Usually, when you decide to build a special, you probably already know the style of bike that you want to make. But, unless you’re going to build everything from scratch, you’ll need to decide on the donor bike(s). Choice here maybe dictated by what you already own, what you can afford, or what’s currently available. But if you’re still undecided, you can have a play with many different designs and donors without spending any money.
Find or take photos of the potential donor bike. Stock, manufacturer’s photos, taken square on work very well and you can often find them on the internet. You can then import them into a CAD package and start sketching your ideas over the top. If you haven’t used CAD before, learning to use it will probably be both time consuming and frustrating. I think it’s worth the effort, but you may prefer to stay old school and print lots of copies of the donor bike and attack them with pen and pencil. You can now start to see how your project might look, how much modification and fabrication is needed, or ultimately, if you can’t get the look you want, you may need to rethink the donor.
