Pack Mule

Hey gang.

This post is slightly different than the norm.

I'm going to show you the bike while in action.

This bike was built for NAHBS as a bike packing bike.

Full Moto-Touring.

 I guess it makes sense to show it off to you half way through a short 

excursion in the local 87,000 acre state park.

  

The bike was built as a fairly straight forward mountain bike.

Not super light, not super beefy. 

 

I've seen rack mounts torn off seat stays, or worse, 

cracked or torn the seat stay itself.

These mounts run through both sides of the tube

and are threaded all the way through.

Keeps the frame strong, the rack stiff, 

and the mounting bolts much less likely to back out.

The loops on the racks are for running straps through to 

stop them from migrating around and loosening.

I prefer to make touring gear to be as universal as possible. 

With these racks you can strap anything on them and off you go. 

I like running dry bags. Easy, light, and replaceable in a pinch.

These are third set of racks I've made myself
to make sure all the bugs were worked out.

Those bugs are now long gone.

Racks allow for things to be tight, immovable, and out of the way.

I like my skills dictating whether or not I feel comfortable 

going for that steep off-camber switchback, 

not my gear getting in the way or pulling me around.

The front rack is mounted both from underneath, with an 

expanding wedge that holds tight in the steerer tube, 

and from above between the headset and stem.

With all the moving parts, there's not a lot of room to spare so the bolt head

 on the wedge must be a button head, and the brace from below must

 do a little up and over to make room for the bridge on the fork lowers. 

It's tight, but there's just enough room.

 

 Add some extra pounds on the front end of a bike 

and wider handle bars make a lot of sense.

Add a few inches of width to your handle bars and 

suddenly that stem is a bit overwhelmed.

Adding a bit of width to the stem suddenly 

brings it all back to the comfort zone.

It looks pretty cool too. 

Proto-typical proprietary dropout.

Holes drilled for 5mm, 6mm, or 8mm bolts.

You thought the holes just looked cool? 

Full length housing routed on the top of the down tube, 

the side of the tube least likely

 to get yanked when barging an overgrown trail, 

damaged from portaging or kicked up debris.

 Protects the frame when using front triangle frame bags,

and keeps those bags tight, 

since you're not fighting the cables to strap them on. 

This bike is going to be a work in progress.

At the show, I wanted to have another fork and 

set of racks for more road going voyages but ran out of time.

I'll keep y'all posted as it occurs. 

Sorry it's been so long posting, but the timing of frames going out has been awkward  

and I've gotten a bit bored of my own web-log. 

If I'm bored, you've got to be in tears by now. I've

been thinking that the "end result format" is getting a bit stale.

I'm not going to start covering religion and politics, 

and I'm not going to wax poetic on the virtues of my chosen

brand of flux, tubing, safety glasses, peanut butter, etc, 

but if you were coming to visit the shop, 

what would you want to see?

See. Not read. See.

Think photo essay, not a regrettable ranting diatribe.

You will not be let off the hook when it 

comes to my horrific taste in music though.

It is a one man dance party, after all...

Lately I've been obsessed with

Future of the Left

Small Bones, Small Bodies

Manchasm

The Lord Hates a Coward

Or you can watch a whole set starting here.