Birch, walnut, oak and maple: Calgary retiree crafts one-of-a-kind wooden bicycle

Anton Koch is creating a full-sized, rideable bicycle made of wood.

For Anton Koch, known to most as Tony, a lifetime of woodworking and engineering has led to a project that pushes the limits of both.

The retired engineer has built furniture, turned bowls and crafted intricate wooden model trains, but his latest creation may be his most ambitious yet.

Koch is creating a full-sized, rideable bicycle made entirely of wood — with a few small hidden screws at key stress points and the ball bearings he packed inside the wheel hubs and pedals.

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The idea first took shape after Koch spotted a wooden bike online.

“I looked at this bike picture, and I said, ‘It’s an idea, something I could do, that I could do over time,’” he said. “And I think I can build a better one than the one that I saw on eBay.”

From the outset, Koch set a high bar for the build, including one defining feature.

“I said, ‘If I build a bike, it’s going to have a wood chain.’”

What followed was a project measured in thousands of hours of design, planning and careful execution — much of it done without formal plans.

“And there’s no blueprints for something like that,” Koch said. “The blueprint is in my head.”

“A lot of times I’m lying in bed at night thinking, ‘Okay, how am I going to do this or that?’”

One of the earliest hurdles was designing a working wooden chain and sprocket system; a step Koch knew would determine whether the rest of the project was even possible.

“I did spend probably two months thinking and on paper and calculating, figuring, ‘How can I get the sprocket to match?’” he said.

“I probably measured 50 times before I laid it out.”

When he finally assembled the system, it worked on the first try.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Koch said.

The bike itself is built from four types of wood — birch, walnut, oak and maple — laminated together for both strength and appearance. Koch said careful attention was paid to how the grain of each piece aligned to prevent cracking and increase durability.

“Everything I see here that looks like a piece of wood is actually many pieces of wood put together,” he said.

To shape key components like the wheels, Koch designed and built his own jigs using precise measurements to achieve a perfectly round form.

“You drill a hole at the middle of the board, and you build a jig… and slowly turn the wheel around as the table saw blade would cut and trim the edge,” he said.

Some parts of the build required starting over entirely; Koch says the rear fork, which holds the back wheel in place, proved especially difficult due to its tight tolerances and complex angles.

“I made one, and I looked at and I said, ‘This isn’t going to work,’ so I threw the wood away… but I learned from that,” he said.

In some cases, even the tools needed to complete the work didn’t exist, forcing Koch to make them himself.

“I had to have a long bit to reach in, and I didn’t have one, so I said, ‘Well, I’ve got to make one,’” Koch said, describing how he fashioned a drill bit from a coat hanger to reach deep into the frame.

Now, nearing completion, the bike is designed to do more than just sit on display.

“It’s rideable,” Koch said.

He hopes to take it out for its first spin soon, with family on hand to witness what he calls an “Orville Wright moment.”

After thousands of hours of work and countless design decisions, the result is a one-of-a-kind machine — built entirely from scratch, down to the smallest moving parts.