what's up in Santa Cruz

Single speed of the old school

2009-07-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Some day I hope to have a slice at the pizzaria that this customer runs in the East Village about ten blocks from my sister's apartment. This frame has a top and downtube of NOS prestige along with the long extinct matching prestige unicrown blades that were the standard of top forks about 18 years ago. I did go s-bend on the rear stays to give the bike a little more current look, along with the larger diameter wishbone extention, not that it really matters much. It should be a fun bike to ride on the twisty trails in the New Jersey/New York area.

steel 29er and 650er

2009-06-26T21:59:00.001-07:00

5.14 lbs. of 29er steel waiting for a chance at the local singletrack. The guy who is getting this rig is not a little greyhound bike jockey so I had to build it stout. I'm surprised that it came out only a little over 5 lbs. I didn't do anything to lighten it up-pretty much used the heaviest tubes in the shop that were bicycle tubing and not straight-guage aircraft cro-mo.

The sliding dropouts are from Paragon Machine works here in California. If you want the best steel hardware of the sliding kind ,you don't buy it from anyone else .
Here's a geared 650 frame, one of the rare few that I produce. It's made out of NOS Tange ultimate from the mid '90's. I still have a few sets in stock and it is pretty nice for rigid-fork bikes like this as it has a forgiving ride , won't dent easily and will probably outlast the century.

Always a good idea to put a re-enforcement where the stress from the disc brake is highest. Some of us in the early days of discs found out the hard way that frames will not last if you don't include this little feature.

Rock Lobster cyclocross from 1989

2009-06-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

I built this frame, fork and stem for a customer of the Bicycle Trip back in the fall of 1989. This is how the bike appears today , mostly original components and paint-the neon fade was popular in the late '08's. The bike was hanging in the shop in early October and when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit , the bike fell and the top tube was dented. Since it was a new bike, the shop covered having the top tube replaced and the frame repainted.....all this before the custome ever rode the bike, I assume. The high rise four bolt stem and WTB drop bars are also something that was popular in the late '80's. The side of the top tube cables were something I had stolen from Yeti back in 1987. This bike represents a pre-tig bike built in my original 160 square ft. garage shop. The wishbone seatstay is a rarity on my 'cross bikes and this one is probably one of about 6 that I had built since starting up.

Single speed built up

2009-06-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

If the Swiss Army rode single speeds they might look like this. It does have kind of an alpine rescue look to it with the Brooks saddle and bag on the handlebars, not to mention the olive paint.

Deal of the century...or actually the last century.

2009-06-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

I normally just put op photos of my bikes and talk about them on this blog but I have to alert all folks who are checking this out about another builder who is having a special sale. Bruce Gordon is probably the most experienced builder in Northern California, especially when it comes to touring bikes. He's having an anniversary sale of his tig welded complete touring bikes made in his shop.......$ 2,650 or there abouts. This is for a whole bike with racks.....from one of the best ever. Check it out at wcamo.blogspot.com , Bruces new blog. It's a rare opportunity to get the best for a song.

framebuilders dinner

2009-06-09T19:48:00.001-07:00

I know this is off-topic but really, food is never off topic, unless of course you are a breath-arian or dead. What we have here is paparadelle with asparagus , prociutto and shallots. The tin is full of reggiano and the wine is from Howell Mountain, a zin. It all was great, especially after a 5 1/2 hour ride with a zillion feet of climbing. The bottle with the cork in it was Rolf Binder shiraz-grenach, left over from the night before.....ahh, Barossa ! Maybe eating in the livingroom in front of the t.v. is tacky for you , but not for us when its "The Wire".

the rack is full again

2009-06-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

Samples of the spring harvest. Right now it's work your fingers to the bone time in the shop with the first batch of team bikes nearing the halfway point. This is one of two batches , both to hopefully be completed before the end of July. These two frame below are for the newest addition to the mens elite team, Chris McGovern. Back a few years ago he was terrorizing the course and giving our team a serious fight. Nice to have him on our side this time. These frames are made for the rigors of 'cross and all that comes with it.

