This Song Has No Title

Gentle readers,

and not so gentle ones too.

Another road bike today.
Sean Coffey is the owner of this one.

A double over sized tubeset makes this bike thoroughly modern,
with all of the pedaling stiffness you'll ever need
to get you down the road as far and as fast as your legs will take you.

This post's music pick is
the one and only Elton John.
If you haven't already,
do yourself a favor and purchase
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road as an easy primer.
Who doesn't love the Crocodile Rock?
He's absolutely killing it here on Rocket Man.
If you don't like Bennie and the Jets on Soul Train(!),
you, my good friend (and gentle reader),
have deeper issues not easily overcome.

Thank you and good night.

Street Eater

Hey, gang.

This is a road bike for Shinya Tanaka, who has
been importing handmade bikes over the Pacific Puddle,
to Japan.

This bike is for himself.
He asked for a road bike and carbon fork with room for fatter tires.

Fastback, swoopy seat stays.

The paint is a combo of painstaking masking and big brush stokes.

I hear the road riding in Japan is pretty unreal.
Might have to get over there for some
market research at some point.

A little while ago, I was talking with some
friends about the state of music these days.
More specifically, if you could travel back
in time and kill one band, group, or individual
to nip some musical movement in the bud,
who would it be?
To avoid the catastrophe that has come to
be known as Emo (Screamo, Emo-core, whatever),
Hightower and Danny B both agreed that AFI must die.
I may or may not agree. Well, ok, I agree.
However, Akimbo might also fall into the category
of being a band that was copied right and left by
screaming teenagers.
Don't get me wrong, I like me some Akimbo, but
to avoid this, someone must pay the ultimate toll.

Who knows? Someone may have this power.
Maybe Buddy Holly, Ritchie Vallens, and the Big Bopper
were about to start a super group from
which rock and roll would never recover.

Sand Blast

Jello.

This 'cross bike was bought by Josh Yablon for his
favorite special lady friend, Devon Yates.
Nice guy.

The paint is obviously inspired by the illustrious
Gulf/ Porsche four wheeler racing team.

The frame design is relatively straight forward.
No big surprises here.
Built for 38's with room to spare.

Stem to match.
Modern stems are fatter than
most steel road or 'cross bike down tubes.
Unnecessary and aesthetic killing.

Thanks Josh and Devon.

Seeing as both Josh and Devon
are punkers from Minneapolis,
maybe we should play some
appropriate music from there.
Prince? No.
How about some Dear Landlord?
Yes, let's do some of that.

Belt Drive Factory Racer

Howdy, y'all.

This is a bike for Black Cat Industries' own
hot shot racer, Greg Martin.


I swore I wouldn't do another one but, here it is:
a belt drive, short chainstay 29er.

Curves in all the right places.

This bike is made for a 100mm travel fork with a tapered steerer.
It's been a pretty popular option lately.

Greg was pretty insistent on the olive green
and robin's egg blue color scheme.
Happy to oblige.

A pic of the split-able belt drive dropout on the frame
and one of the first prototypes I made a couple years ago.
You can see the top is a socket that attaches to the seatstay
and nests the rest of the dropout, with a bolt that runs through both.


This is the magic part that allows for the short chainstays.
It's a spider that I made for the Sram cranks that offsets the
belt ring about a half inch from where it would sit
otherwise, giving room for the chainstay.
Between the custom spider and the new-ish
Center Track belt system from Gates,
things worked out without a compromise in sight.

I have several more of these that I made only for
belt drive Black Cats in the future. Get 'em while they're hot.

Say what you will,
Rumors was/is a good record.

Corners and Curves

Hey folks, what's up?

This bike is for Oliver Laing, in Willagee,
Western Australia.

Oliver wanted a 29er race bike with
options for running a full compliment of gears
or as a single speed.

These oversized head tubes for tapered steerers are simply
the way to go on a frame made for a suspension fork.

A bit of an asymmetrical, geometrical
freak out for a paint scheme.

I like me some Heartless Bastards.
Gray
All This Time

Hold Your Head High
Get some.

Single and Loaded

Hey.

Nathan Shearer is the intended victim of this bike.

Nathan lives in the DC area and rides decidedly rocky,
steep, technical, long rides.
The geometry of the bike follows his lead.
Relatively relaxed angles, and a bb height to allow clearance for the rocks.

The paint scheme on this one is inspired by
a metal smithing process called mokume gane.
Came out pretty neato.

Sometimes when Nathan heads out into the woods, he stays there for a while.
He asked for the ability to carry a bit of sleepy time supplies.
I ended up making some racks to reflect his desire to ride
technical singletrack while, ahem, loaded.

The bikepacking scene right now is all about bags
mounting to handlebars and seatposts,
claiming all the typical light weight virtues.
Seems to me though that the bags are mounted in such a way
as to prohibit full mobility on the bike.
Its hard to make the steeps and tight switchbacks
if you can't get off the back of the saddle.

The racks have three mounting points to allow for moving and
bending in case of a crash (instead of breaking)
while still staying stable with weight.
The racks are not designed for panniers, just mounting cargo
on top to keep the weight tight, centered, between the wheels,
and as low as possible while keeping a very slim profile.

I'm sure those bags work great,
but I'm better with a torch and tubing
than I am with a sewing machine.

Makes me want to go spend a few days
riding around in the woods.

The Ergs! is your new favorite punk
band that doesn't exist anymore.
Thought you'd like to know.

Select Dorkrockcorkrod
Hit "Play all".
Freak out.