What could be more fun than combining paracord with a bike frame? If you’re like my wife, you’re thinking I’m a complete nut. That is probably the most accurate description of me, but I’m still going to keep thinking of ways to integrate paracord with my bike gear. In an earlier post, 16 feet of paracord was used on bar ends in place of traditional cycling bar tape.
The inspiration for this project came from Stormdrane and his post on using a turks head knot on a knife sheath. If you like paracord, you have to follow his blog.
Learing the knot
The knot used for this project is a five lead, four bight turks head. The tying instructions can be found in book Creative Ropecraft by Stuart Grainger.
First, practice the knot. Then practice the knot some more. Try the knot on a short piece of dowel instead of your bike frame because it’s much easier to work with the dowel than a full bicycle.
Practice knot with two passes.
Tying the paracord
This project uses 9 feet of paracord when completed, but I started with a 10 foot section to give me extra to work with. A lacing needle is a requirement when doing a turks head with paracord. The needle helps with passing the needle under other strands, especially when you get to pass two and beyond. The “needle” shown in the pictures is actually a threaded aluminum post that was cut and sanded into a needle shape with the idea and directions again coming from a Stormdrane post.
The first pass doesn’t look like much but it will become more apparent after pass two.
When starting the knot, keep it loose on the tube. You’ll be glad you did when you get to the third and fourth passes. I started by taping the standing end of the knot so that it doesn’t slip around. As you can see above, I also tape the outer most wraps to keep it in place.
Second pass completed.
With a second pass completed, the final shape of the knot can be seen.
Follow the same path for the third pass.
Round and round we go. Hopefully there is enough slack in your knot to complete a fourth pass. If not, stopping at three passes would yield about 6-7 feet of paracord.
Fourth and final pass completed.
Fourth and final pass. After it’s completed, take your time and work out the slack in the knot to make it tight. Due to the clear coat on the frame, the knot will spin around a bit even after the knot is tightened up.
Knot completed and ready for riding.
With the fourth pass completed, it’s time to trim the ends and melt them with a lighter. This knot may get a lot more wear and tear since it’s on the bike, so I made the melted ends a little larger than normal to help them stay in place.
After practicing the knot several times on a dowel, it took about an hour to tie it on the bike. In the end, 9 feet of paracord was used for this four pass turks head. Not sure how it will hold up to rain and mud while riding, but I’ll find out soon enough.