I did a slight s-bend to the seat stays....heck, everyone is doing it. It looks nice and it dosen't take much time to do. These Scandium tubes are in really short supply -only 12 sets total and most are already spoken for. I do hope to get more next year.

Framebuilders garage

2009-06-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

In case some of you are wondering what a framebuilders garage looks like, here is my garage. You can see that there is an overabundance of bicycles , most of which are my wife's -you see, it's the most affordable gift I can give her that doubles as advertisement every time she rides one of them. But wait....what is that wooden box in the back ? Hmm, maybe some special bike closet ? Noooo, is it a secret room for ageing tubular tires ? Noooo, is it a big box filled with race trophies ? Not a chance....I'm way too slow for that. Hah ! It's wine, wine and more wine. I do some trading on a rare occasion and it provides me with a good way to pickle my liver and go Napa Style......eating well and walking poorly.

Big Basin road bike ride

2009-05-31T16:38:00.001-07:00

This ain't boys in the hood, it's boys in the woods. Folks, don't do this at home, you'll just get a lot of flat tires . Yes, that's us riding our road bikes in Big Basin park, a great place for mountian bikes. Of course, this group started riding in the dirt long before mountain bikes so this was a chance to re-live past stupidities. Fortunately, nobody crashed and we were treated to riding down 25 miles of hwy. 1 with about 2,200 Aids Lifecycle riders. That's a lof of traffic on a narrow road. Don't try that at home, either.

Tig Team Euro 'cross fameset in the raw

2009-05-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

Here's a 'cross frame that will be good for the woods. The fork looks like a normal cyclocross fork but the blades are a tiny bit bigger profile and the wall thickness of the steel is about 20 % thicker than a stock blade. Nothing like having the steel where you need it the most , especially if you are riding in the back country on some rough trails. Here it is, 14 years later and I'm still doing the wavy gussetts.......kind of a nautical theme....lobsters ? Ocean ? Waves? -Makes sense to me. An engineer would tell you that the wavy line actually helps distribute the stresses over a longer distance. An engineer might tell you that I'm full of it....he would most likely be correct on both accounts. All I know is that these bikes never come back bent , not without a really good reason like hitting a tree at 25 m.p.h. ! I finally sprung for some 1/2" cro-mo tubing for making curved bridges again...I gpt really tired of looking through my scrap tubing box for the right stuff.

Team ride # 3 and a stepthrough town frame&fork

2009-05-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's the old west.....actually, it's just a bunch of tourists at Wilder Ranch state part on a wagon ride at twilight. We passed them on our way out of the park after a crash cut the ride short. One of the guys next to my truck overcooked a turn and did some backsurfing on the trail.....not a smooth ride. No broken bones, though and we managed to ride out without needing any assistance.

It seems like this is the spring of the low-standover frames. I have built two this month and I'm sure there will be more. It's a cool design that allows for the standover while retaining structural robustness........is that a word ? -I didn't think so. Hey, this is the internet so we have poetinc license....mine might be expired, though. This customer requested a flat-top fork crown. Lucky for me, there's a nice one that fits the 1 1/8" steerer and is great to work with. Monday I'll finish the alignment and do some fifnish work on the crown and dropouts. No color choice as yet.....wonder what it will be.

Tig team s.l. 'cross

2009-05-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

The big tire 'cross bike has been making a comeback in the last year. This edition is made for 700x38 tires with room for fenders , a feat only acheived with a 405 mm length fork and some MTB chainstays. All of the tubes in the rear triangle have been tweaked a little for the tire room and to give a more interesting lines to the normally bland single-bend tubes. This frame is for a mechanic at the local shop just up the road from me. It will be primarily a commuting machine .

what do you say to someone 4'10" who wants 700c wheels ?

