Saturday, June 30, 2007

There are some real nutters out there.

Check out this thread on Frameforum

My favorite part is that this fellow openly admits that he wants to "experiment" on his friends and family! Hilarious, if somewhat frightening.

Sorry for the lack of posts this week - not all that much exciting has been happening. It's 95 degrees every day, so Sarah's been waking me up at 6am to go ride. Not sure that schedule is agreeing with me entirely, but it's better to ride at 6 when the temp is only 70 degrees, for sure.

Kenosha-Georgia on the CO trail tomorrow. I'll get some pictures for everyone who is eagerly awaiting the latest blog post. All 4 of you.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

29" singlespeed/1x9 frame for sale


I built this frame and fork for a fellow who misunderstood what "offset rear end" meant on my design sheet. He and I came to an agreement, though, and there are no hard feelings. To be honest, maybe I didn't explain well enough. So here we go:

The frame has an offset rear triangle, which means that the dropouts are each offset 5mm to the driveside. The frame accepts any 135mm geared mountain bike hub, but the wheel is laced with NO DISH. This means a nice strong wheel. The downside is that you can't use a singlespeed hub unless you want to dish it to the nondrive side, and that you can't easily swap wheels from another bike. But if you have trouble messing up rear wheels and want a really strong one to run 1x9 or 3x9 (or singlespeed with some spacers and a cog on the cassette body) this is the way to go. The chainstays are slightly assymetrical as well to accomodate the offset, but it's not noticeable visually, so nobody will think you're weird. The newish Shimano 50mm chainline cranks will work perfectly with this setup, btw.

In any case, here's the scoop: $1000 buys you frame and fork, including shipping, in any color you want. I'm happy to sell you a full parts package as well.

Geometry is:
-72.5 degree head angle, 73 degree seat angle
-100mm suspension corrected
-23.9" effective toptube
-17" seat tube (center-center, 18.5" center-top)
-60mm bottom bracket drop, 43cm chainstays, clearance for 29x2.5" tire
-Paragon sliders (any configuration), s-bend chainstays, 2 sets of bottle cage bolts.
-Hose guides for rear brake, extra brazeons (cable stops, chain hanger, bottle opener, etc) available at no extra charge.
-Appropriate for riders between 160 and 200 pounds.
-100mm suspension corrected/42mm rake rigid fork included.

Questions on whether this bike would fit you or your riding style? Feel free to email me at waltworks@gmail.com

Monday, June 25, 2007

Waltworks MUNI project - also, jerseys are in!


Someone told me this mountain unicycle (with a gaping 4" of tire clearance for a Surly Endomorph tire) looked like a TIE fighter, and I can't say I disagree. So I made some laser sounds while flying it around in the first picture. Think episode IV style, not that lame-ass Episode I-III crap. Here's a more normal picture.

And yes, they are for sale. $300 gets you a custom unicycle built for any size of rider and wheel, as much tire clearance as you want, built around a seatpost size of your choice, including bearing clamps and seat collar, with or without brake bosses, powdercoated any color in the Cardinal or Tiger color palettes. Quick release bearing clamps available for a $80 upcharge. Sorry, no giraffes. At least for now.

Finally, jerseys have actually arrived. Here's Miguel modeling them. $50 including shipping if you already have your Waltworks frame or fork, $45 if you're still on the wait list (and I'll ship it with your frame/parts).

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Steve Z tests 26 vs 29

Fun article by my old pal and racing nemesis Steve Z about 26" vs 29" wheels.

Steve found what I generally have, which is that if you're concerned with nothing but speed, it's pretty much a wash (at least if you're comparing bikes that are roughly equal in fanciness, which in this case he really wasn't, but whatever). The motor matters more than the bike - if you've got the legs and the lungs to make the podium, the bike choice doesn't matter much, and likewise if you don't have those legs/lungs, a 29er (or 26er) won't suddenly make you into JHK.

Then again, most of the folks I build bikes for don't race in any serious way, so the most fun bike is the best bike, for them. If your paycheck comes from an actual job, rather than race winnings, you might like the big wheels a lot better. I know I do, because I can clean more stuff uphill, don't have to use as much (or any) complicated and failure-prone suspension parts, feel like I get better traction, etc, etc.

Now let's all email Steve and complain about how the test wasn't fair. Every half an hour. For 3 weeks.

In other news, King Soopers started selling Hatch hot green chile. I am in heaven!!

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Boulder STXC round 2

Good fun was had by all - in the men's B race, Jason Boardman pulled a top 10 of some kind, though we're not sure exactly where. Sarah did well in the women's A race, and finished somewhere in the top 10 as well, despite being knocked over by a slower rider on one of the short but steep climbs on the course.

