The Precipice

Hello there.

Drew Clark should be riding this bike in the 

hills surrounding Denver, Co. 

Drew explained that he wanted a smooth riding, 

rigid single speed mountain bike.

After some discussion, he was pretty specific about some of the parts to be used 

and was happy to offer design cues toward the bike he wanted.

Thanks, Drew.

Been listening to a lot of Mogwai

as of late. Good music to set a

mood for deliberate actions

A Piece of the Sky

 Greetings, all.

 

Got another one of those steel lugged, carbon tubed bikes for you to peruse

and for Dain Zaffke to ride.

This one has much more traditional lug lines

 than others of similar construction I've done in the past.

The lug designs are along the lines of the 

French constructeur frames, i.e., Singer, Herse, etc. 

The lugs' proportions have to be stretched a bit to create enough 

surface area for a solid bond between the carbon and steel.

 

Before and after.

The color is from a mid-sixties Ferrari that resides at a car museum here in town.

While not a stock Ferrari color, it sure looks great on Italian sports cars and bike frames.

Lucky for us, Dain's a great photographer too.

Thanks for the hot pics, Dain.

 

Swans.

The soundtrack for the apocalypse.

First Contact

Hi.

Hope you've a got a good summer on lockdown.

Jorge Tamayo just got a new bike.

That always helps.

We pulled out all the stops and built him a 29er super shredder.

 

He wanted a painted pattern that was black and white. 

Hard to do without it becoming a mess. 

The negative space ends up playing just as important 

of a role as the positive space, if not more.

Here's that revised dropout design again.

I'm pretty happy with them.

That curved seat tube is really the linchpin

to how well these bikes ride.

You can't fake short chain stays.

Man, that did come out nice!

Thanks, Jorge.

Ps I Love You is a band.

They are from Canada.

They are very good.

Facelove

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Hola!

Check this thing out.

Mini-moose stem.

 Hang on a sec.

Here's the thing I wanted to show you:

I've been working on a new dropout design for a while, 

and they're finally ready for prime time.

Very similar, but with some small tweaks to an already solid design.

The main difference is the tensioning system.

At the end of that set screw is a little brass ball, 

captured by a pocket in the aluminum insert.

It's the simplest, most reliable way to lock the dropout in place.

No unwanted forward or rearward movement.

Add to that, the cinching duties have been taken over by chain ring bolts.

Should you strip out the steel threads 

(which is highly unlikely- when was the last time 

you stripped steel chain ring bolt?), new threads are just a new nut or bolt away.

They are also now 60 grams lighter at 269 grams, 

and still made of rock solid 4130 chromoly steel,

and aerospace quality 6061 and 7075 aluminum.

More dropout/axle options to follow... Stay tuned...

Guest Super-Photographer:

Brian Vernor.

 Thanks, Brian. 

To someone of my persuasion,

saying you like the Ramones 

is like saying you like eating food.

R.I.P. Ramones.

People Get Ready

Hey ever'body.

A new custom built road bike made specifically 

for Bruce Marco from the Commomwealth of Virginia.

His new bike is a hybrid of sorts. It's got some handmade steel lugs 

with some carbon fiber tubes carefully glued in there.

Making these bikes is about as much work as making 3 bikes.

First I start off by brazing together some tubes at the correct angles.

Next, the tubes are bored out to the correct diameter in the lathe,

 and all excess material is removed.

When the lugs are ready, they look like this.

 

 Skip ahead another 40-50 hours of work, 

and here's what they look like when the Enve carbon tubes are glued in.

After a bunch more work, the frame and fork are all ready to build into a bike.

Never done with the targets. So many ways to paint them...

That seat lug doesn't look so bad after all, huh? 

Delicate looking s-bends terminated with

 delicate looking, yet bombproof brass brazing.

The monochrome targets give the effect of each stripe

being darker closest to the lighter color underneath, 

but there's no paint fade going on. 

We'll let your eye trick you into thinking that I'm a better painter than I am.  

 

I think the repetition from the lug to the paint came out quite nice.

 What do you think? Worth the effort?

Lately, I've assigned myself some music listening.

I've been trying to get through the Rolling Stone's 

Top 500 Albums of All Time.

I certainly don't agree with everything they point to,

 and looking at the committee they've tasked with

 coming up with that list, I can see why. 

In my mind, any and all members of Blink 182 

will never have a vote as to what is good music.

Anyway, so far I've really enjoyed it.

It's interesting to try and get some perspective 

and context to where music has ended up, 

as well as getting turned onto things I never would have.

There are things that I can now never again torture myself with:

anything by Pink Floyd, The Eagles (the Dude was right), 

Prince (sorry, never liked him), early Neil Young, etc.

There are things that I knew were good, but had never connected with, 

which brings us to Aretha Franklin.

Check this out. 

Now, if that's not completely packed with awesome 

in every way imaginable, I'll pack my things and go home.