2009-05-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I could have said no but I remember a bike I made about four years ago . If you are willing to be a little creative it's amazing what a few minor changes can get you in terms of fitting a wider range of people who just might be on the diminutive side. This woman has raced cyclocross on a 26" wheel bike and was really not liking the beating she got from the small wheels finding holes, rather than rolling over them. Now she can roll over them-I just hope that she can steer this bike with the same authority she steered the 26" wheel bike. If that is the case, she'll go faster.

In it's own private Idaho

2009-04-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

Yes, it is true-this bike is now in Idaho. I guess if I were Dan Quayle I would say it is in Idahoe because of all the potatoes up there. This bike is what they call 'burly' where I live. Sturdy 36 spoke wheels with Phil Wood hubs, Tange Presitge 'ultrastrong' main tubes and a stout steel fork. It may be stylish but it can be beaten savagely on the choppy tarmac of Boise.

That set of bars kind of gives the bike a look of, "Hey, Iv'e only got 5 minutes to get to my 17th century English lit class!".....at least that's the image that I see in my feeble brain .

Is this the first official single-speed MTB ?

2009-04-29T19:03:00.000-07:00

Back in the mid '80's I got the notion to build a single speed mountain bike. People were riding single speeds in the dirt and a few races even had a single speed class but nobody was building a bike specifically for such racing, at least until this one was built in about May of 1987. It might have been the first time I used a wishbone style seatstay, a primitive handbuilt one. The bike also had a 24" rear wheel and a 26" front , a combo that I thought would make the bike accelerate easier while kepping the front end stable and familiar. At the time single speeding in the dirt was a hard sell but once I tired it I was pretty much hooked. It was fun to sprint away from folks on thier fully laden geared bikes weighing much more .The lack of chain slap made the bike almost silent on the trail, a real treat. I guess it caught on eventually...

Blatant self-promotion:

2009-04-28T21:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, if some of you folks are interested in framebuilding, at least the version coming out of my limited intellect you can check out my newest blog: overopinionatedframebuilder.blogspot.com Hey, it's free and it's totally sincere, even the insults. What it lacks in photos it more than makes up for in so-called 'information', which what outside the internet is called 'opinions'.

Ride with the pro

2009-04-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

Ever seen an ad for an event where you can "ride with the pros" Well, we had an impromptu type of ride with a former pro at the shop this week. The fellow in the picture is Federico and he was a pro for Gerolsteiner in 2001 but had his career cut short by a devistating crash training that almost left him paralyzed. Needless to say, he can still pedal a bike and after this ride, I was almost rendered paralyzed. I have never ridden with someone who made going uphill look so effortless . He was on a borrowed bike and his injuries from his crash require daily maintenence....neverthe less, he still rides like he's getting paid for it. These other folks in the photo were similarly humbled by our Italian visitor. We all thought we were in for a nice short easy sightseeing ride..........

Path racer # 2

2009-04-21T19:40:00.000-07:00

I swear I'm going to put some tires on it before it leaves the shop. The woman who will own this bike used to work at the local university bike co-op. Showing her roots, this buildup has some scrounged parts that although not new and shiny will be functionally sound. I date the hubs as Phil Woods from apprximately 1978-1984 era, give or take a few burnt brain cells along the way. The bars are Specialized WTB drops, probably from the early eighties and really getting hard to find. The bulk of the other stuff is new such as the rims, spokes, fenders , brakeset and headset. The seat is a spanking new Brooks and it will be a punisher for the first few months but after that it will be like family, that is if you have a happy one. Working with old stuff is something I don't do all that much any more but this build inspired me to get some sort of beater together out of a few of the hunereds of old bits I have laying around. My worry is that it will come out like this one, way too nice to be a real beater.

Path racer ready for travel

2009-04-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

The racks are from Tubus, a Cargo rear and Tara front. These racks are very lightweight, super strong and really a pleasure to install. Just think........Seattle to San Diego on a fixed gear............