By the time the men's A race was ready to start, the air was thick with dust, and the sun was dropping behind the mountains, making for very interesting/low visibility. We had a HUGE field again this week - probably 35 guys, and I had my usual lousy start. Chased hard, but never cracked the top 10. Jung and I sprinted for the finish, with Jung beating me out by 2 feet. But hey, I finished, and didn't flat, so I'm happy. Still coughing up dust this morning, though.

A few pictures:

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Sleeping through the afternoon?


Just FYI, for folks who have tried to call me - I'm sick (or else I've not been sleeping enough). Tried to go riding with Fuentes, Jung, Nick, and Sarah, and got totally dropped as I poured sweat trying to fight my way up a climb that's normally easy for me (see how happy I look in the photo?) - I bailed out and came home, then proceeded to sleep for the entire afternoon. I still feel pretty dazed, and I didn't get squat done, so hopefully I can get some good work done this evening. If you emailed me or called me, try me back tomorrow - I'm planning to just hang out and work/rest as much as possible, so I'll be right next to the phone all day.

What an exciting blog post, eh? Bet you're glad you wasted that 1 minute of your life reading this...Here's a couple of pictures of the rest of the ride that I missed out on.


Sunday, June 17, 2007

Quick weekend race report and new DH bike stuff

Out at the NMBS race at Park City, Fuentes was 18th and Yuki was (I think) 54th in the pro men's field.

Sarah and I stayed closer to home and raced the second Winter Park Series race - I got sprinted at the line (if you're going to have to finish on 1/4 mile of flat fire road, a 34x20 gear doesn't cut it, folks) and ended up 2nd, and Sarah won her category in expert for a second straight week. Best of all, we won some pint glasses, which is good because I've broken quite a few of ours in the last year or so. The course was fantastic, the turnout was killer (530 racers, and that doesn't even count the folks who dropped out and DNF'd!) and we went to our friend Aurora's place for homemade sushi and beer afterwards - you can't ask for a better day than that!

I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately. No racing this coming weekend, so I'm guessing we'll hit up Keystone for some DH riding.


Speaking of downhill bikes - I just got done building version 3.5. I was (and remain) very happy with the True Temper Supertherm (thanks Ben!) front triangle, but there was more lateral flex than I would like in the original rear end. After some surgery on the Shimano 105 bottom bracket that I was using, I realized that the crank shaft on the external bearing Shimano cranks runs on a PLASTIC sleeve - which requires a massive amount of contact area from the crank arm to be stiff enough to work. The sleeves with pinch bolts that I was using weren't providing enough area, and were actually digging into the plastic, causing a bit of noodlieness (though in all fairness, it was hardly noticeable to me when actually riding). Still, since my goal with this bike is to build something that I would (if I weren't a framebuilder) actually pay retail price for, and the original rear end wasn't cutting it. The super ghetto dropouts that I made from angle iron weren't so great either, and the whole thing was too wide - I hit my calves on the stays when pedaling (annoying), so I sat down and did some thinking about what to change. The original rear end went into the scrap bin last week, just so I'd have to get my butt in gear and build a replacement.


Here's the end result. The new bearing setup uses an 22mm axle FSA BMX bottom bracket (bearings are inside the shell, but it still uses a through-axle). The non-external bearing setup allows the rear end to be almost 20mm narrower, which solves the heel/calf clearance issue, and it also *doesn't use any plastic load-bearing parts*. That's key! The bearing races are steel and the cranks (or in this case, the sleeve clamps) press directly against them. Killer.


As you can see, I haven't really cleaned up the fillet brazing yet, nor had time to powdercoat the rear end. Apparently, my camera also decided to focus on everything *except* the bearing/axle/pivot setup, which was what I was trying to illustrate here. Hopefully you get the idea.


Ultra-ghetto angle iron drops were replaced with Surly Instigator dropouts (which happen to match up quite nicely with the stays) that I machined out to 12mm to accept the 12x150 hub.


I also shortened the effective chainstay length to 435mm (or about 17") from 450mm. I have a hard time telling the difference, but all the hotshot downhillers tell me that short stays are good on a DH bike, so what the heck. The only problem is that I want to run a front derailleur, and the el-cheapo LX e-type one on there now (the weird seat tube won't allow a conventional clamp-on setup) only gives the tire about 5mm of room. Doh. Whenever something more DH-appropriate than the Nevegal comes out, I will probably have to scrap (or heavily modify) the front derailleur. I imagine going to 1x9 wouldn't be so bad, but I'd like to have the granny option for when I want to ride uphill. The frame itself will take up to about a 29x3.0 without any problems, of course.

