Friday, March 30, 2007

Canyonero 3.0 is finally in progress...


Check it out. 44.5mm x 1/.7/1mm Supertherm downtube, 34.9mm x 1/.7/1mm Supertherm toptube, beefy head tube, beefy straightgauge seat tube, the works.

This will be the third and hopefully best of my 29" downhill bikes yet - 6.5" rear travel, 6" front, ready for the sick new trails to be built this summer at Keystone. And with the Nevegal and Rampage tires out, I finally have a semi-appropriate tire to ride, too!

Thursday, March 29, 2007

The biggish San Diego post

First off, a big thanks to Dave, Jenny, Steve, Pat, Mike, and Clay, all of whom (some San Diego locals, and some expats) made us feel welcome and helped us find the best trails and restaurants. You guys rock. And Mike, you'll get a rematch with Sarah when y'all come ride with us this summer, right?



Here we go... first up, the main reasons we went to visit, our nephews Adam (bigger) and Kyle (much smaller). Adam is just about ready to take the training wheels off his bike, and Kyle is just about ready to throw up on uncle Walt. He's pretty much the Nolan Ryan of barfing, but we expect big things from him. Extra bonus, we caught the UPS guy at just the right moment. Nice shooting, Dave.



Here's a shot of the Suycut Wash trail at Mission Trails Park (Sarah's down there somewhere). We spent a bunch of days riding here and didn't get bored at all - it's rocky, gnarly in places, and really reminds me of Green Mountain here in Colorado. There are also supposedly some sweet semi-legal trails just north of the 52 (the northern boundary of the park is highway 52) on Miramar air base, but we didn't venture there.



Here's the top of North Fortuna mountain - it's like 1200 feet above sea level, which doesn't seem like a big deal until you realize that you're coming from like 100. Our favorite loop here started at the Clairemont Mesa entrance to the park, and went down into Suycut wash, up the STEEP fireroads to the top of North Fortuna, then down the singletrack on the back side to join back up with Suycut. Great moderately technical riding with nobody else on the trails!



Here's Sarah on the singletrack on the north side of Fortuna. Lots of little ledges and babyheads keep it really interesting.



Sarah cranks out one of the granny gear climbs up Fortuna. I was amazed how steep the trails here are - they were built by the Army back when the whole area was part of the base, and I guess they didn't mind driving their jeeps straight up the hill. Weirdly, they're not very eroded.



Last shot, from our last day in town. Me, on the (false) summit of Fortuna. If it weren't for the freeways on all sides, it would feel pretty wild up there!

Monday, March 26, 2007

Vacation update and good news on Arkansas mountain!

We haven't bothered taking any vacation pictures so far, but the riding is great. We rode San Juan trail in Orange County (the OC!) yesterday and I have to say it's solidly in my all-time top 10. A 3200 foot climb! And then, a 3200 foot descent! Sarah showed the local boys how it's done and dropped everyone on her rigid bike, going up AND down. The trail is pretty much as flowy and fast as possible - we actually saw a couple of guys on downhill bikes, which is hilarious - we had no trouble cleaning everything, at speed, on fully rigid bikes. It would be a good trail to ride a BMX on, but not a DH bike. But whatever. Great trail, ride it if you get a chance. Weirdly enough, we only saw 3 or 4 other riders, TOTAL. On a Sunday afternoon!

Here's the latest on the Arkansas mountain situation:
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=279596

In short, there's a decent chance the trails will survive their incorporation into Boulder Open Space in some form. Great news! Thanks to everyone who emailed the BCPOS folks, as well as those who made it to the meeting.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

See y'all in a week

Sarah and I are off to sunny San Diego. We'll be back on the 29th, so if you need to contact me, don't bother calling - I won't have my phone. You can leave a voicemail, but I won't get it until next Thursday.

I'll check email every day or two, though, if you really need to get in touch with me.

-Walt

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

BCPOS to buy Arkansas mountain?

A great opportunity to go make your voice heard for recreational access in Boulder County - this parcel of land could provide some sickeningly good mountain bike and hiking trails if enough people are clamoring for them. I am going to be out of town, but guys, if you're around, please attend!

