Tall Bike & Chopper Action – Out Your Backdoor

More Photos Below!Gallery
Tall bikes and choppers are key parts of the urban bike scene. They say “think outside the box” and “make your own fun.” They’re all homemade at this point. Well, there are production semi-choppers out there and I think there are a couple bike builders now making tall frames but this has to be rare in an already rare scene. The funny thing is that even though tallbikes are rare, they’re everywhere…tall bikes and choppers…every urban bike scene has em. And rightly so!

Tallbikes go with choppers like peas in a pod. Both are easy to make yourself then go out and have fun on.

I remember when I saw my first tallbike. I was visiting Chicago, having a beer downtown at night, when a tallbike went gliding by in the lamplight like it was an everyday thing. The rider had on a bookbag and helmet. La-dee-dah. I did a doubletake. Wow. Very cool.

CHUNK666 was one of the first urban bike clubs, along with the Black Label Bike Club. They’re into homebrew bike party action—bike jousting and the like. Beer and blood, as they say. Well, the BLBC is more the tough blood side. CHUNK is the fun blood.

(I note that choppers are also a big part of the custom lowrider scene, but we’ll stick with the recycled angle for this web snippet.)

These bikes are not too hard to make. You just use basic building skills and some recycled bike parts.

Here are some more links to tall bike culture:

*CHUNK666: www.dclxvi.org/chunk/what/index.html

*the history of tallbikes—from the 1800’s they’ve been a steady part of fringe bike culture—yet they’ve occasionally had a mainstream role to play, as when lamp-lighters used them. You could say that the need for parade bikes is mainstream in a way. Tall bikes have been a part of parades for, heck, over a century now. Bikes belong in parades! (I’d really love to see more bike action in parades. Parading bikes is a blast! Ride your craziest bike and show the public what’s what!) … www.johnnypayphone.net/tallbikes

*Rat Patrol: another early bike club. Who are they? Where did they come from? That’s what everyone wants to know… www.rat-patrol.org/Archives/History.html

*Tall bike pics of the Rat Patrol: www.geocities.com/ratpatrolhq/BikesTall.html

*The “Atomic Zombie” book has good step-by-steps on building tallbikes and chopppers (I have a copy of this rare book for sale in my Bike Products section): www.atomiczombie.com/gallery-tallbike.htm

*How to: www.instructables.com/id/Building-a-better-Tall-Bike/

*Pretty webpage—not much content—but a sweet t-shirt: www.tallbikeposse.com/inside/