Monday, July 30, 2007

Putting my money where my mouth is


So I've been talking a lot of smack online lately about how nobody is really committed enough to keeping trails open to bikes - figured it's time to do something positive about it, leveraging my position as a framebuilder.

Here's the deal:
-From now on, every Waltworks frame or complete bike includes (at no extra charge) a basic IMBA membership. From what I've read, once you get someone to take the first step and join this kind of organization, they're quite likely to renew their membership down the road - getting over that first hurdle is the hardest part. Honestly, pretty much anyone who's buying one of my bikes should already be a member, but I know that's not the case.
-If you're already an IMBA member, I'll give you a Waltworks t-shirt and some other goodies at no charge.
-I'll advocate for other framebuilders and manufacturers to do the same.

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Thoughts on motorcycles


From a recent posting on MTBR about trail access:

I'm sort of torn over this issue. I used to ride (and race) dirtbikes, both at the track and in enduros/trail events, and while it was wicked fun, I can understand how seeing and hearing motos on the trail would drive other trail users totally nuts.

IMO, motorcycles and motorcyclists have put themselves in this position (being almost universally hated by other trail users and banned from most trails). Here's why:

-Instead of aiming to make motos quieter, lighter, and lower impact, while keeping performance levels relatively constant, AMA racing rules (concerning minimum bike weight) dating from the 1970s prevented any manufacturers from attempting to build really lightweight , quiet, trail-worthy bikes. Given that bikes had to be heavy to meet AMA rules, the only way to improve performance and get a competitive edge was to add power and suspension, which is exactly what the moto companies did. The result is that today pretty much every bike out there is heavier, more powerful, and louder (and smellier) than it needs to be. If you look at a modern trials motorcycle, you can see the potential that exists with modern materials and technology - trials bikes don't lack power or capability (well, ok, except that they're only geared to go 20 mph), but they're amazingly quiet and lightweight, and hence don't tear up a trail anything like a 300 pound XR650R. They're very close to being downhill bikes with a motor.

-The moto industry ignored trail access until it became a problem, and marketed their products primarily to young, speed-crazed men. Go flip through a moto mag at the supermarket sometime (even an enduro/trail riding oriented one like Dirtrider - which is where I stole the pic) and you'll see a lot of 20-something guys with tatoos ripping up berms and doing jumps, along with dyno tests for 80+ hp motors. Look at pipe reviews and you'll see nothing much about how quiet they are - just whether they comply with the (ridiculously loud) regs or not. Trail riding etiquette is taught and respected by the best of the moto folks, but there are too many hillbillies who got their hands on a clapped out RM out there who don't yield and ride out of control, and the moto folks don't do a great job (IMO) of self-policing. Give the idiots a bike that's way too heavy (and hence hard to stop, and hard to keep going without digging a rut in the trail) and way too powerful, not to mention loud, and you have a recipe for disaster. Go walk (or ride) around the Bookcliffs north of Grand Junction if you want to see the results.

Where am I going with this? I see the mountain bike industry headed the same way, for similar reasons. "Trail" bikes have 6+ inches of travel these days, and any idiot with a credit card can buy one to go bomb down Apex out of control. In the days of rigid bikes, that would never have happened. Does that mean we need to get rid of suspension? No, but it does mean we need to recognize that the capabilities of the bikes often exceed those of the rider and do a better job of beating the rules of the trail into people's brains. New bikes should be sold with an IMBA membership as part of the purchase price - in the long run, this is a benefit for the customer, the bike shop, and the manufacturer. Bike magazines should spend more time writing up great rides, trails, and experiences and less on the latest carbon fiber widget - because without an appreciation for the tenuousness of our access to those trails, they'll be gone in a generation, and so will the business of making carbon mountain bike widgets.

I think the bottom line is that the average rider either A) doesn't realize or B) doesn't care that trail access is threatened. We should work to make people aware of the problem and invested enough to care about it, or we'll be on the outside looking in (awesome bikes, no trails to ride them on), just like the moto folks.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Monarch Crest trail off limits to bikes?

Click here for the article from the Rocky Mountain News.

Sounds crazy to me - they admit in the article that the majority of users are mountain bikers, they don't report any user conflict (we're talking about a trail that's above treeline a significant amount of the time, and which requires thousands of feet of climbing, after all - it's not ever going to get that crowded), and they complain that it might not be safe to take a horse pack train though?!? I mean, wouldn't the bikes just yield to the horses as normal? Why should someone who wants to drag 30 horses in a line through the trail take priority over bikers? I don't get it.

