MD3 Productions

The view under the desk with lights to trace and draw on.

After 3 long nights of drilling, leveling, measuring, sanding, cutting, & racking our brains for every ounce of knowledge to solve constant problems, my friend Neal and I leave you with the ultimate tracing and drawing table. Able to be flat stacked, this beauty of balance & suspension can be taken apart in a matter minutes and weighs about 30 lbs (short of the glass).

You might ask, how in the world did you come up with the idea of a bicycle desk? To be honest, it’s valid question. When shopping for materials, I would often start the conversation with, “You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but I’m building a desk out of bicycles.” Usually, I would pause for about 10 seconds before saying, “Ok, has the shock worn off yet? How would you do this?”

The origin of this crazy piece of furniture all started when I had to get new bike tires. Upon returning to the bike shop, I noticed my old rims in the trash. Seeing my own waste contribute to our landfills made me wonder, what in the world could I do with something that had so much effort put into it but was being tossed like a paper napkin? I built this bike desk (formally known as a besk) to illustrate how we need to reuse things that had a lot of effort put into them instead of simply discarding them. Please, however, do not try to make a quilt out of used paper napkins.

Following is the process of ripping the bikes apart, planning out the framework and design, creating mock ups, and finally getting to the end product!

The raw material.

Scapel anyone?

The field of bike parts as we tore them apart.

These are what hold your wheels in? Huh ....

The pipe won't fit eh?

Our first try at seeing if this crazy idea will really work!

Now to make sure that our hole is where we want it.

So, threading a hole was interesting. Olive Oil anyone?

As we said, many many mockups to see if we were getting the results we wanted!

Just to prove you could almost fold the frame and throw it in the car!

Who needs levels with bubbles when you have an IPOD Touch?

One of the most amazing feelings .... to just plop the shelf on and see it be this level!

Another dry fit/mockup as we continued to check our progress.

Shaded area is a possible intersection for the screws.

If you can't tell ... we found an awesome use for the dremel on discarded pieces!

After cutting the original lamp down, we reused it for tracing. Good old JB Weld & temporary shoring!

So you might be asking, how do you slope the glass right. Very carefully.

Those bent angles lead to this surface which is able to hold paper without it sliding!

The final product from the top!

I’d really like to say thanks to a lot of people. I’m sure this list will grow as time goes on:

• Neal Tudor: The man who helped me every night I did this and gave me fresh ideas on everything from drilling to this blog post. Neal, you are the man and truly a great friend. As I told him, it’s his turn to design something next!
• Luke Stutler: Yeah, nothing great ever comes around without the right tools. Thanks for your awesome patience!
• Kevin Park/Roomies: For having the guts to say I would never get this done. They’ll never know how their words made me say … watch this!
• My Grandfather: For having the patience to hear me ramble on about how I was going to do it and actually giving me ideas to work with when everyone else told me good luck.
• Betsy @ Lowes: For giving me the scoop on an awesome paint & glass store.
• Andrew @ Oakley Paint & Glass: For being excited about the project and having faith that some guy he’s never met or seen is actually building a desk out of bicycles and needed glass.
• Rich Pohana: For giving me the winning idea on how to get cheap bicycles.
• Brian Bruner: For helping me with the winning idea on how to get cheap bicycles!
• CDOTE Department: For trying to give me tons of places to look for support and bicycle frames. I really appreciate all of your efforts in trying to help find parts in this crazy adventure!
• Lowes @ Ridge Ave: For their continual support & encouragement by asking how the project was going! Honestly guys your expertise really saved the project a couple of times!
• My Parents: For asking the question, and why are you doing this again?
• Anyone who listened to this idea and said …. really?!! Send me pictures!

I appreciate everyone’s efforts. Remember that no one person can build anything! I really appreciate everyone’s help with this project look forward to coming up with something even more crazy in the future! Neal, you are a trooper and a true friend. I appreciate every ounce of effort you put in to helping me with this. I honestly don’t think I could have done it without you man.