Michal’s Longtail

Michal got in touch with me having seen Phil’s long tail bike that I made five years ago.He was keen for his own. That bike had been made at a time when my frame fixture hadn’t been able to accommodate such a long chainstay length, so I’d made the rear end by essentially building a series of “forks” on my fork jig, all with my signature twin plate crowns. My new fixture can do whatever length chain stays I need (up to 1700mm I think. That’s… pretty long) but Michal really liked the design and wanted to keep it, so we did.

Beyond the sizing, there were a few changes from the bike I made before. The streering look is my spring loaded version now, the rack was made with curved tubes and I machined an aluminium chain tensioner to help keep everything taut and quiet. There are removable aluminium footpegs for passengers, alongside a mini grab bar bolted to the seatpost. Upfront there’s a Carrier rack set to boost the cargo capacity further. The top of the rack is made from Richlite, a fully waterproof material made from compressed layers of recycled paper that was originally developed as an architectural cladding material.

Finally, it’s simply powdercoated black, referencing Michal’s grandmother’s town bike, made in 1937.