifigkeits- zu Gewichtsverhältnis
•Wählbare Ausstattungsvarianten für das individuelle DREAMBIKE verfügbar.
•Optional: Fertigung nach Maß
TECHNISCHE DATEN DES ABGEBILDETEN BIKES
Modell: RHODOLITE RED PRO Bike
Größe / Gewicht Bike / Gewicht Rahmen: 56 cm / 6,3 kg / 850 g
Design Style: Konstructive Onyx Black und Pure Carbon Rahmen und Gabel halb lackiert
High-Performance Roadbike
•Most advanced carbon fabrication methods
•Developed in Germany, handmade in Europe
•Highly comfortable ride with very good damping characteristics
•Excellent stiffness-to-weight-ratio
•Large selection of configurable options to create the ultimate DREAM BIKE
•Extras: Custom tailored frame size and geometry
SPECIFICATIONS OF THE PICTURED BIKE
Model name: RHODOLITE RED PRO Bike
Size / Weight of the bike / Weight of the frame: 56 cm / 6,3 kg / 850 g
Design Style: Konstructive Onyx Black and Pure Carbon Frame and Fork half painted
Konstructive Cycles Berlin
Further details via Revolution Sports Distribution. www.revolutionsports.eu
WHO
Konstructive Cycles is a German cycling brand. Konstructive Custom Dream Bikes and accessories are designed in Berlin, Germany and hand made by the best craftsmen in Europe. Konstructive Cycles Berlin are distributed by RevolutionSports.eu.
WHAT
Konstructive Cycles develops high performance carbon and steel Bikes, components, high-end accessories and functional clothing. The bike categories include Road Bikes, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes as well as niche products. We offer complete bicycles with various build kit options and individual frames. Our products are for bike enthusiasts and weight conscious riders and racers (weight weenies).
WHY
Konstructive Cycles offers quality instead of quantity and focuses on the most important details. The era of individualization has started. Konstructive Cycles Berlin would like to build your exclusive Dream Bike tailored to your specific needs.
HOW
Get more information and start to configure your ultimate Dream Bike on our Website: www.konstructive.de.
Get in touch with us and support products made in Germany and Europe!
KONSTRUCTIVE CYCLES BERLIN
WER
Konstructive Cycles ist eine deutsche Marke Konstructive Cycles Berlin Produkte werden in Berlin entwickelt und gestaltet (Design Made in Germany) und von den besten Handwerkern in Europa gefertigt (Made in Europe). Die Firma RevolutionSports.eu vertreibt die hochwertige Dream Bikes (Traumbikes) und Zubehörprodukte.
WAS
Konstructive Cycles entwickelt Hochleistungs-Bikes aus Carbon und Stahl, Komponenten sowie exklusives Zubehör und Funktionsbekleidung. Zu den Bike-Kategorien zählen Rennräder, Cyclo-Cross Bikes, Mountain Bikes und zahlreiche Sonderlösungen. Wir bieten komplette Bikes mit vielfältigen Ausstattungsoptionen und einzelne Rahmen an. Unsere Produkte werden für Bike-Enthusiasten entwickelt, die besonderen Wert auf Qualität und ein niedriges Gewicht ihres Bikes legen.
WARUM
Konstructive Cycles bietet Klasse anstatt Massenware und legt großen Wert auf alle wichtigen Details. Für uns hat die Ära der Individualisierung begonnen. Konstructive Cycles fertigt Ihr individuelles Traumbike, zugeschnitten auf Ihre persönlichen Wünsche.
WIE
Nutzen Sie die Informationen auf unserer Website und konfigurieren Sie Ihr ultimatives Traumbike: www.konstructive.de.
Nehmen Sie Kontakt zu uns auf und unterstützen Sie Produkte aus Deutschland und Europa!
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.
From Lock Baker Builder of Icarus...The inspiration for Icarus was primarily to push my limits as an engine builder. You see, for years I only did the metal fabrication on my motorcycles, leaving the motor rebuilds to professionals.The problem was that the local professionals, in many instances, turned out to be unreliable, costly, and difficult to work with. I knew that in order to become a true bikebuilder I needed to master every aspect of bike construction. I had assembled a few engines in a conventional manner but nothing that proved I knew the true dynamics and intricacies of internal combustion. When you simply assemble a motor from a parts catalog you do not need to know much, other than how it all fits together. Look at a shop manual for the given engine type, follow the instructions, and presto—you have a running engine. This engine may not be a competitive race winner, but it will go down the road. I wanted to prove to myself, and mypeers, that I truly understood the mechanics and theories of internal combustion. The only way to do this was to design and build— not simply assemble—a custom engine.
