Photo: Roel van Heur
The best way to teach your kids to love bicycles is to start them young with a balance bike. The surest way to ensure they will grow up to be proper bikers is to get them on a one-off BMW K75 balance bike.
Here’s a bike that you would be sorry to see hit the ground – and a kiddie bike that will make you regret you’re no longer a child yourself. It’s a one-off build by Dutch designer Roel van Heur, made entirely by hand, as the perfect companion to the dad’s BMW K 75. And it’s incredibly beautiful.
BikeExif says the idea came to van Heur when he found out that one of his friends, for whom he’d made a custom BMW K75, was having a baby boy. To celebrate, he set out to build a balance bike for the unborn kid, so the father-son duo could bond over their matching rides.
The result comes with incredible attention to detail and excellent craftmanship: a cafe racer balance bike that is sleek, svelte and minimalist, very high-quality and solid.
van Heur designed the model in SolidWorks and, once that out of the way, went out and bought stainless steel tubing to build it. He used it for the frame and forks, which were bent, welded and hand-brushed in his garage. He even added 3D-printed plastic fork “boots” and gas tank, both of which are for show: the bike has no suspension and obviously no need for a gas tank. However, the latter parts can be unscrewed, removed and replaced with differently colored pieces, when the kid grows tired of this shade of green.
The designer included the BMW logo on the fake gas tank and his own on the top yoke. The headlight is a part from a classic car, modified to include a small LED powered by a battery hidden in the stem. Standard 12” balance bike wheels are wrapped in Kenda tires, and there’s a comfy mini Velo seat.
“If this won't help him to grow up to be a biker, I don't know what will,” van Heur says.
The only bad thing about this cafe racer balance bike is that there is only one in the world.
BikeExif says the idea came to van Heur when he found out that one of his friends, for whom he’d made a custom BMW K75, was having a baby boy. To celebrate, he set out to build a balance bike for the unborn kid, so the father-son duo could bond over their matching rides.
The result comes with incredible attention to detail and excellent craftmanship: a cafe racer balance bike that is sleek, svelte and minimalist, very high-quality and solid.
van Heur designed the model in SolidWorks and, once that out of the way, went out and bought stainless steel tubing to build it. He used it for the frame and forks, which were bent, welded and hand-brushed in his garage. He even added 3D-printed plastic fork “boots” and gas tank, both of which are for show: the bike has no suspension and obviously no need for a gas tank. However, the latter parts can be unscrewed, removed and replaced with differently colored pieces, when the kid grows tired of this shade of green.
The designer included the BMW logo on the fake gas tank and his own on the top yoke. The headlight is a part from a classic car, modified to include a small LED powered by a battery hidden in the stem. Standard 12” balance bike wheels are wrapped in Kenda tires, and there’s a comfy mini Velo seat.
“If this won't help him to grow up to be a biker, I don't know what will,” van Heur says.
The only bad thing about this cafe racer balance bike is that there is only one in the world.
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