In any case, f*cking bombard these idiots with public comments, eh? The address is at the bottom of the article (but note that the mailto link isn't right), or if you're too lazy to read that far, send comments to:
cdnst@fs.fed.us

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Laugh if you will...


So I'll probably lose the respect of most of you by admitting this, but what the heck. Sarah and I are on a bad-movie spree of late (ie, deliberately watching movies that we know are bad - Cool as Ice, Guyver, House 2, etc). So the other night we watched Aeon Flux (and yes, that's an actual still from the movie). No, not the so-cool-it-makes-your-eyes-bleed animated version that was on MTV (and which, it's worth pointing out, I never saw). We watched the universally-loathed live-action movie version. And I liked it quite a bit, as did Sarah. We were pretty disconcerted by this turn of events, so I hit the internet to find out why people hated it so much. Here are the reasons I found:
1. It's not as cool as the cartoon/plot is totally different. I can't respond to this, because I never saw an entire episode of the cartoon, but I do sympathize, at least in theory.
2. Aeon doesn't wear a virtually nonexistent swimsuit type outfit. Once again, I can understand, but if they'd put a live actress in the outfits that the cartoon wore, the movie would be NC-17 in a hurry.
3. The acting sucks. Well, honestly, this isn't freaking King Lear. It's basically a story about super-powered cloned people trying to murder each other with exotic weapons. So, really, mostly the acting needs to consist of looking lethal and/or hot, and managing to mouth your lines while keeping a straight face. And hey, it has the guy who played Kaiser Susse in The Usual Suspects, wearing what appears to be a giant, inverted cloth bucket.
4. The sets look they came from an ad in Dwell (ok, I made up this one, but it's true). I actually thought the primary colors/Ikea look added to the atmosphere of the movie nicely, but it was pretty over the top.

Where am I going with all this? I'm not really sure, given that I doubt any of the bike geeks reading this are going to rush out and rent Aeon Flux, and if you did, you'd probably hate it, just like everyone else on the planet.

Bike-related post tomorrow, I promise.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Race report, random drivel


Obviously, I didn't race this weekend (just started riding on the road a little bit though, which I'm pretty pleased with). Some of the crew went up for the Winter Park point to point race, though, and did pretty well:
-Sarah (pictured) felt "like crap" and ended up mid-pack (8th out of 21) in expert (and 13th overall among all women). She vows revenge in 2 weeks, though.
-Taryn won her beginner women's race, again. Time to upgrade, sandbagger...
-Brian was 6th in expert 30-34, although he also reported not having much in the way of legs. Brian's fighting it out for a podium spot for the overall, it looks like, and I think he's going to rage in the next (much longer, much more climbing) race.


I just built a bike for a guy with a portion of an old disc rotor as the chainstay/seatstay brace. Kinda neat, I think!

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Used Waltworks forks on Ebay

I've seen a couple of used Waltworks frames and forks pop up on Ebay in the last 6 months or so, and I wanted to let everyone know that I strongly discourage buying them unless you are very conscientious about doing your research about whether the frame/fork is appropriate for you. The forks are what bother me the most, because the consequences of having one fail are much worse than most frame failures.

Unless your riding style, size, and intended application (not to mention frame geometry) closely match those of the seller, you should steer clear. A custom fork built for someone else may be TOTALLY inappropriate for you, and the consequences of a fork failure can be pretty ugly.

Just as an example, I once built a custom fork for a 130 pound racer who wanted it nice and light - full on tricked out fork, with a custom machined crown, ultra lightweight blades, etc, etc. Then a year later, someone I've never heard of (let alone built a fork for) calls me and says he broke one of my forks. Turns out the 130 pound XC guy sold the fork to some 220 pound dude, "in good faith". While I'm sure that the fork was fine when it was sold, it was also totally inappropriate for the 220# guy, yet that thought never crossed the the buyer or seller's mind, apparently. Luckily nobody was hurt, but someone easily could have been.

