\\ KREIDLER 125

THE RETURN OF THE GERMAN BRAND KREIDLER..

This project was as mental as they come! I was asked by one of my best friends - Niels Peter Jensen, Ex Pro Freestyle and Downhill mountain bike legend and all round rad dude - to fly to Hamburg and build some bikes fro German motorcycle company Kreidler. That might not sound mental at all, but hang on and listen to the plan and the deadline…

The deadline was 7 days from the time of the call to when the bikes needed to be in Biarritz France - completed. Ok not too crazy yet but then the rest of the task was laid on me. I had to fly to Hamburg literally as soon as I got off the phone, go pick up a RV (that I’d be sleeping in for the next 3 weeks) and drive 2 hours to where we were building the bikes.

Still not too mad of a build, timewise it was tight but hey, I’m in we can do this. So then I got there, we got the RV we get to the “paintshop” not bikeshop and am told this is where we are building 5 bikes in now 6 days. 

Again OK, lets do this! I ask where the tools, machines, metal and other materials are we need. Im then met by Danny Schramm a cool custom painter and friend from SchrammWerk, and told we have half a tool box of broken hand tools, 2 grinders and 1m square sheet of 2mm steel sheet to work with. This task was getting more and more fun by the minute.

Then here is the real kicker the budget ….0.. and I only had 300 euros in my wallet and no access to more cash at the time!

So the wacky build begins like most other with a total strip down of the base bike and then some beer drinking and head scratchin as the design comes through.

As I was limited on resources and time and materials I had to think outside the box and luckily Danny had a tonne of old shit scooters and broken old motorcycle fairings from the 80s and 90s laying around. 

Rummaging around in a bin out back I stumbled across ¾ of a 1977 section from another actual Kreidler 80cc bike and then a belly pan bottom half of another fairing from yet again another old Kreidler in Danny’s scrap heap collection. With these two battered parts in hand I went down and taped them in place and started to imagine what we can do from there.

I’m not sure if it was the strong German beers or one of those eureka moments, but it just all came into place when I was working on the front end with Niels and we threw the belly pan upside-down and backwards over the frontend. The creative juices started flowing and my MAD MAX evil lil 125cc design was born.

I decided to go with rear dirt bike tires front and rear with tubes that then almost broke the budget and cost a whopping 240 euros out of my 300 and that was that. The design was done now was time to chop, grind, weld and beg borrow and steal as much as I could in the terms of lights, switches, clip-ons and grips that were kindly donated by www.louis.de for the project.

I spent the next 3 days working no stop on my bike and sleeping in the RV outside the door. 

4 days, 4 cases of beer, many horrid fast food meals and delightful sleepless nights later my bike was fully mocked up and ready for testing, strip down, paint and powder coating. 

I wish I could say that while all was in the hands of Danny the painter I could just focus on shaping the seat, but unfortunately, he was busy with his bike and I had to do the bodywork and paint prep myself, this was definitely not what I wanted to be doing this close to deadline. 

But I fixed, remoulded and got the prep done, I painted the motor with 4 coats and a whole case of black wrinkle paint and then finally left Danny to the final paint of the body parts. I finished shaping the seat and then realised that I had nothing to cover the seat with?? Shit!!, I searched hi and low in the paint shop with no luck. Then I thought Id cut up some of my clothes and use them but as I didn’t have much that matched the bike but then Danny’s wife came in and save the day. She had a fluffy black pillow with a red skull on it from their old speedboat and it was perfect. The last piece of the MAD MAX design and it all came together.

The rest I suppose was history, I finished the bike and the boys got the other four bikes done and dusted, we loaded the RVs and headed to Wheels & Waves for an epic road trip with the boys. We were happy (dead tired) but happy, Kreidler were happy and that for me was another job done! 

Here is the finished product and a prime example of what can be done in a week and on a shoestring budget with a group of cool friends with the same mind set!!