Atomic Zombie's Bicycle Builder's Bonanza

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.

I enjoyed reading Brad Graham's Bicycle Building book. I picked-up many good ideas from his unique and sometimes radical bicycle constructions. Most of the critics of this book stated their disappointment because there weren't enough details or measurements for the modifications listed in the book. Please! If you are half-way mechanically inclined the photos from each chapter is enough! The book is meant to inspire and show the would-be tinkerer what can be accomplished with basic tools and an open mind. I enjoyed his electric scooter (Sparky) build which encouraged me to build a 3 wheeled electric scooter for my nephew. I was astonished when I saw the chapter on building a 3 wheeled chopper bike that used automobile tires mounted on bike spokes! Brad shows that it doesn't take a huge shop with fancy tools to create a custom bike. As he states in the book that his most used tools was a grinder and a file. 388 pages of beautiful rolling creations easily constructed by any DIY-er.

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.

While the name of the book triggered an automatic inspection by US Customs (crazy, but there it is) it's worth the slight delay. No matter if you've never touched a welder before or you're an expert, this book is good value. From advice on sourcing parts from busted bikes found thrown out on the side of the road through to inventive ideas on putting the parts back together, it's in there. Combine that with a copy of Bike, Scooter, and Chopper Projects for the Evil Genius by the same author (and Kathy McGowan) and you'll be wowing people on your custom wheels pretty fast. Then if you want to go further, pop over to the Atomic Zombie page, browse through the free plans and tutorials or even buy some of their other plans.

The author conveys his enthusiasm for bike building. He also gets newbies introduced to the basics of a rather simple hobby (once you conquer the art of welding). Other than that I am not fond of this book. It lacks really beneficial tips. If you have space to tear bikes apart and experiment then you will learn everything in this book after only a few projects (and probably lots more). I also don't like how the author is so obsessed with steel bikes. Yes, I know steel is much easier to weld than aluminum, but if you want to create high performance bikes you gotta go aluminum!

I've read the first 2 chapters. These are simpler bike modifications that can be done. I probably not read the other chapters. My bicycle idea is not that extreme.

Just finished reading Atomic Zombie's Bicycle Builder's Bonanza, and loved it. I can't wait for warmer weather to start skoping out bikes to start working on. My boys are reading it and already have their "wish list" of favorites that they want to build.Brad did a good job of including all info needed to build the bikes shown. Learning from his experience and mistakes is going to make all it the more enjoyable putting together that first custom bike.Now I want to see a followup book that gives even more plans.

Well, if you've read Brad's "Bike, Scooter, and Chopper projects, you're already familiar with their plain language, do it simply and at low-cost philosophy for buiding cycles of all types. The same is true in this book. However, as with the first book, if you have already purchased a number of the many plans sets offered by Atomic Zombie, you'll find that a lot of the same material appears in both places. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something to be aware of if you've already purchased plans, participated in their online forum, and sparked up the welder to assemble a custom ride. Still a very interesting read whether you're a newcomer or an experienced hand.

A very interesting book. I don't think I will build my own wheeled bike, but there are other projects where the techniques presented may be relevant, if I ever have the time or space. I suspect that though the safety aspect was strongly emphasised, there are risks that some will still hurt themselves, though if readers do take risks by choice, that is their decision.The use of conduit for bike frames will certainly be cheaper than using purpose designed frame tubing, the cost will be in extra weight, it's a matter of what you want to do and what you can afford.A good, interesting and entertaining book, even if the sky bike is much too tall for my liking, and I'm probably not going to build any of the bikes in the book.

This book is really easy to read, there's tons of pictures explaining what's going on. It's a really good book if you're either totally new to building cheap bikes or you need some inspiration to break down your traditional cycling inhibitions.If you're a more experienced tinkerer you might find the book a bit basic and going on and on a bit, but remember, the book is aimed at beginners. You can still wet your appetite and start thinking of projects.The book is slightly outdated as today prices for MIG welders etc have come down a bit and I would rather recommend a MIG welder rather than the MMA suggested in the book - still the MMA welder is cheaper - and cheap is what the book is about. Also I've not tried to find the "electrical conduits" in UK that Brad is using for his bikes, if they're not common in UK, then sourcing materials could be a bit of a slow-down in your projects.Final point is that if you are, like me, metric, then you'll find the imperial measurements a bit frustrating, but nothing a calculator or measuring tape can figure out.All in all, a good read for the newbie or for inspiration, could do with an update.

Great item as described

Disappointed me!Bit to basic for me and the included plans are not interesting. Unlike the fantastic plans on their site but for total beginners may be a good book