How to build a street luge? (streetluge)

Building a "Go Fast BodyRocket" street luge

This article describes the different stages of the construction of a "SLED" street luge. I hope that my experience will serve you and help you in the future if you decide one day to start building your own luge. You may notice that I am not so creative since I used Tim Cayer's design called "BodyRocket" (on sale @ www.irssports.com ), our partner. I personaly want to thanks my brother for his great help, and the partners of Streetluging.net which are Go Fast Sports, Kryptonics, Randal and Irssports.com for their support.

Stage 1: choosing a streetluge design

I immediately opted for a street luge that could be composed of 3 parts, it's much more practical to carry and to put away. Indeed most of the pegged luges are more than 2 meters long and weigh around 12 kg.
After having a glance at different street luge designs, I decided to start building a "SLED" made of aluminium, which means that the seat pan is supporting most of the rider's weight. I was particularly attracted by the BodyRocket, a street luge builr by Tim Cayer, owner of an online street luge shop Irssports.com. The BodyRocket has already proven its efficiency by taking part in several big events and making good results (Xgames, silver medal at the Australien Planet Xgames...).

Bodyrocket on sale @ Irssports.com

There was only one thing left to do: making plans. The green lines represent the soldereed joints and the blue lines symbolizes the holes' axles.

Plan

Stage 2: the aluminium

Since the seatpan must resist the weight of the luger, I chose a 6mm thick pan to make the luge rigid enough but with a bit of flex though. The "U" aluminium channels have also a thickness of 6mm, 76mm wide and 40mm high. The aluminium is coming from the USA (www.irssports.com) because in France it is really difficult to find affordable aluminium, they only often sell large aluminium plates and 6 meterso of channel.

My package finally in France!

Stage 3: Cutting

At the beginning, I was planning to have the cuttings made by the welder, I finally noticed it was simple and that I would save money by doing it myself. lt requires a lot of patience and also a good precision. Let me tell you that it's very tiring!
Before cutting the aluminium channels, I took several measurements: neck/crotch distance and crotch/heels distance

I used a saw, and broke 2 blades although those were quality ones. Here was the result:

I also shortened the length of the seatpan. On the left, you can see the plan of assembly. The 2 little pieces of alu are 16 cm long, they are screwed to the seatpan. In each pieces, we drilled 8 holes.

Stage 4: welding and drilling

It constitues the most important and the most expensive stage of the construction of this street luge. I phoned many welders around Orleans, which is the city where I live, to know if they welded aluminium. I finally had a meeting with one of them the last week of August 2002 to explain him my project. He was a bit surprised by this sport but seemed really interested. I gave him my plans and some photos of Tim's BodyRocket to show him what I expected. Here was the work he had to realize:
- 48 holest: 16 threaded holes, fraisés (diameter 6mm) + 16 holes lisses (diameter 6mm) + 4 holes to screw the bumpers + 6 holes for the rear truck (diameter 5mm) + 8 holes to mount the front truck (diameter 5mm). I wanted to have different setups available.
- 4x16cm of soldered joints + 2 plates had to be welded for the bumpers

Of course, we talked about prices!
Let's read what we talked about, the welder is W, I am M

"(W) - Oh what you are asking me to do requires a lot of time, mostly the weldings and marking the holes, it'd cost you about 150 euros!
(M) - It's too expensive, I was expecting a better price since you announced me during our conversation on the phone that a 40cm soldered joint costed about 30 euros.
(W) - Yes but..., it will take 2 hours to weld, and 1 hour just to position the holes. A a pinch, if you don't need any official invoice, I can lower the price down to 110 euros.
(M) - It is still too expensive for me
(W) - Ok, here are my plans. You position yourself the holes at home, then bring me the luge back and I'll do the weldings and I'll drill. My final price os 80 euros!
(M) - Let's do like that, it's ok for me"

It took 1 week to get my luge welded after having postionned the holes at home.

Threaded holes

The chassis and the weldings

Stage 5: confort accessories

I made myself the headrest, it is made out of high density foam used to build motorcycle seats. It is really easy to cut this foam with a cutter to give him the shape wanted. Using Super-glue you can stick pieces of foam, this is what I did to obtain this kind of shape. Then, I covered each face with leatherette attached to the foam with scotch (double faces). I finally sewed the faces with each other:

The crotch protection has been developped in the same way and we attached it to the front channel using black duck tape. The headrest is attached to the rear channel with scotch (2 faces)

To make it more comfortable and to reduce wobbles, un square of foam has been stuck on the seatpan (see photo of the handlebars).
It took me 6 hours to make these accessories.

Stage 6: the footpegs

The footpegs are also homemade, they were made by my borther in May, 2003. They are based on full steel tubes that have been manufactured.
To get more grip, they have been knurled and a hole has been drilled and tapped in both ends to screw them to the nerfbar and to the front alu channel.
There are 3 postitions available for the footpegs depending on the size of the luger.

Stage 7: the nerfbar

The nerfbar is absolutely necessary if you are building a pegged street luge, it can avoid injuries if you hit another luge in front of you. Mine is based on a thin aluminium plate which can be bent quite easily. It is attached to the front channel with 2 screws and is also screwed to the footpegs:

This bumper is no longer on the luge - June 2003

The actual front bumper is made out of several foam layers (the foam comes from a camp carpet). To ensure an optimal security, the nerfbar has been covered with foam and leatherette as you can see on the picture below:

Stage 8: the handlebars

My borther has done again a great job. These handlebars are made out of aluminium, he has to face a difficulty which constited in making 2 symetric handlebars! Notice that he bent them manually using a simple vice. The result is good, except that we wish they had not been so low from the ground. Each handlebar is screwed to the seatpan using 4 screws.

Aluminium handlebars and the street luge in July, 2003

Outroduction

The construction of this "Go Fast BodyRocket" street luge was not done in a hurry to avoid mistakes, I took my time. I think it is an important thing to record if you want to build a street luge in the future.
The actual design of the BodyRocket can allow in the future some modifications, for example it can easily be modified in a pegless luge.
Since I am quite light (63kg), I am satisfied by the weight of the luge (13kg), it is similar to what I had calculated before starting the construction, although there is a tendency nowadays to build lighter street luges.

I wish I have made my luge so that it could have had a shorter wheelbase even if it is adjustable. This luge was designed in America, a country in which the hills are generally faster and less technical than in Europe.

You can download an excel sheet below which gathers all the costs and stages related with the construction of the "Go Fast BodyRocket".

Photos and specifications

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

- Type: Sled
- Material: aluminium
- Length: 218 cm = 86"
- Width: 43.5 cm = 17"
- Weight: 13kg = 26 lbs
- Wheelbase: 137 +/-7 cm = 54 +/- 3"
- Front truck positions: 4
- Rear truck positions: 3
- Front bumper: foam
- Nerfbar: aluminium covered with foam
- Footpegs: steel - diameter =
- Handlebars: aluminium
- Headrest: foam covered with plastic

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