She Won A National Championship On A Bike Her Fiancé Gave Her. But That’s Not Even The Best Part!

What this man did for his fiancée is beyond words. Well, there is one word … keeper.

This man gave his girlfriend (future wife) a remarkable gift for when they were both in college. His girlfriend was on their college’s cycling team and she needed a time trial bike to compete at the national championships.

He could have gone out and bought one for her, but he did something unique and amazing instead … he offered to design and build a bike for her. From scratch!

Time trial bike racing is a subset of road racing where cyclists race against the clock and the bikes are designed aerodynamically so they go fast!

“I was finishing my master’s thesis, and neither of us had a lot of money, but I had a lot of free time and access to the college of engineering’s machine shop,” he explained. “I wasn’t satisfied with the half-assed budget Time Trial bikes of the day, so I offered to design and build her a bike.”

He first drew up a sketch of the frame in Autodesk Inventor. The bike was designed specifically to to fit his wife’s frame.

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He then began machining all the parts he would need, using a vertical mill with hybrid CNC controls.

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The next step was to weld the parts of the frame together.

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He spent many days practicing how to weld aluminum so that he could build the bike properly.

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He then sanded down the joints and built them up with Bondo body filler. “It was meant as an aero bike, not a light bike, but the total frame weight before paint was 2.75 pounds,” he said.

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The bike chain, seat, brakes and other parts were assembled.

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The creator examined his creation!

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And then it was time for a test ride!

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She liked it!

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The bike still needed painting. Several layers of high-fill primer, airbrushing, clear coating and flat black enamel created the final look.

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The bike was finished!  “It turned out to be a very lengthy, involved process, but I learned a whole lot from it,” he wrote. He now works as an engineer for a bicycle company and his wife…

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…she won the women’s team time trial national championship that year riding her new bike!

These photos and story were published on Reshareworthy.com with permission from Wolfram.

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