How to Add Accessories to Your Lowrider Bike

Customize your bike by adding some lowrider touches.

You can turn your regular bike into a cool lowrider cruiser by adding a few new parts. Customizing a lowrider requires minimal mechanical skill. Simply gather some parts and tools and you can alter your bike in your own garage. Adding a few finishing touches can give your lowrider the custom look it needs to be the sharpest bike cruising the streets.

Things You'll Need

• Crescent wrench
• 144 spoke rims
• White walled tires
• Steering wheel with Ape hanger handlebars
• Banana seat
• Socket set
• Rags
• Grease

Instructions

1. Replace your handlebars with your new steering wheel ape hanger handlebars. These are custom handlebars for lowriders that are long and tall with a steering wheel. Remove your old stem from your head tube by using your Allen wrench and then loosening the center stem Allen bolt and sliding out your stem and handlebars from the fork. Insert your new steering wheel stem and handlebars into the forks, center and adjust to your desired height and style before tightening the center Allen bolt using your Allen wrench.

2. Add your new banana seat. Loosen your seat post clamp at the base of the seat post. Slide out your old seat post and seat. Remove the seat from the seat post by loosening the bolts under the old seat with the crescent wrench. Pull out the seat post and add the new banana seat to the seat post and loosely tighten the bolts. Insert the new banana seat and seat post back into the tube and adjust to the desired height. Tighten the seat post clamp before tightening the hardware under the seat to the correct angle.

3. Add your new 144 spoke rims. Remove both your old wheels from the bike by unbolting them from the forks in the front and the dropouts in the back. You will use either a socket set and or crescent wrench depending on your bike's bolts. Deflate your tires and and remove them from the rims using a tire iron to ease them off.

4. Reinstall the tube into your new white walled tires and put them on the rims. When you install your new rims into your fork and rear dropout, be sure to remove the slack from your chain before tightening. This can be done by inserting a long extension between your wheel and bottom bracket and pressing against the bottom bracket to force the rear wheel to take out the slack. Align the wheel so it's sitting straight into the frame and then tighten. Add air to the tires.

Tips & Warnings

• Use grease when you are installing any parts where metal will touch metal, such as the seat into the seat post. This will prevent rusting as well as aid installation.

• Be sure and take your lowrider on a test run before hitting the streets to ensure you reinstalled the parts correctly. You may need to make some slight adjustments.

References

• Lowrider Bike Diagram and Parts

Resources

• Custom Lowrider Bike Information