Thursday, March 22, 2012

Monochrome


Another bike made for the Handmade Show this year.


It's built with Enve Composites top tube and seat mast,
otherwise, a nice mix of True Temper's S3 and Columbus Zona.




The lugs are hand built by yours truly to utilize the seamless aesthetic
offered by the King Inset 6 headset.
Very square, very deco.






Campagnolo Super Record and Enve Composites, what else do you need?





Here's the completed head tube lugs. Now to build the bike...


Head tube lugs in action.


This is the seat tube lug before it's cut out of the seat tube. 
At this point the seat tube has been brazed onto the bb shell
and is awaiting to have the center cut out so it can be made into separate lugs.

The Hold Steady.
Anything off
"Almost Killed Me".
Positive Jam
The Swish
Barfruit Blues
Most People are DJs
etc, etc, etc...

7 comments:

Jim Beam said...

What a gorgeous bike! If I had any roadie tendencies I would be sorely tempted to buy it.

blackcatbicycles said...

mr. beam,

the roadie tendencies run pretty deep here at black cat.
while santa cruz is well known for the mountain biking, the road riding is better.
it's hard to say no the roads around here.

Greggo said...

More blog updates!!

grant said...

would love to see pics of this frame in progress. How does the inclusion of the CF tubes influence the ride?

blackcatbicycles said...

grant,
i've got some pics of the creation of the lugs that i've added to the end of the post.

the carbon tubes have a certain ride to them that just can't be created with steel. you get stiffness while pedaling and for precise handling without the harshness that would result from using (even the same diameter) steel tubes. then there is the weight savings...
add the two together and you get a nice hybrid of the two ride qualities.

Pat & Katrina Stanley said...

Todd, would you be weary of using a carbon TT on a CX frame?
Pat

blackcatbicycles said...

pat and co,
no, i think the bonding would hold up just fine. the question is, "would you want to ride a cross bike with a carbon top tube". it would ride great, but that whole crashing thing would put me off it for a bike i would ride on the regular. carbon is really bad at compressive loads. a handle bar to the top tube is a compressive load.
well, what if you put on a metal sleeve at the impact zone to help dissipate things? hmmmm...