The bike and this web page were created by Kent Peterson. If you have questions or comments, please send me email at kentsbike@fastmail.fm
First, about the name. I tend to name all my bicycles. Usually, the names come to me based on some characteristic of the bicycle. I have a bike named "Blue", another one called "The Iron Cow" and a third called "The Fast Pig". In the case of William Burroughs, the bike is named after the author of such books as Junky, Interzone, and Naked Lunch. The name began as pun -- I'd been refering to my bike as my old junky bike and Burroughs was the archtypical old junky. But Burroughs wrote through his addictions and his demons and also created various works he called "cut ups". Cut ups were the reconstructed bits of other writings, recombined in ways the original authors could have never anticipated. And somehow junk addiction and cut up recombination all fit real well with a bike built mostly from discards.
And now it's time for the disclaimer. This web page describes how I constructed a recumbent bicycle from junk. I'm a 5'6", 140 lb guy with pretty strong legs and a well-developed sense of adventure. This bike has worked fine for me but it could fall to pieces tomorrow just as I'm pulling in front of a big truck. If you are crazy enough to try building one of these things, I won't stop you, but I also won't pay for your medical expenses or funeral if you miscalculate.
William Burroughs in front of a dumpster.
William Burroughs began life as a mixte frame Follis bicycle. The Follis was a bit rusty and neglected. My friend Kevin rescued it from a thrift store and bequeathed it to me. I combined it with other parts I'd gathered from dumpsters, my buddy Joe's scrap pile, thrift stores, hardware stores, auto parts stores and a wonderful Seattle bicycle shop called Recycled Cycles. The result is a comfortable, speedy, roadworthy pile of junk. In the past two weeks, I've logged over 300 miles on William Burroughs and I've had the bike up to 34.5 mph without it falling to pieces. I consider it a success.
One of the main principles I stuck to in building the bike was to keep it junky. With the exception of some bolts and clamps, everything on the bike is rather well-worn. Once I finished the bike I did buy it a nice new speedometer, but it was the cheapest one Avocet makes.
Another thing I wanted to do with this bike was build it without having to do any welding or brazing. I have friends with brazing torches and welding sets but I know a lot of folks don't have such things and I was curious what kind of a bike I could put together using simple tools and a bit of imagination.
The bike is patterned off of some very successful commercial recumbent bicycles, specifically the Lightning P-38 and the Rans V-Rex. Of course, both of those bikes are very nice high performance machines and are rolling works of art, while William Burroughs has more of a home-spun quality about him.
The first step in building the bike was removing things that I didn't need from the Follis bicycle. I removed the 27" front wheel, the handlebars, the cranks, the front derailler, the seat and the front brake.
Next I installed a 20" BMX wheel in the 27" mixte frame fork and I used some steel mending plates to fashion a bolt-on lower brake bridge on the fork. I then re-located the front brake to this lower location.
So I could install a laid back back rest, I cut the seat stays behind the seat cluster and bent the top half of the seat tube back towards the rear wheel. I then secured the seat stay stubs to the rest of the stays with hose clamps. I took a backpack frame and lashed and bolted it to the bent portion of the seat tube and I lashed a seat from a discarded excercise bicycle to the top of the mixte tubes.
I made the front boom of the bike from the rear triangle of an old Raleigh road bike. I used my trusty hacksaw to slice through the Raleigh's seat stays just behind the seat cluster, the seat tube 8" above the bottom bracket and the down tube 8" ahead of the bottom bracket. I also cut out the brake bridge between the seat stays. Next I bent the seat stays down until they rested on either side of the seat tube stub, just above the front derailler. I also squeezed the dropouts together until what had been the wheel gap was just wide enough to go on either side of the head tube of the Follis. I then took a whole bunch of U-bolts, regular bolts and steel mending plates and clamped the assembly to the front of the bike.
To route the chain, I used one home made roller (made from a couple of hunks of plastic and a stub of PVC tubing) and a couple of lengths of black poly sprinkler tubing. The roller attaches to the bottom bracket of the Follis and the tubing is held in place with a couple of inner tube bands and keeps the chain from scraping the fork.
A set of scrap handlebars from Joe's junk pile, some foam to pad the seat, cables and levers culled from various bike carcases and a couple of stickers provided the finishing touches the bike needed.
A close-up of the boom attachment clamps. The general principle is "more is better".
A close up of the front of the boom. The white things that look like marshmallows are pieces of styrofoam that I wedged in the tubes to keep water out. A better solution would be rubber furniture feet.
A close up of the chopped seat stays. Note the generous use of hose clamps and the upside-down routing of the brake cable.
A close up of the downtube. The names of the original bikes have been covered to protect the innocent, express the basic design principle and discourage thieves.
A front view of William Burroughs. The backrest is a thrift store backpack frame. The lumbar support and extra seat padding are provided by scraps of closed-cell foam held in place with big rubber bands cut from discarded inner tubes.
Me and William Burroughs. William is now my primary bike for my 15 mile round trip daily commute, so I have him decked out with fenders, lights and a rack. The bike tips the scales at right around 40 lbs, which surprised me because it handles like a much lighter bike.
Here are the basic stats for William Burroughs:
Wheel size 27" rear, 20" front
Wheelbase 41"
Bottom Bracket Height 27"
Seat Height 26"
Seat Recline Angle 135 degrees (where 180 degrees is horizontal)
Weight 40 lbs