Here's an MTBR thread about the issue:
BCPOS/Ark thread

And here's the email I sent to a bunch of the powers-that-be in Boulder:

From: walt@waltworks.com
To: Will, Toor, ' wtoor@co.boulder.co.us Ben Pearlman bpearlman@co.boulder.co.us Ron Stewart', rstewart@co.boulder.co.us, vjannatpour@co.boulder.co.us
Sent: Tue Mar 20 16:35
Subject: Fwd: BCPOS Purchase of Benjamin/Arkansas Mountain property


Will, Ben, and Ron -

I've recently been informed that Boulder County plans to purchase the Benjamin properties, adjacent to Betasso preserve and with access to Fourmile Canyon, just to the west of Boulder proper. Great! This is an excellent piece of land for BCPOS to add, as it's contiguous with another large property (Betasso) and a striking ridgeline that would be much less striking with a passel of new houses crowded onto it.

With that said, I think the purchase of this property is an outstanding opportunity to advance the outdoor recreational opportunities available (without necessitating automobile travel) in Boulder. The parcel has access to both Betasso and Fourmile canyon, which can be reached easily by bicycle, foot, and RTD bus, and it connects to an existing recreational area that is quite popular (Betasso). A network of trails on this property, preferably open to *all* nonmotorized users (equestrians, runners, hikers, bicyclists), and connected to the excellent existing trail system at Betasso, would be of great benefit to outdoor recreation. It would also provide more opportunities for mountain biking in Boulder without driving a car, something which at this point is sorely lacking.

As it stands, it looks likely that the entire area will be declared offlimits ("preserved in its natural state"), however. I think that given the location of the parcel, this is not the best option, and I'd urge you to look into the matter more fully. I've attached a PDF from Parks and Open Space with the information about the upcoming meeting to discuss the purchase.

Finally, I am writing not just as a concerned trail runner and cyclist, but as a Boulder business owner and resident. I build handmade custom bicyles, and I've watched over the last decade as bike-accessible mountain biking access has continued to decline in Boulder County. While literally hundreds of miles of trail are available for other activities, bikes have been banned from more and more locations. This is harmful not just to the interests of the cyclists, but to the community as a whole - when riders leave Boulder by car, by the hundreds (if not thousands) each weekend to ride the relatively unrestricted (and yet tranquil and sustainable) trails of Jefferson county, tons of CO2 are pumped into the atmosphere, and thousands of dollars of bicycle-related revenue (meals, bike parts, etc) are pumped OUT of Boulder. My business and MANY others are dependent on outdoor recreation (including mountain biking) in Boulder, and unwarranted restrictions hurt our bottom line.

Please feel free to contact me if you'd like to discuss this issue further. My daytime phone number is (303) 359-9392.

Thanks for your time.

-Walt Wehner

Waltworks Custom Bicycles Boulder, CO
www.waltworks.com 303 359-9392

-Walt

Saturday, March 17, 2007

2 sweet things...

Recipe of the weekend:

Wicked good hot chocolate
1 disc of Ibarra chocolate (check at the Mexican grocery, though some normal supermarkets will have it)
2.5 cups of milk (skim, whole, whatever - I don't think soymilk would work out, though)
1/8 tsp ground red pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon



Again, this recipe is for you pathetic bachelors and bike geeks who have trouble with pop tarts - it's dead easy. Take all the ingredients and put them in a pot, put the pot on the stove, and heat *slowly* until everything is dissolved and nice and steamy hot. Don't boil the milk! Pour into a mug and drink! Trust me, you'll never want regular hot chocolate again.

And here's the second sweet thing... Sarah was working late last night (ok, she was partying with the other "scientists" at a "poster session" with free beer and food... man, it must be hard doing science). So anyway, I got bored and Fuentes and I were sitting the garage drinking tea (yeah, Friday night, we're cool...) and I was just puttering around cleaning up and packing up Steve's bike (see you soon Steve!) So eventually Fuentes asks about the big box of titanium tubing that's been sitting gathering dust for like, I don't know, a year or two? It's generic 3/2.5 .035" ti tubing, nothing special, but nothing to sneeze at either - and I have probably 100 tubes worth of it. Loads of ti. I always say I'm going to build some bikes with it, but I've never gotten around to it (though I've got everything I need - rod, big funky cups for the welding torch, backpurging equipment, a big jar of acetone, etc) due to the backlog of orders for steel bikes, and all the other projects that I have in the queue (you'll hear about the new DH bike soon, I promise!)



Long story short, I decided to start building something while Fuentes talked with his better half on the phone from Albuquerque. So my tea got cold, but I managed to do a decent job building a ti front triangle. Here's a picture of the BB/DT/ST cluster. Given that I've never welded any ti before last night, I think it came out pretty nicely, and the color and penetration are great, so I'm thinking it should be rock solid. We'll see, I guess - I'll get some dropouts from Paragon this week and try to finish it up sometime after I get back from vacation.