Here's the bottom line, guys - I build CUSTOM forks and frames. That means they are designed for ONE rider. They also *might* work for lots of other folks, but as soon as something ends up on Ebay, I have no control over who is going to buy the frame/fork I built, or how/where they're going to ride it. That's not cool. I can't offer a warranty on a product when I have no idea how it'll be used, or by who. Honestly, you're much better off buying a production product instead - it'll be cheaper, strong enough for any size of rider, and fit (presumably) about as well as a custom bike that wasn't designed for you. And it'll come with a warranty for you, the original owner. If you want a custom bike, save your pennies and get one that's actually built for you. There are really no shortcuts here - if you don't want to spend the time or money, just get a production frame or fork and get out there and ride it.

Sorry for the ranting. I'll do a race post with some pictures tomorrow, hopefully.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Hilarious story, tangentially related to framebuilding

For those who don't know, Ted Wojcik is a famous framebuilder on the East Coast.

Click here for the story

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

New trails in Clear Creek county?

Just thought I'd publish these links from the DP and MTBR:
Denver Post Clear Creek Mountain Bike article
MTBR thread
I'm pretty stoked about this - sounds like some awesome riding at high altitude, almost in my backyard. And the county actually WANTS to see people riding the trails, which is unbelieveably refreshing.

In other news, my doctor visit revealed that I indeed have an AC separation. But it's relatively mild and doc thinks I'll make a full recovery in a couple of weeks. Hurray!
In the meantime, it's pretty funny trying to do work with 1.5 arms.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

27.5" wheel bikes?

Check it out here:
Frameforum 650b/27.5" mountain bike thread

My opinion is that this wheelsize makes a lot of sense - it'll allow a lot of smaller riders to fit onto a bigger-wheeled frame without some of the sacrifices (long chainstays, weird angles, etc) that they run into on 29ers. More options is always a good thing!

So what do you guys think? Any opinions on this? Anyone want to jump in line to get the first-ever Waltworks Tweener?

Second, what's the best name for these beasts?
-650b'ers (that's the rim size designation)
-27fivers
-Tweeners
-Something else

Ideas?

Shoulder news: My shoulder still hurts. A lot. I will go see Dr. Eric on Monday.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Friday the 13th!

Ok, I'm not superstitious, but here's my day so far:
-Make plans to go DH riding with Feldman at Keystone. So far so good.
-Arrive at Keystone only to discover that my shock pump is broken. We try Feldman's pump and manage to pull the valve entirely out of my Roco air shock. Great. Thankfully, a shop in the village (more on them later) has a pump and lets us use it. Whew.
-First run, Feldman flats, and I break my old ESP9.0 derailleur into tiny plastic pieces. I limp down the remainder of the run and head to the shop again.
-The cheapest SRAM derailleur available at the shop is a $60 X.7. This is the same derailler that I sell for $30 or something to frame customers, but it's a retail shop in the mountains, so whatever. They gotta mark stuff up to make a buck. Whatever.
-My feelings toward the shop take a nosedive when I realize that my derailleur cable is horribly frayed from the abuse of finishing the run, and that I need a new one. Now, I can buy a derailleur cable for 50 cents, or 30 cents if I buy them in bulk. And I *just bought* a $60 derailleur. So I go in and ask for a cable, and the guy says "that'll be $5". $5 for a derailleur cable. Fantastic.
-Feeling better, Feldman and I do a few great runs with no mechanicals. The new trails are wicked - especially the new jump trail, "Money". I manage to cleanly jump all the jumps over the course of 2 or 3 runs, though not every jump each time. Super, super fun 15 foot tables with nice steep takeoffs. Wicked.
-On my final run of the day, we head down "Wild Thing", the one and only decent trail to get to the bottom of the mountain. This is the fourth time I've ridden it. It's relatively easy, I think to myself. Then I plant my front wheel sideways on a rock, burp the air out of the tire, and fly over the bars. I land SUPER hard on my left shoulder. Did I mention that I didn't bother to bring my full upper body armor (with shoulder cups) because it's going to just be a mellow day? Yeah. I can't lift my left arm above my shoulder, so I've either bruised it really really badly (I'm crossing my fingers hoping for this option) or separated it (doh!). If it's the latter, I'll be off the bike for a couple of months. We'll see.
-I break my minipump fixing the flat, and also break the valve on my tubeless rimstrip. Then I crash again due to the bum shoulder on the way to the bottom. Fantastic.

So not a great Friday for me. As a final insult, someone took the Snickers bar I'd stashed under the car (so that it wouldn't melt) as an after-ride treat. Doh!

