Our Reader’s Rig of the week comes from Harry in Vancouver, Canada, who shares his self-built Brodie Alpha mini-velo with a BMX fork and 20″ wheels. Meet Harry and check out his pint-sized city ripper here…

Words by Harry, photos by Patches Flores

Hi, I’m Harry. I make bike things when I have the time under the name “BikeCrud” in Vancouver, Canada. Most of them have an emphasis on fun or make me laugh while making them. Mostly bags, but when I have the chance, metal things as well. I don’t bikepack as much as I would like to, but I still love ripping around the city and the north shore.

This project initially started by taking an old 26er frame and trying to make a cycle truck out of it, along the lines of “Carving a spoon from an even bigger spoon.” I elongated the headtube by adding a chunk of 1.5/16 tubing and notching/bending the downtube at the bottom bracket. For the fork, I took a 1” BMX fork and added a length of 1 ⅛ tubing overtop of the steerer.

When I changed my mind from cycle truck to mini-velo, I wanted to have a really tucked rear. All the standard mini-velos seemed to favour normal length, and I thought it would be fun if it rode like a track bike. I cut the chain stays and bent the seat stays in, telescoping the chain stays into themselves for “extra reinforcement.”

• Frame: Brodie Alpha
• Fork: Mongoose BMX
• Wheels: Rockbao 20”
• Tires: 20 x 2.0″ Schwalbe Big Apple
• Handlebars: No Name
• Headset: FSA
• Crankset: 52/42 on a Deore spider
• Pedals: Race Face
• Cassette: SRAM 8 speed 11-25
• Derailleur(s): Shimano Deore LX 8-speed
• Brakes: Tektro
• Shifter(s): STX 8-speed rapid fire / Shimano thumbie
• Saddle: Selle Italia Flite
• Seatpost: No name carbon
• Stem: Bontrager 110
• Other accessories: Watermelon reflector

For context, I don’t have a shop, so my fabrication takes place on my back porch. I use a Princess Auto 120v stick welder (so I don’t have to store consumable gases), which is great for farm equipment but not bicycles. I wrap my welds in JB SteelStik as some sort of mental reinforcement. How this stuff bonds to steel and aluminum with a rated strength of 4000 PSI is beyond me. I should probably say I DO NOT RECOMMEND DOING ANY OF THIS. I’m fully aware this might break at any minute, and I only make janky things for myself to ride.

The end result is pretty fun and funny. I was so focused on having a really tucked rear that the front end rides like a chopper. I enjoy this aspect of a project. Setting out with an idea, seeing if it can be done, and just accepting/learning from whatever outcome. The build kit is almost all parts from the local co-ops except the wheelset, which was $100 CAD shipped from the depths of the web. 

You can find more from Harry on Instagram.

Further Reading

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