I remember several years ago watching a TV program with Indian Larry. He was explaining one of his engines, one with two different Harley heads on a common crankcase. He said that he liked engines to be as bizarre and mechanical looking as possible, hence the two different heads. I couldn’t agree more! I thought that I could push that concept further still—by not usingHarley parts at all. This engine is a hybrid of different designs. The crankcase is Harley style. In other words it is a V-twin, single cam, 45-degree cylinder angle, with a gear driven breather system. The cylinders, pistons, and heads started life as Continental 0 200 parts. Continental is an aircraft engine company that primarily builds boxer style prop plane piston engines. The work involved in making this whole thing come together is too long a story to tell here, but I will cover some of the major challenges. The task of mating the cylinders to the case was a big one. Continental cylinders are “oversquare,” meaning that they have a larger bore than stroke. In this case, the bore is 41⁄8” while the stroke is only 31⁄2”. In order to make this fit the case, I needed a much larger “deck” area than a typical Harley. The cases I used were manufactured by Delkron, who were kind enough to sell them to me with a blank deck, meaning there were no stud holes. I also specified a case set up for a 1⁄4” extended pinion shaft, essentially moving the entire cam compartment over in order to make room for the increased cylinder base area. There are more differences between typical Harley cylinders and Continental cylinders. Continental cylinders have six base studs instead of the usual four, as well as an O-ring base gasket instead of a flat paper one. The base studs were a problem because two of the six studs per cylinder were located exactly where my tappet blocks were! To fix this I built up weld material outward from the deck area towards the tappet blocks then shaped them by hand, blending them into the case. This provided the extra meat I needed to accommodate these new base studs. The tappet blocks themselves then needed to be machined in order to have them fit this new deck modification. They barely fit!The connecting rods had to be custom made for a few reasons. The wrist pin was Continental and the crank pin was Harley style. Also, the distance between the two pins was much longer than a Harley. Carrillo was chosen to manufacture these custom rods, and after four months of waiting they showed up. They are the most beautiful rods I have ever seen: H-beam, shot-peened, perfect. The crank assembly was another challenge. Because of the short stroke the Continental cylinders called for, I needed to have custom flywheels made. You see, the only Harley flywheels to have a 31⁄2”stroke were 61” Knuckleheads. My crankcase calls for Evolution style pinion and sprocket shafts, meaning a corresponding set of flywheels. I called Truett & Osborn, a trusted flywheel manufacturer, and asked them if they could build these custom wheels around my custom connecting rods. Once they started, I received a phone call saying that because the stroke is so short, the nuts that hold the crank pin in place are too close to the sprocket and pinion shaft bases. Makes sense when you think about it. Luckily for me, they are cool people over there at T&O, and they came up with a neat solution: make a custom crank pin with smaller threaded ends, meaning they could use smaller nuts. Problem solved. Here’s another: Harleys have two different cylinder heads, a front and a rear. They are almost mirror images, allowing for both intake ports to be located across the street from one another. This allows them to use a common intake manifold and a single carb to feed both cylinders. Continental engines are boxer style, so every head and cylinder is exactly the same. When you take two of them and put them upright in a 45-degree configuration, they look like two rear Harley heads. This means a few things. I needed two custom-made intake manifolds and two carbs. I also needed a custom camshaft with the front two lobes reversed. In addition, the rocker arm ratio of the Continental is 1.2/1 while modern Harleys are 1.6/1. This would mean that in order for the valves to lift as much as Harley valves do, I would need a much higher lift cam. The cam design and construction was given to Redline Racing Cams out of California. It took over six months but they eventually nailed it. Thank you Redline! I could go on forever, but here is a basic synopsis of the other challenges: custom collapsible pushrods, custom intake manifolds, custom Lectron carbs, custom load bearing rocker boxes, cus-tom pushrod boots, custom top end oil drains, magneto re-degreed, custom exhaust, cylinder fins extensively clearanced, custom base studs and nuts, and I even had to make a custom valve spring compressor due to the fact that the cylinders and heads are permanently attached to each other! (No head gaskets.) The rest of the bike is every bit as wild as the engine. With the help of Acme Choppers, we made an entirely stainless steel frame in order to fit the taller engine. I made the hubs from scratch and had them laced to imported Morad rims from Spain. Bandit Machine Works provided the primary drive, which I modified to accommodate a 10-degree transmission plate tilt. This allowed me to get a fair lead on the final belt drive (an old Indian Larry trick). I also made the fuel tank from scratch out of aluminum (see past Iron- Works article for that one!). The fork is a shaved 35mm narrow glide. Everything else, including the bars, foot controls, fender struts, taillight, plumbing, seat, oil tank, and 4-bar pneumatic seat suspension were all made by me at Eastern Fabrications.I feel very satisfied with the final result. The engine runs like a top and the bike rides exactly the way I wanted it to —light, quick, agile and fun. It goes without saying that I had the help of a lot of talented and generous people. Mark Simiola, from Sterling Performance was instrumental in helping me calculate the length of the rods to get my desired compression ratio. He also
answered countless questions and helped me time the engine. Acme Choppers came through as usual with the bottom half of the frame. Clifford Frizzel from Esquire Machinehelped make the beautiful rocker boxes and decked the cases. Cooney Engraving did the custom badges that adorn the bike. Truett & Osborn, Carrillo, Delkron, and Redline all treated me with professionalism and kindness. I would like to thank all of you for your willingness to think outside the box with me. Oh yeah, the name. The story of Icarus comes from Greek myth. Icarus was the son of Daedalus, a craftsman who built a set of wings that allowed man to fly. Icarus was allowed to use the wings on one condition; that he not fly too close to the hot sun, as the wings were held together with wax. As Icarus flew he did not heed his father’s warning; the wax melted and he fell to his death. I chose the name because, by using aircraft parts, I was taking a risk. I knew that if I was not careful and diligent it would not work. Luckily, patience pays off and so, this Icarus Flies.