I'll know more about the shoulder in a day or two. I don't think it'll slow me down too much for working, at least.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Muni-tacular


Just thought I'd snap a picture of this before DHL comes to schlep it to Wade in NM. Yes, it does glow in the dark...I kinda wanted to steal it for myself, honestly - I need a new unicycle pretty badly.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Thoughts on forks


This is probably going to be a bit rambling, since I have two goals with this post:
1: Post some pictures of Doug's bike in the build process, as I promised him.
2: Entertain myself and you guys, and maybe even pass along some kind of information.

Hence I haven't thought this out very well, but here we go. If you want to waste 5 minutes reading it, be my guest.

So first off, a pet peeve - lots of people seem to think of the fork as an *accessory*, kind of like a stem, or a brake lever, or whatever. Lots of times, they'll pick a fork based entirely on weight, or cool looks, or what their friends are riding, without considering that (at least in the case of rigid forks) the geometry and ride characteristics of the stuff out there is all over the place. If, say, you're looking for a 29er fork, you'll find all kinds of lengths (anything from 460mm to 490mm long is sold as "suspension corrected") and rakes (from 38 to 48mm, just on production forks). Match this up with a frame at random and you can easily change everything about how the bike handles - the front wheel, after all, is what the fork is holding onto, and it's also the wheel that does most of the steering and braking. Pretty important stuff, I'd say.

So here's the bottom line, for me: forks deserve to be chosen with just as much care and deliberation as frames, and the frame and fork (regardless of what types) should be carefully matched to ensure that the bike rides right.


I've built an awful lot of forks - probably 150 (including Doug's - here's the disc mount, with one side welded and one side tacked), though I'd have to do some accounting to figure out the exact number. I've done all sorts of weird ones, and tons of not so weird ones, and in some ways, I'm more proud of my forks than I am of my frames - I feel like I've really managed to provide a truly "custom" fork (ie, different fork blades, different butting profiles on the fork blades, different crowns, different steerers, rather than just a set of the same unicrown blades for every rider, no matter what).


I've definitely hit some bumps in the road - there were 4 or 5 forks that cracked because the butting on some fork blades was screwy, and several of the folks out there reading this probably remember when I messed up your disc mounts so that they didn't line up right. I had trouble with the caps on top of the fork blades for a while, too, until I started doing them with brass instead of silver. In any case, though, I'm at the point where other framebuilders order forks from me for custom frames that they're building, which, to me, is the ultimate compliment.

I guess I'm rambling, but the bottom line here is that forks are wicked cool, just as cool as frames. Really.


Finally, here are a couple of shots of the FIRST EVER Waltworks fork. Feldman and I spent an entire afternoon building this sucker, then test rode it off of my old deck at the house in Lafayette. We made the dropouts (horizontal, for adjustable rake!) out of 1/4" plate on my chop saw, because I didn't have a mill, or any other appropriate tools, for that matter. Note the sweet helmet.

Believe it or not, that fork is still around today - it lasted through a season of hard mountain biking, then was relagated to townie duty until last year, when I finally got tired of dumping the water out of the blades every time it rained. It's still sitting in the shop, waiting for a place of honor on the wall someday.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

The longest "weekend" ever

So Sarah and I talked ourselves into doing the Firecracker 50 (a ridiculously long and hard mountain bike race, at least by my standards) on the 4th of July, and since Sarah's dad has a condo in Keystone, which is a 15 minute drive from the course, we decided we'd just stay up in Summit county for Thursday and Friday as well, then race the Winter Park/Crankworx race on Saturday and drive home. That's a, uh, 5 day weekend? Jeez.


Here's a shot of McCalla (who ended up 6th) at the start. I've known Mike since I was about 4 years old - I remember him attending several of my birthday parties (and usually eating all the pizza). The fields were HUGE - the bike race portion of the 4th of July Parade stretched for at least 5 blocks. Awesome. Mountain bike racing is back!


We had to modify Sarah's brake lever slightly - the axle that the brake lever itself pivots around *fell out*, so once we found it again, we fixed it by stealing some stickers off of fruit (I believe they were plums) at the grocery store and pasting them over the top and bottom of the shaft so that the axle couldn't fall out. Thankfully, it worked great - that would have been a quick end to our race, otherwise.


We ran into lots of friends at the race - Sportsman, of course (pictured), Tom K, Martini, Mike Hogan, and too many others to mention here. It seems like there are new faces at the races in recent years, but the old guys (like me) aren't quitting - the fields just keep getting bigger!

