Monday, April 16, 2007

New Paragon dropouts

Mark and the guys at Paragon machined out some excess material on their famous sliders - a mighty 40g lighter. Sweet! Of course, they run a few extra bucks, but whatever. I'll raise the slider prices down the road to cover the difference, probably, and just use the lightweight ones from now on for all but the most humongous folks.


I have some pictures of the DH bike progress, but I'm at Sarah's lab and can't upload them right now. I'll do so when I get home, though. Ordered everything for the rear end too, and even got around to making a dummy axle for the swingarm pivot. The front triangle is now done, except for a brace between the BB and seat tube that I still need to do. Progress!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Walt -

Is that a bottom bracket shell and external BB cups that you are using for the pivot bearings? Will the cups hold up against the side forces that will be put on the swing arm?

Clay

Walt said...

Hey Clay -

Yep, it's an external BB. The BB shell is cut down to 52mm to keep things reasonably narrow, but yeah, you're spot on.

I'm thinking that the lateral forces aren't any greater than the ones generated by pedaling, in fact, probably less, so hopefully it'll work great. Should be wicked stiff with a 24mm axle (my old setup ran on bearings on an M12 set of bolts, so about half the size).

We shall see. I'll have this bike at Keystone this summer available for test rides (if you buy me a beer at the end of the day, that is).

Anonymous said...

Walt

Did they remove material from the parts that get welded to the frame, or from the parts that bolt on? Please post a pic.

Mike

Walt said...

Mike -

I'll try to post a picture tomorrow. The aluminum dropout is unchanged, it's the stainless steel (the part that welds to the stays) that has been relieved a bit.

-Walt