Oh, and for the record, the new rear end is SUPER stiff laterally. As good or better than any full suspension bike I've had. Weight might be a tiny bit more, but I've swapped some parts around as well, so it's hard to compare - the complete bike is still around 37 pounds, frame is about 10. Plenty light enough for what I want to do, which is mostly ride the chairlift up and haul ass back down. I'll try to post when Sarah and I plan to ride at Keystone this summer so that folks interested in a test ride can meet up with us.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Some random thoughts about short track racing


So I was watching the ladies race before my ill-fated turn to suffer, and I was thinking about how much fun short track racing is, if it's done right, for both the participants and spectators. It's over quick, so if someone is just off the front destroying the rest of the field, it's no big deal, and every little mistake matters - bobble once and you're off the back. You can do it on a relatively small piece of land, and you can set up the course to level the playing field a bit between bike handling and fitness, so that different riders with different strengths have a shot at winning.

That's assuming the race is done right - like the Boulder short tracks are. Lots of narrow singletrack, but good passing opportunities, a few little jumps, loads of alternate lines for the adventurous, and plenty of good spectating.

Unfortunately I've seen the courses that are used these days for NORBA NMBS races, and they're terrible. Often no singletrack at all, just a few turns, lots of pavement or boring dirt road, etc. No fun to do (at least it doesn't look like it - I haven't raced a NORBA event in almost 5 years, so it's hard to remember), not that much fun to watch. Worst of all, with fields of 100+ riders (in the pros) the folks starting at the back are faced with a huge (20-30 second) penalty right from the start. When lap times are 2-3 minutes, that's a big deal. It means that a brilliant individual ride by an unknown rider won't even be noticed - even a herculean effort won't hold off the top pros who already have a half-lap advantage on a congested course at the start.

The real problem, I think, lies with the sizes of the field. With 100 guys (or gals) you can't use any singletrack on the course, and even with a pretty wide-open setup, the folks at the back are screwed.

So here's what I'd do, if I ran the circus. Set the format up like BMX - multiple heats of 20 riders or so, racing for 25 minutes or whatever. Then take the top 4 or 5 from each heat for the finals. You'd have to do some creative seeding to make sure that the best riders aren't just eliminating each other. But a great race from an unknown rider will get them a berth in the finals, and some well-deserved attention. Every heat would be raced like a serious race, and you could take an hour or two off between the semis and the finals to let everyone rest up who qualified.

I don't see why this couldn't work, and it would mean a bunch more exciting racing to watch for spectators - so why hasn't it happened? Anyone?

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Boulder Short Track #1 + more crap 'bout books


Sarah and I raced the first Boulder Wednesday night short track tonight. The short track is a Boulder tradition at this point - it's been running for 7 or 8 years. The courses are amazingly fun given what the organizers have to work with, there's always a good turnout, and sometimes there's free beer afterwards.

But more to the point, it's great training and good fun. I started poorly, as always, and was working my way into the top 10 or so (I think we had 25-30 guys) when I got a nice goathead in the rear tire and lost too much air to finish the race. Bummer. Sarah did great in her Boulder short track debut, hanging tough and *almost* avoiding being lapped by uber-fast Keri Barnholt. We'll be back next week!

My facile thoughts about what I read since my last post:
The Kite Runner - great book, though everyone out there already knows that. I think I was the last person on earth to read this. Made me interested enough in Afghanistan to read about it on Wikipedia for almost half an hour!
Futureland - excellent, one of the best sci-fi books I've read in the last few months. An African-American take on the (near) future - my only gripe was that the semi-connected short story format seemed a bit clunky, especially at the end of the book when characters from previous stories start (somewhat implausibly) showing up.
The Race - mediocre. Sailing nonstop around the world is cool as shit, but a contest between a bunch of rich guys with tons of hired guns as crew is kinda lame. There was quite a bit of open-ocean sailing history that was really interesting, but the book bogged down pretty quickly once the focus shifted to "The Race" itself. The writing is pretty uninspired as well, so in hindsight, I wish I hadn't bothered.
Life of Pi - let's get something straight - I read for escape and entertainment. So I very well might have missed the point of this book entirely (ie, was the whole zoo animal thing just an elaborate metaphor? I have no idea). But while I was busy missing the point, I was quite nicely entertained, so I have to say that I liked this one a lot. I think my favorite thing about this book was the fact that the protagonist was *smart* - he'd do something and I'd think "yeah, that's a really good idea, that's just what I would do..." In too many cases in adventure stories, I end up wondering why someone would be so stupid, or not take obvious precautions. Sort of like watching the nubile coeds decide to split up to search the haunted woods for their missing friend - I hate situations where the plot has to be driven by the stupidity of the characters. Life of Pi did not suffer from this affliction, and I'm glad I read it.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Winter park - the longer story


Picture of Yuki at the summit. Pretty cool view!