In any case, the Firecracker was a great race, though we didn't do so hot. We were racing as a team, which meant that we each did one 25 mile lap (with a nasty 5400 feet of climbing). Unfortunately, we didn't think about strategy very carefully, and had Sarah go first - meaning that all the roadies and awful bike handlers beat her up the first (mostly paved) 2400 foot climb and jammed up the singletrack something awful. She reported that she had to walk almost everything even vaguely technical, because so many riders were crashing or walking in front of her. Then she managed to get lost for 10 minutes, and by the time I started, we were already way behind the competition. I passed 280 of those people on my lap and had a fun time, but we finished 5th out of 13 teams, not nearly as good as we'd hoped. C'est la vie - we'll be back next year!


As a side note, the Firecracker is a REALLY fun and well-run race. And it drew something like 750 racers! Crazy cool! As you can see, I managed to wreck pretty good in one spot when trying to make a very stupid pass through a switchback.

The next day we did some DH runs at Keystone - well, actually only 2 runs, because the rain and lightning rolled in and ended the fun at about 1pm. D'oh! We rode the Burro trail and some other random stuff in the Hoosier pass area on Friday (we're sitting on a log on the Wheeler trail in the picture), and then went to bed early to try to get up for the drive to Winter Park.

Unfortunately, I chose to drink about 2 liters worth of Apricot Nectar (made by a company called Looza - how's that for irony?) and had, shall we say, a few more trips to the bathroom than I expected in the morning. Then we got stuck behind a semi full of cows on the pass that was going a blazing 20mph. When all was said and done, I missed the start of the pro men's race (9am) and started riding, all by myself, at 9:20. I figured I'd ride hard and get a workout, and then check out all the fun Crankworx stuff happening at the base area afterwards. The first half of the "race" was pretty funny - all the course marshals were either asleep or did hilarious doubletakes upon seeing me rolling by 20 minutes down. Unbelieveably, I managed to catch a couple of people by the top of the (long) climb, and I caught a couple more on the uber-technical Mountain Goat trail - the descent featured a teeter totter, a 6 inch wide bridge over a pretty decent sized drop, and numerous 2-3 foot rock drops and ultra-steep sections - it was by far the most technical terrain I've ever ridden in a cross country race. I managed to clean everything by just concentrating on being smooth and taking my time picking lines. In any case, I finished 27th out of about 40 starters, though some of those folks got DQ'd for getting lost and off course. My time, according to my cell phone, was somewhere around 1:57, good enough for second place behind Ned. Too bad I didn't make the start, I guess...once again, c'est la vie.


Sarah was *flying* in her expert race and ended up 4th out of about 25 experts. She also won her age group and took 11 minutes off her time on the same course 2 years ago. Not bad!


Taryn won her beginner race, in fine style, and proved that she's figured out how to descend (the fact that she's now got suspension might be helping too!) We'll probably have to shame her into moving up to Sport next year, I suppose. Congratulations Taryn!


Brian K was 5th in the super-competitive Expert 30-34 race, and Yuki and Nick finished 9th and 7th in the pros. A great day for a race, even if the course marking (and my punctuality) could have been better.

Monday, July 02, 2007

Kenosha/Georgia Pass ride


Thanks to our new crack of dawn riding schedule, it actually wasn't too painful to get up at 6am to go ride Kenosha yesterday. We rolled down to Feldy's place and loaded up his Subaru (5 riders+bikes in one car, not bad) then cruised up to Kenosha pass. For those not in the know, this is a really fun section of the Colorado trail that is usually done as an out and back, with the average elevation of the ride hovering somewhere around 10,000 feet. With temps at 100+ degrees in Denver, we thought we'd escape the heat, but we thought wrong - it was scorching. 85+ degrees a lot of the time, I'd estimate. We drank a LOT of water (it's a 5 hour ride) but still had a great time.

Here's a shot of Brian on the final climb to Georgia pass. We ran into some other riders at the bottom of the climb who advised us "hope you brought your snow shovels" - and then we only found maybe 50 yards of snow drift that had to be walked over. Are mountain bikers getting wimpier or something? I mean, come on, it's 3 minutes of hiking over snow on a freaking 5 hour ride!

Feldman, at the start of the ride. There are really cool twisty Aspen grove sections for quite a ways - really fun stuff, and we hardly saw anyone on the trail, so you could let it rip pretty good without worrying about running anyone down.

The trail isn't really technical, but there was one step-up/rock garden section that Sarah tried a few times before cleaning it.