650 frame with S&S couplers

2009-03-31T18:33:00.000-07:00

This frame seems to be part of a trend.....bikes that can either be run single speed or 1 x 9. The bike will have rim brakes....remember those ?

The S&S couplers indicate that this bike will spend some time airborne. Right now with the airlines charging a premium for bikes the upcharge for couplers is getting to look like a better deal.

Sucka to the side I know you hate my ninety-eight...

2009-03-27T20:14:00.000-07:00

O.k. , maybe you suckas to the side don't hate my ninety-eight but it rides and looks hatefully good. I guess it wouldn't be the ride of choice to get you from South Central to Compton as it only has one speed , but it does have something close to white-walls and most definitely will not look like any otha sucka's ride out there.

This is the first time I have ever built a frame for the Paul's braze-on Racer brakes. Paul Price contends that these are the best brakes he has ever produced.....I'll second that. They are absolutely buttery smooth but savagely powerful when you need it. They are probably the closest thing to hydraulic discs in a caliper brake. Even with my insane-in-the-membrane cable routing the brakes still feel good to the touch.

I had to build a stem.....the first of the year. The extention is made from the same tubing as the frame, NOS Tange ultimate extrastrong-a rifled relic from the early '90's that was some of the trickest and priciest tubing available. My good buddy Steve Garro of Coconino cycles was willing to part with some awhile ago. And if you are wondering....yes, that is internal cable routing for the rear brake and it exits out of the wishbone. Good luck finding any other framebuilder daft enough to do that one.........

Blast from the present

2009-03-26T18:10:00.000-07:00

This bike looked like 1915 all over again except for the fact that I just finshed assembling it yesterday. This bike is a "path racer" or at least , a modern version of the '50's and '60's fixed-gear road training bike primarily used in the U.K. . A Path racer has more relaxed geometry than a velodrome bike and fittings for fenders and racks. This bike will see duty on some very long rides, most notably a route from Seattle to San Diego. Doing this on a fixed gear is a pretty daunting task but at least this bike has two gears to choose from.

Yes, there is a front brake, a 'Racer" caliper from Paul Component Engineering. The matching lever is also from Paul's.

There is no provision for a rear brake , one just has to use thier legs.

Alfie goes for a ride

2009-03-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

If I had made this bike 1/2" bigger it wouldn't have fit in the bug. This wasn't why I made the bike the size it is, it was just a chance thing that the bike would fit fully assembled in the car.....but then again, this person knows the capacity of his car better than most. Maybe a bumper sticker reading " Alfie is my co-pilot" would be appropriate on this occasion.....

Alfie S.L. built up

2009-03-13T18:53:00.001-07:00

The gentleman who ordered this bike decided to forgo the shiny fenders and Brooks saddle that would normally be standard equipment on the Alfie. He also asked if I could make it a little lighter. I was able to do this by using lighter tubing and building a unicrown fork. This frame weighs ony 4 1/4" lbs. a full pound lighter than my own Alfie frame. I christened this model the Alfie 'S.L'. and figured that a single speed version could be build pretty light ,but having the 8-speeds is really nice. I put a large rear cog on for lower hill climbing gears, just in case the owner gets ambitious. This bike has the twist-shifter instead of the usual rapid-fire....I'm still dialing it in as this is the first one I have ever set up. Omitting the wishbone seatstay dropped some weight from the frame.

The unicrown fork is probably a good 1/4 lb. lighter than the standard flat crown fork that I build for these bikes. It's a welded fork with larger blades so it has a little firmer ride , not a bad thing for potholed street riding.

This Bud's not for you

2009-03-07T18:18:00.000-08:00

Yes, you don't need to check your eyes and this isn't a dream. This, my friends is a genuine Budweiser bike and it is now in the hands of a team rider. Rumor has it that he's planning to hotrod this bike so it will go really fast.......err, maybe be useable for runs to and from places in about a one block radius. Maybe the bike once it has had the proposed modifications it can be re-branded the 'Bud Lite'. Hey, what's in your tank ?