Baby Blue

This one's for Eric in Pittsburg.

Large and In Charge

Kirk's bike. A study in stealth. The satin finish of this one came out pretty cool. Just enough shine.

Root Beer Float

I think this one speaks for itself.

Creativity from huffin' paint pens

I think the people that really make out on the handmade bike show shinanigans are the significant others of the builders. This is Jen's bike. She earned her frame by going on a two month vacation while it was being built. This is what happens when you enclose yourself in a poorly ventilated room for eight hours with a bike frame needing a paint job and a couple of paint pens.
Those brain cells were just slowing me down.
Yes, that top tube is radiused. Yes, that top tube is butted. Yes, everybody else uses straight gauge cromoly. No, I'm not going to tell you how I did it.

Just in case y'all forgot I make roadbikes

Fillet brazed frame, Campy Record parts kit, handbuilt wheels, 16 pounds and change. 'Nuff said.


There's a story that goes along with this lug. It involves cutting out the 1 1/4" seat tube socket, collaring an 1 1/8" seat tube to look like the others, then filleting it in while sweat brazing the rest of the lug. There's a story alright, but I'm not telling it.

"Monster Cross" is much scarier when its ridden by a lawyer

John, the fabled Loudass, will be campaigning this bike this year in an all out attempt to gain world domination. He can't help but succeed when flying the Molteni team colors. Those rainbow stripes are gonna look bitchin'.

John's twin baby girls are dressed in rags so this bike could be outfitted properly for the show. There's plenty of time to make it up to the little ladies and there is only one chance to build up a bike right.

Thanks girls, soon Daddy will able to afford a babysitter again, for when he goes out.

Clive's City Shredder

A few rare photos of Clive's urban destroyer. I didn't have the where-with-all to get some decent photos of this creampuff before it was handed off to it's owner. How many speeds are in that one speed hub?

The build up for the handbuilt show lasted for months, and then at 5:30 on sunday, the lights dimmed, and within a half hour everything was dismantled and back in the box van. This bike stayed in Portland, so my procrastination for photo taking really shows now that I have only these two pics.

El frijilito

The Little Bean.

Carla Bray's bike has been affectionately named after the best taqueria in Watsonville, maybe the world.
I've had some super burritos lately that weigh more than this thing.
I hope Carla gets a little gas from this one.

silver bullet

This is the panel that almost killed me, an extreme test of patience. The weather was cold and wet enough that the paint refused to cure enough. I ended up with the front half of the frame in the kitchen oven for about a week. Came out pretty spanky despite it's best efforts.
Eric Mellencamp will be ripping it up on this thing down in the OC.

Sorry for the lack of creative photography. I'll see if i can figure out how to get rid of that date, too. I'll think I've rid my camera of it, and then magically, it reappears!

Down with the Brown

Jared's been patient waiting for his bike. Hope he likes it.
After building bikes with these for a year and a half, I'm beginning to be able to say "often immitaded but never duplicated."

Green Giant

Team FRP

Black Cat Bicycles was chosen as the frame supplier to team FRP this season. These frames are race only!! You can't even train on them. Untold horrors will occur should you ever run errands on them! Don't even think about the coffee shop!

new tools=happy boy

Just scored a Burke horizontal mill. It's gonna need a little love before it contributes to any bicycle frames though. It came with a tiny dividing head and a tiny rotory table with an x and y axis, but very few other tooling bits. It took about two hours to disassemble it enough to know that i'm missing a few parts. There is a whole following, with chatrooms, devoted to these little machines. "They may be small but those #4's are real metal movers!" It's good to find yourself knee deep in in something a lot of people feel such affection for.

It took a few hours to get the smell of thirty year old stagnant grease out of my olfactories, though.

this one's a keeper

The christening ride on this one was a twelve hour race. A real baptism by fire. One hundred and twenty five-ish miles and zero problems with the bike. My legs tell a different story though...