Customer Reviews

Atomic Zombie's Bicycle Builder's Bonanza

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A very, very, practical approach to diving in and building your own wierd bikes (and I thought I was the only one!) Doesn't assume much of any prior bike knowledge or skill. Also not clouded by any predujice or opinion on one type of biking vs, another - just focused on basic building and fun. Lots of cool projects and ideas - I feel "scooped" on a few. Check out the Atomic Zombie site for the latest cool tallbike.

Does assume that you have some basic tool and metalworking skills, but still beginner-friendly.

Covers weird bikes unlikely to be built by the average home builder-some seem to be of the "circus" origin. Deals with fabrication using steel bike parts from scrap.
Nevertheless, will spark your imagination to create your own. Shows detailed building of a low racer recumbent among other "designs".
Pictures are small, black & white, however the text is somewhat detailed.

If you are thinking about buying an unusual bike, buy this book first and you may decide to build it instead. There a several types described and this will get your creative juices flowing. I particularly like the Spincycle!

This is a really great book. Brad and Kathy really have written a very clear and easy to understand book. There is a good section on tools, safety and welding. With welding, you have to learn by doing. This book will now put my gas welder to good use. These bike projects are a great way to build welding skills. Just make sure the welds are good with good penetration on all sides before committing it to a road bike though. There are high speed bikes in this book that you don't want coming apart on a busy road. Because they use galvanized EMT conduit for some of the projects, I am glad to see there was a safety caution about the zinc oxide fumes if welding it. Zinc oxide is very dangerous, so follow all safety measures when welding or cutting anything galvanized. There is a great section on bike parts and taking a bike apart. I love books like these which give ideas on tinkering and building something great from someone's throwaways. There is really a goldmine of bike parts that are thrown away each week. I am now on the lookout for bikes. I have always wanted a recumbent, but the prices are ridiculous. Now I will be able to build one for a very low cost. There are tons of descriptive pictures to look at that clearly explain the text. If you are interested in tinkering, sharpening your welding skills, rescuing bikes from landfills, tearing apart bikes for parts, and building a unique (or your own design) bike from scrap parts, this book will not disappoint you. Well worth it and highly recommended. I can't wait for their other books to come out.

The main advantage of this book over his website is that it details pulling old bikes apart for salvaging useful components. For this reason alone it is worth buying to avoid the pitfalls when working things out for yourself. The included plans that are covered are OK for some practice work perhaps, or if you want to build a chopper style bike, but there are more appealing options on the website.

This book is OK for beginners. It has good welding, chopping and technical tips but no significant and attractive designs. The designs are outdated and honestly not something I want to be seen with in public. The online designs are much more attractive and up to date. So if you are a experienced welder and chopper just get the online designs. If you are just starting out this book will help you on the way. Hence the 3 stars. If, even some of, the designs where included the 5 stars would be appropriate.

The "Atomic Zombie's Bicycle Builder's Bonanza" is a splendid book with great ideas about building bicycles.

Many of us consider bicycle frame building to be a high art; building a beautiful bicycle certainly takes training, skill, and patience. Brad Graham and Kathy McGowan, however, bring bicycle building down to a very practical level. There is nothing precious in this book.

They start with a series of chapters on very practical topics - setting up a workshop, acquiring raw materials, types of welders, and basic welding.

They then move on to topics that are more specific to bicycles - designing frames, stripping down bike parts, and chopping up old frames.

Throughout these chapters, they give good simple instructions and plenty of black-and-white photos. The writing style is very readable and the photos add much to the explanations. Even if you don't end up building your own bikes, you will end up learning much about bicycles.

The meat of the book, though, are the splendid designs of various bikes that Brad Graham has built. There are tall bikes, chopper bikes, recumbent bikes, and even tandems. I wish he would have included a few cargo bikes, but he certainly has presented quite a variety.

In summary, I much enjoyed reading this book and I learned much.

Really fun book. Full of projects and enough information to get you started on them. My only warning: The book won't really teach you to weld, and you won't be able to do any of the projects if you can't weld.

I'm a bike shop owner (mostly BMX) over here in sunny (?!) England and this book has really inspired me to finally get off my lazy behind and build something. I wasn't short of inspiration about WHAT to build, there just always seems to be something else that needs doing. I have a nice collection of donor machinery and of course, there's no shortage of components and tools. I have no excuse really!

Anyway, this is an extemely well written and inspiring book. I can honestly say that it's the most engaging bike-related book I own (and I own a LOT of bike books!).

The only problem I have now is that I'm looking around at the display bikes in the shop and visualising where I should cut them to obtain the most useful bits! Better sit down for a while and remind myself of what pays the bills!

Finally a book for the average person. I've already built my own Kool Kat. I'm still learning how to weld, but all of the pictures have really helped me come up with my own designs. This is the first book I've bought in a long time with tons of pics. I'll let you know how my spin cycle turns out. Yes, even chicks can build custom bikes, too! Keep up the great work Atomic Zombie. I look forward to more books in the future! When will the robot book be out? I want to get that one for my son. He thinks it's cool that his mom spends alot of time in our garage. We get to build things together and have fun thanks to your book. Hope you have a nice Christmas! Where the heck is Thunder Bay, Ontario???