First off, the first race of this 6-race series is always the most competitive - because it's a hillclimb (a 5 mile, 2000 foot hillclimb). While you'd think that most folks would skip something so painful and boring, you'd be wrong, at least in Colorado - and there are quite a few roadies who show up for this race (it's totally non-technical and many people ride 'cross bikes) who won't do another mountain bike race all year. So I rolled up to the line with 32 other pros - a huge field by Winter Park standards. There were some fast guys represented, and my goal was to finish in the top ten, or barring that, the top half of the field.

From the gun (or the guy saying "go", to be more accurate) the pace was fairly moderate, and after about 2 minutes, Colby Pierce (wicked fast road pro) and I attacked. The lower slopes of the climb are pretty steep, so my 34x20 gear was working well and I felt pretty good. And we were putting a pretty big gap into the chasers - I couldn't even see them on many of the straight sections anymore. After about 20 minutes, though, my lack of any racing this year caught up with me, when my legs decided to drop the anchor and I blew up like the freakin' fourth of July. Colby gapped me on a flatter section (on his way to setting a new course record by a couple of seconds) where I was a little spun out and that was it - I was in survival mode for the final 15 minutes of the climb. 4 guys managed to get by me, and while I hung on to within about 30 seconds of second place, I had nothing left at the top to try to sprint for a podium spot, so I ended up 6th in 35:18. Super pleased with that, though I felt like I could have A) trained a little bit (this was the first even vaguely hard effort I've done this year) and B) taken the Weirwolf 2.5" front/Ignitor 2.1" rear tires off and swapped them for something faster rolling and lighter. Would tires have made enough difference for me to stay with Colby? No freakin' way, but I might have had a shot at 2nd instead of 6th if I'd had a pound less rubber to drag up the hill.

Notably, Anne Trombley set a new course record for the women as well, breaking 40 minutes, which is freakin' awesome. She beat plenty of male pros. Good job, Anne!

Interestingly, the bike setups were: Colby: geared 69er (with a skinny 'cross tire on the front and a rigid carbon fork), Zach: 29er 1x9, a couple of cyclocross bikes, Kenny on a 1x9 26" setup, and then me. So the big wheels are making some inroads in the pro field, I guess. But the legs still mattered the most - I think Colby would have won on a freakin' BMX - he was only about 30 seconds off the course record.

It's also worth noting that while I thought I was quite the stud, 45 year old Charlie Hayes actually BEAT my time by 4 seconds, racing in the SS category. If Charlie had raced pro, he'd probably have done even better with some better competition, I think. What a stud!

I nearly collapsed at the top and then rode down a bit to finish up with Sarah and cool down my legs. She had a great race as well, taking a full 4 minutes off her old best time (she rode a 47:37, smoking fast!) and finishing 5th or 6th in a stacked women's expert field of about 25 or 30 riders.

Taryn had a great ride on her Waltworks to finish 1st in the women's beginner race, and Brian was 6th in expert 30-34. Yuki, who generally does better on flat courses, took a minute off his time from last year and finished 22nd in pro. Oh, and "Sandbagger" Nick Traggis won the expert 25-29 race on his Waltworks 'cross bike by like 2 or 3 minutes. Race with the pros next time, dude!

The race was HUGE - almost 600 total riders. Kudos to Winter Park for putting on a great event, as always - if you live in the front range, you owe it to yourself to come do some of these races. Check out the Winter Park Series here.

It was great doing a race again and seeing all the old familiar faces - said hello to Unger, Barnsie, Aaron P, Tom K, Ian, and many more. Made some new friends, too - all the 29er folks seem to bond on sight, for whatever reason. Works for me!

A final picture: Yuki, Junko, me, and Sarah.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

The brief story - Winter Park series #1

Here's how the Waltworks squad fared:
Sarah: 1st place, expert 20-29 - and a full 4 minutes better than her old PR!
Yuki: 22nd, pro men
Brian K: 6th, expert men 30-34
Yours truly: 6th, pro men

Longer writeup tomorrow when I have the energy. Also maybe a few photos if Yuki emails them to me.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Some books I liked recently... and some I didn't

No bike content today, so if that's what you're here for, you can skip the rest of the post.

When Gravity Fails: I liked this book a lot - it's an interesting examination of how technology can dehumanize, but also a great sci-fi noir book that's hard to put down. Thumbs up!