Will I be selling ti frames? Well, I don't know yet, so don't pester me about them just now if you're looking for one. I have a bunch of ti that I want to use to build bikes, but I'm thinking I need some saddle time (and another half dozen frames under my belt for my idiot friends and team members) before I commit to selling them to folks I don't know from Adam. It's certainly neat stuff, but it's also hard to justify from an environmental and cost perspective. I'm a steel man, really, but this ti stuff could win me over if my philosophical objections to expensive, energy-intensive materials can be overcome. It's awful nice not to have to paint the darn things... and I did spend a couple of years racing for Dean back in the day and really liked my ti bikes. Then again, they were free, so I had a lot of incentive to like them.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend - we're off to ride Green Mountain and the Dakota Ridge tomorrow, then we'll probably visit Sarah's mom to make some dinner. Gotta love springtime!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Spring break - also pictures pictures pictures!

Bear with me, this will be a long and hopefully cool post. No recipe today, though. I'll do another one next week, I promise.

First off, I'm waiting to get Fuentes' Actiontec 29er back from the powdercoat, but I figured I'd post some pictures of it when it was in "product testing" mode and we weren't sure about the fork yet. It passed with flying colors (super light, super stiff, travel feels plusher than the 60mm would lead you to believe) and Fuentes will be on it at Nova, I think.



Here's a picture - as built (with XTR, Juicy Ultimates, EC90 post, etc, etc) it weighs 22 pounds even - and that's for a bike with a 25" toptube and 21" seat tube. It'll probably be even lighter once we throw some Stan's goop in the tires and take the tubes out, too. And no, he's not planning to use that horrible front tire - we put that wheel on to take the picture because we'd just gotten done building it up at the time and Fuentes forgot his front wheel. I'm thinking of doing an Actiontec setup for myself - I really think it's the way to go with the 29" wheel. Nice and stiff, light, and just enough travel (combined with the big wheel) for all-around XC riding. Plus I love simplicity - no lockouts or weird air cartidges to blow out or stop working. Sweet. My only complaint so far is that I can't use my trusty Hopey steering damper with it.




Second neat frame/fork picture is of Rachael's rigid 29er. Sometimes everything comes together just right, and this was one of those time - Rachael wanted something light, non suspension corrected, with 29" wheels. The relatively small size of the frame (and rider) lent itself to using some nice smaller diameter/thinner wall tubes that normally won't work on a 29er, and the frame, including Paragon sliders and hardware, weighs an astounding (to me, anyway) 1620 grams, or about 3.6 pounds. Given that the sliders add a third of a pound, that's the lightest 29er frame I've ever done, I think. Pretty cool! The fork isn't porky either, at about 800 grams.



I spent most of today hanging out at the CU 2007 Bike Bash - there was free food, a trials demo, some nutty guy with a Penny Farthing, and some sweet unicycle riding (I rode my friend Jim's 29" muni and loved it - gotta build myself a new unicycle soon...) In any case, here's a picture of Sarah and I at my "booth" with Steve's frame and some sweet Axley sunglasses (they're sponsoring the team this year).



Finally, for no reason at all, here's a picture of Snickers. He's just about as dumb and happy as he looks. Too bad I'm single, he's a total chick magnet. Well, ok, more like an everyone magnet. Last week he got bored and walked away from a toddler who was petting him - and the kid started crying! I had to apologize to the little guys parents for not being able to stick around with my dog indefinitely!

Last thing, I swear: Sarah and I will be in San Diego on holiday from the 22nd to the 28th of March. Spring break! I won't be doing any phone answering type stuff, though I will probably check email every day. So count on not bothering me while I rest and relax, eh? My old pal Steve has promised to point us in the direction of all the best trails and microbrews, so I anticipate that it'll be muy divertido.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Some things to avoid...

I've had quite a bit of experience with things that are mediocre this week... to whit:

-The Postman, by David Brin. I knew Brin wasn't much for characterization or plot/pacing, but of all the books to make into a movie, why the heck did they choose this one? I mean, his Uplift books at least have an interesting theme at their core, which distracts from the cardboard characters and nonsensical plots. Not so The Postman - it's generic boilerplate post-apocalypic garbage, and it doesn't even have zombies (zombies make up for a lot, in my opinion). I shudder to think how bad the movie must be. Frighteningly enough, it apparently is getting 4 out of 5 stars on the Amazon user reviews.

-4 Rooms. I wasn't entirely clear on what this movie was about when Sarah and I decided to watch it (her brother ripped us some DVDs for holidays gifts - don't tell the feds). And I like Robert Rodriguez a lot, and Quentin Tarantino too. But 4 unconnected and nonsensical stories about a bellhop, with grating jazz music and horrifying acting, is not what I was in the mood for. Not even so bad it was good. Yikes.

-
The Stress of Her Regard
. Given that I read Powers' most famous book (and briefly talked about it here, I think) first, I should have been prepared for a letdown, but this was a bummer anyway. I mean, the elements (cool long-dead British poets, vampires, Italy) are all in place for a wicked cool story, but they're the *same* elements, essentially, as in the Anubis Gates, which is much better written. If I'd read Stress first, I might have liked it quite a bit. Given that I read it just a couple of weeks after Anubis, it's terrible.

-True Temper. Clay (and now Joel) have been waiting for frames. They are large mammals who need LONG toptubes. Enter the True Temper HOX2DT01. 750mm of huge beefy 9/6/9 heat-treated goodness. The best beefy clydeproof downtube on the market, and in this case, the only one long enough to get the job done. I ran out of these in December and ordered another box of 40 or so from True Temper. No problem, they said, we'll ship 'em after the New Year. Well, guess what? It's mid-March and I have none. And the seatstays I ordered a month ago? Which are in stock? Last time I checked: "Uh, they're still sitting here. That's weird. We'll send them right away." A week later, I still have no seatstays. I literally can't build any bikes (good thing I've got some forks to do) until I have them! Thanks a lot, TT!

-Premium Powdercoating. I know it's hard to change locations, especially when you've got huge ovens and all kinds of other crap to move, but they've been preparing for this for like 6 months, and I've got probably half a dozen frames, plus a bunch of forks and other stuff that are pretty much just stuck in limbo up there. The worst part is that I've got no other options right now - taking the frames elsewhere would probably end up taking longer, and they'd probably screw things up for the first dozen or so frames (par for the course, I've found). So I have to sit on my hands and keep apologizing to people who are looking out their windows at the nice spring weather wishing they could ride. That sucks.

Ok, bitch bitch bitch. On the plus side, Sarah and I went for a nice ride at Green Mountain this afternoon before it started raining. It was almost dry, too, though we had to walk around a couple of serious mud pits in spots. I got my singlespeed put back together and enjoyed riding that a lot, too. Time to put the travel bike back in the case, I think.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend! Pictures of, like, something for my next post, I promise. And more bike stuff and less books. Maybe another recipe, since blogs about just bikes are boring. Did anyone actually cook themselves some Pad Walt? It's seriously not bad...

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

*Finally*

The powdercoat guys finally got something done this week, so Warren's frame will be on its way tomorrow morning. Finally. That was an all-time record - over a month at the powdercoater. Let's hope that doesn't happen again.

In other news, S&S is raising their coupler prices like 40%. Ouch. Correspondingly, S&S bike prices will increase, though I'll honor the current price for folks on the list. I'm thinking couplers will be something like a $450 upgrade, rather than $350 as they are now. That would keep me making about the same money for the extra work, which seems fair.

Weather continues to be good - Fuentes and I raced each other on the fabulous (and in spots muddy) cow paths of North Boulder all afternoon, and then my dad dropped by to buy me dinner - what could be better? He also brought a big box of stuff from when I was a kid - anyone remember the Presidential Physical Fitness awards? Well, I remember that I was the only kid in the whole high school to get one in like 1990 or something, and the patch was in the box! Kickass! There's also a letter, but I can't remember actually lettering in any sports, so that's a bit of a mystery. Lots of the usual bad kid pottery and stuff too, of course, but I also found my old 3/4 size leather football. I *loved* that freakin' thing, and it still holds air! Something to pass on to my kids, maybe. They'll probably think real sports are for chumps and laugh at to me to go back to playing Madden 2025, though.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Spring?

We're looking at a (predicted) week of highs in the 50s and 60s, which means I'm freakin' psyched to do some riding - but the trails are still buried in slush. Maybe something will be dry by the weekend, if we get some sun and wind. But probably not.

Sarah and I rode to Nederland and back on Sunday, going up Magnolia (a bit over 4 miles at a ferocious 9% grade, after 10 miles of steady climbing to warm up) and getting as muddy as I've been in a long time. The dirt section of Magnolia was like a river in places. Surprisingly, there's not that much snow in the woods up in Nederland (at least around the dots). A couple weeks of hot weather would probably dry things out enough to ride some of the lower elevation stuff. Not that we'll get it, of course. The Ned trails don't usually open up until May or so.

Sarah and I have been eating a ton of a recipe I sort of made up, which we now refer to as Pad Walt. Seriously, it's good. I can actually cook, not just make crap out of metal. Try it out, if you dare:

Pad Walt

-1 package rice noodles, or spaghetti if you want to be ghetto about it.
-1/2 onion, chopped
-4 cloves garlic, minced
-3/4c creamy peanut butter
-1 tbsp korean hot sauce (the kind with the rooster on the clear bottle), or other hot sauce if you don't have the Korean stuff
-1 tbsp lemon juice
-4 tbsp fish sauce
-4 tbsp sugar
-1 tbsp rice vinegar
-1 tbsp green Thai curry paste (red will work too)
-1/2c H20
-1 lb. tofu, or chicken if you're into meat

This is the easiest recipe on earth. Cook the tofu in a wok or a big frying pan, then add everything but the noodles and heat up/stir until you've got a nice brownish sauce- you can cook the onion and garlic a bit first if you like your onions not so crispy. Cook the noodles and dump 'em in. Eat. Goes good with beer (what doesn't?) but not so good with red wine. Tastes great for lunch the next day, too.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

This is the coolest thing ever...also, NAHBS notes



Sarah found this in the J&B catalog and made me order one. For the record, I was dubious. 115 decibels out of a little air horn that you pump up with a floor pump? Well, it totally kicks ass - I'm getting one for my townie (hell, it could be cool for a race bike!) You get 20-30 solid, car-volume blasts before you run out of air, and it only weighs about 4 ounces. Pretty awesome for commuting - you can scare the living crap out of that dude in the SUV who's about to cut you off. Might also be good for getting past someone in a race if you're willing to take the chance that you'll give them a heart attack.

Oh, and for the folks who wonder why I'm not at NAHBS - here's the brief synopsis. If you look online at the photos you see from the show, you'll see a lot of shiny, sparkly, fancy bikes that look like they've never been ridden, and probably haven't. And you'll see a lot of bike geeks walking around looking at bikes and talking about bikes. Both of these things are high on my list of stuff to avoid (believe me, I spend *plenty* of time talking about bikes already, thanks), and given that I have frames to build, and that it costs big money to travel to California, I'd rather save my money and time for something more fun, like, uh, riding. Flashy, fancy and bling are not my thing, in case you haven't noticed, so don't expect to probably *ever* see me at a trade show, whether it's NAHBS, Interbike, or what have you.

I mean, come on - integrated seat masts, on steel bikes? Eccentric rear axles (hey, it sucks even more than an EBB!)? 8 pound carbon fixies? These aren't bikes you ride, these are bikes you build if you have too much time on your hands and want to impress your framebuilder friends. I'm not into that.

I *will*, however, have some of my tools, frames, and maybe a complete bike or two at the CU Bike Bash on March 14th. 10am-3pm, fine arts lawn (between the music building and the student center, just to the north of the big parking structure). Hope to see y'all there!

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Jersey design


I am 99% sure this is what the jersey will look like. Brent at Twinsix has worked his butt off getting it ready, so hopefully y'all like it. They're telling me late March for actual delivery on these. More details on pricing and such when I figure that part out - expect a jersey to run about $50 with a frame purchase, a bit more if you for some odd reason want a WW jersey but not a bike.

In other news, I am almost finished with my taxes - pulled down a big $19,000 last year, after expenses! Good thing Sarah makes the big bucks as a grad student, I guess...

Anyway, someone emailed me to say that I should post more pictures, so hopefully this works. I'd love to post ride pictures, seriously, but it's nothing but slush and mud here.

Weight!

I do not, as a general rule, build super light frames. If you're looking for a <3 pound frame, I'm not the guy you want. My goal is to build durable, long-lasting bikes that can be ridden for decades. That means a bit more material.

With that said, average weights for an average rider (160#) probably tend to be somewhere around:
Geared 29" mountain bike: 4#
Singlespeed (Paragon sliders) 29" mountain bike: 4.4#
Traditional road frame: 4#
Compact road frame: 3.5#
Full suspension (XC) 29" mountain bike: 7#
Full suspension (DH) mountain bike: 8#+

Obviously weights will vary all over the map depending on the size of the rider and the intended application. The lightest frame I've ever built is probably in the low 3# range (for a petite lady on the road) and the heaviest is 10#4oz, for a 400#, 7' tall gentleman who wanted to ride trails.

So there you have it. I'll make your bike as light as I can while still keeping it relatively bombproof.