Babel-17: I've decided that Samuel Delany is my favorite gay black science fiction writer. Actually, I think he's the only one I'm aware of, but Babel17 is a pretty kickass book, especially if (like me) you find linguistics and grammar really interesting (I was briefly, believe it or not, a linguistics PhD student at CU). Big thumbs up for this one. I'm still trying to decide if I liked the Neveryon stuff, also by Delany, but I enjoyed Ballad of Beta2 and to a lesser extent, Empire Star. Delany is a really clever guy who has a talent for mixing in linguistic theory and literary criticism, to an extent that I'm sure a good portion of it is going right over my head. But that's ok, because he's also a great storyteller.

The Road: Cormac McCarthy is like Hemingway for idiots. You know how you had to read The Old Man and the Sea in high school and discuss all the stuff Hemingway was trying to tell you between the lines, which (IMO) he might or might not actually have been trying to tell you? You know how the super-simple declarative sentences lend themselves to endless analysis and pointless theorizing by classes of first-year English majors? Well, Cormac McCarthy is just like Hemingway, but instead of being a badass who tells a good story, he's a pretentious dork who wants people to think he's saying something deep, when in reality, he's just aping a writing style that only really worked for one author, ever. The Road reads like a nuclear post-apocalyptic Americanized version of Grave of the Fireflies - lots of pointless suffering and attempts to beat you senseless with unsubtle metaphors. It also reads like a book written by someone who has never read any post-apocalypse genre sci-fi. Then again, I'm guessing the book isn't aimed at your typical science fiction reader. Bottom line: The Road sucked.

Coming soon, a review of Futureland!

In the meantime, though, expect some more bike-related posts. I know very few of the people who read this are interested in the weird books that I like, but I like to type this stuff up.

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Framebuilding misconceptions

Sarah is working late, and I'm done entering receipts into the computer, so I thought I'd do a little rant on the various misconceptions the bike-buying public seems to have about framebuilders and framebuilding. I'm just going to tackle one tonight, maybe I'll have some more to add soon.

Myth: Great welding skill translates into great framebuilding, and American welders are more skilled than their Taiwanese/Chinese/whatever counterparts.

The reality here is that making a safe, functional bike frame does not require you to be a master welder (in the sense that you would pass a bunch of tests to be licensed by the state). Very few bike builders are certified welders. Furthermore, being a great welder has almost nothing to do with being a good builder - it's sort of like saying that having good hand-eye coordination with a pencil will make you a great artist. Is welding well and quickly necessary to be a good framebuilder? Yes. Is it _sufficient_ to make you a good framebuilder? No.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of welders in foreign countries who work exclusively on bicycles, who have welded orders of magnitude more frames than I ever will, day in and day out. They are, by all reasonable standards, BETTER WELDERS than I, or any other small framebuilder. This does not mean that they've ever so much as thrown a leg over a bicycle, or that the frame that they weld together was properly mitered and prepared, well designed, or will ride well. I, and many other small framebuilders, on the other hand, spend a lot of mental effort on *designing* good bikes, and while our welding skills might only be "good enough", the end result is infinitely better to ride. When you buy a custom bicycle, you are paying for the design experience and skil of the builder - nice welds are just a bonus!

As an aside, framebuilders spend very little of their time welding - it takes me about half an hour or 45 minutes to do all the welds on a bike frame. The construction of the frame, from talking with the customer, doing a design, building, powdercoating, shipping, and doing billing and taxes, not to mention general maintenance of the shop and ordering supplies takes more like 10-15 hours - meaning that I'm only spending about 5% of my time with the TIG torch in hand. So when you picture me hard at work, you'd be closer to the truth if you think of me hunched in front of a computer or a stack of tax forms, not blazing away with a torch.

Monday, June 04, 2007

Some random photos from the weekend





Spent Saturday doing trail work up at Heil Ranch - the new "Wild Turkey" loop will be quite nice, I think - and we even got to see some actual turkeys while working. Cool. Then an epic 5 hour ride yesterday. Bus->Ned->Sourdough->Gold Hill->Boulder with numerous side trips along the way. Great day. Sarah was psyched to be able to hang with some of the pro and semipro guys on the day's big downhill - she's riding great.

Friday, June 01, 2007

Waltworks Jerseys!

Don't get *too* excited, because I think they're not *actually* in stock yet, but you can order 'em direct from TwinSix as of now.

Note that if you're a Waltworks frame owner, you can also order a jersey direct from me for a bit cheaper - $50, shipping included. I should have a big pile of jerseys available next week, so please drop me a line if you want one. I will only have the small through XL sizes, though, so if you need double or triple XL, go to Twinsix directly.

Here's what the jersey looks like: