Friday, February 22, 2008

Kurt and Luis are bastards.











I currently hate everyone who is A)currently not sick, and B)riding their bike in 80 degrees and sun.

Thanks to Kurt for the pix. Sort of. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Some new stuff


Word. Here's Daniel's new FR 29er frame and shock. Don't panic, Dan, the color came out fine. My camera was just acting weird. Weight came out a tiny bit heavier than I wanted at a smidge over 7.5 pounds (with the shock) but there were some aesthetic considerations that ended up requiring a straightgauge seattube (porky) as well as a toptube/seattube brace (again, extra weight). Then again, it's a 5" travel 29er, so it's really meant for hucking off rocks on long steep downhills. You just get a little better workout going up this way.

Other interesting (maybe) item back from powdercoat is Dave's stem (don't worry, D, that's not your fork, I just used it to pose the stem). Came out nice. I'm missing one of the bolts, though, so I can't ship it until next week, or until I find the bolt (not likely, given the current state of the shop).

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Waltworks on cyclingnews.com

Well, sort of. The cool 650b bike that Steve built for his wife is up on cyclingnews.com: click here to see it. My contribution? I built the fork. It's a huge honor, to me, that Steve would want my fork on one of his show bikes. So thanks, Mr. Garro!

Tomorrow: Pictures of some dualies.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

New tubes in stock

Available, as always, at my Online frame tubing store.

New stuff as of 2/15/08:

Loads of new stuff this month - I've put together some nice inexpensive kits and added some road specific parts as well.

HBDPLATCS1 and TK253261 road/cross/touring chainstays - two different configurations of heat-treated .8/.6 oval road chainstay. $20/pair.

MHT - Basic 37mm head tube.

Beginner Road/Cross Kit - 9/6/9 tubes, nice and forgiving. Paragon BB shell included! $70.

OX Platinum Road/Cross Kit - Super light 7/4/7 OX platinum main triangle tubes and heat-treated stays. BB shell included. $120.

OX Platinum stem kit - Lighter and stronger than basic 4130 stems. Everything you need (clamp material, hardware, extension) for a TIG/fillet stem. $60.

HVERDT2 - 9/6/9 heat treated 29er downtube. Only $12!

Friday, February 15, 2008

Dave's Stem


Dave, thankfully, is a patient guy. He's been waiting for some stems and forks for a while, and I've only done half (one stem, one fork) of the work so far. I'm a slacker, I know. But hey, he lives in freakin' Michigan, and it'll be another month or two before the mercury gets above zero, so he can afford to be patient.

I've decided that I'm going to start officially offering these stems for sale - $125 gets you a custom stem in any size/length/clamp type you'd like. Only available for frame or fork customers, though - I'm not selling stems by themselves.

This one came out pretty nicely - basic single bolt clamp at both ends, 105mm long, nice 1.1mm OX platinum material for the extension (lighter AND stronger than using .049"/1.25mm 4130, dudes). 150 grams even, before powdercoating, and super beefy. It's taken about a half dozen stems to get to this point, as well as some helpful pointers from framebuilder friends (props to Shiggy, especially, for hardware recommendations), but I'm pretty happy now.

Enjoy your weekends, everyone!

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Daniel's freeride 29er


A nice big beefy frame for blasting down the hills - 29" wheels, 5" travel front and rear, and set up with guides for a Gravitydropper post. What could be better? Oh, and can I mention the fact that the RS Monarch shocks actually fit the Ventana mounting hardware correctly? So I don't have to spend 10 minutes on the lathe to make the sucker work! Kickass.

I promised Daniel I'd send him a picture, so I figured I'd post it to the blog, along with a bottle of brew from my favorite local drunkards at Avery. Sarah and I are friends with some of that crowd, which can be a bad thing when you're bored at night and the brewery is only about 1/2 mile away. There is definitely such a thing as too much free beer, my friends.

In other news, the endless winter here is depressing me, and Sarah as well, so we're going to take a road trip at the end of February for 8 or 9 days. On the hit list right now:
-Santa Fe (visit my pops)
-Gallup (sweet singletrack off I-70, if I can remember how to find it)
-Flagstaff/Sedona - anyone know if Priest draw will be dry/warm enough to boulder?
-Phoenix - probably just a quick ride on the way south
-Tucson - our pals Erik and Natalie, the mountain park, flan, and alcohol?
-Cochise Stronghold - just a cool place. I don't think we'll rope up and climb anything, but the hiking is super fun and I've heard there are even mountain bike rides to do.
-Las Cruces - Chopes chopes chopes! Dona Anas! Robledos! Brewery!
-Hueco - Sarah has never been, I haven't been in almost 10 years. I hear things have kinda gone downhill, but I'm still psyched to just touch the rock. It's been too long.
-Socorro - we always stop to go bouldering at the streambed. Don't know if we'll have enough skin left after Hueco, though.
-Albuquerque - maybe see Lee and Linda's new baby, ride the foothills.
-Back home. Whew, that's a lot of driving...

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Win some free frame tubes!


As some of you know, I have a small side business selling frame tubing and framebuilding supplies. I'm also the moderator of the MTBR framebuilding forum, and as such I get a TON of questions about what tubes to buy, how to start building frames, etc.

So I'm sponsoring a contest - submit your application in this MTBR thread. Complete rules and how to enter are in the first post of the thread.

Don't want to enter, but still want to build a frame or buy some tubes? Click over to the Waltworks online tubing store.

Monday, February 04, 2008

United raises fees for bikes

Get your S&S or Ventana full sussers ready, 'cause taking a bike on the plane just got pricier. From the UAL website:

Bicycle Allowance/Requirements
Non-motorized bicycle must be prepared for travel by the customer. United does not provide tools. Handlebars must be turned sideways and protruding pedals and accessories must be removed. The bicycle must be contained in a protective/durable case, bag or box.

Cost*
Travel before May 5, 2008:
Within U.S./Canada: $85.00 USD
Travel on/after May 5, 2008:
Within U.S./Canada: $100.00 USD

Maximum size/weight
50 pounds/62 linear inches


...and you know that all the other airlines will follow suit. $100 for a bike?!? Makes me wonder if the era of cheap air travel will be over soon.

Saturday, February 02, 2008

The 953 Project - first impressions

For those who haven't followed the long and convoluted saga of my frustrating experiences with Reynolds' new 953 stainless steel bike tubing, the story goes something like this:
-Walt orders some tubes.
-Tubes come, Walt starts making a bike out of them.
-Reynolds changes their mind about how to join the tubes, Walt cannot be sure what he built won't suddenly fall apart. Walt is not pleased.
-A year passes. During this time, Walt sells off the remaining tubes at a fraction of what they cost him.
-Reynolds offers Walt some more tubes for really, really cheap to try out.

So here we are - I just received (yesterday) enough tubes for a front triangle, plus some chainstays. The plan, tentatively, is to make a frame using a few non-stainless parts mixed with the 953.

I have mixed feelings about these tubes. They're shiny, and (at least in theory) stainless, but examining them reveals a few obvious shortcomings. We'll start with the chainstays:
-They are not particularly light. As a matter of fact, they're the same weight as a standard True Temper HOX5CS 29er chainstay, which is not at all a lightweight stay. In fact, for their length, they're actually heavier, given that they're 20mm shorter.
-Reynolds specs claim that these are .7mm/.5mm wall butted tubes (the thinner end is swaged down to a smaller diameter to join to the dropouts). Given that the HOX5CS stay is 0.8/0.6, I'd expect the 953 chainstay to be about 15% lighter, especially given that it's shorter. Apparently the specs are wrong, or else the manufacturing process is not producing the tubes to spec. More on this in my next post about the main triangle tubes.
-They are ugly as sin. I'm not chaiming that I could do a better job bending and dimpling these stays, nor do I care much about looks, but given the cost of the product, you'd expect something nicer. They're also blackish in color, as if they have mill scale on them (?) unlike the shiny main tubes. So I imagine if you wanted to do a paint-free setup, you'd need to spend a lot of time polishing them.
-They're expensive. About triple the price of their non-stainless brothers. If you think that's bad, though, just read on...

Next up, the head tube:
-The only head tube that will actually fit a 1 1/8" headset, out of the box, is 1mm thick (same as a very strong OX platinum head tube, and exactly the same weight) and costs an astounding _TEN TIMES_ as much as a comparable OX Plat head tube. Ten freakin' times! There are plenty of COMPLETE TUBESETS available for retail prices from Nova and elsewhere that cost less than JUST THE HEAD TUBE.
-If you don't want to pay those kinds of prices, Reynolds also sells a 38.1mm x 0.7mm wall version, which requires shims brazed or welded into the ends. I'm assuming they did this because people were having problems with the head tube distorting (use heat sinks and backpurge, guys!) but it really does suck for a couple of reasons:
-It's a pain, and it's expensive. The head tube and shims cost about 5 times what a comparable OX Platinum head tube would cost (hey, we're making progress, though!). And making sure the shims fit, welding/brazing them in, and cleaning up the joint to join the toptube and downtube is a lot of extra work that won't come cheap.
-The other problem, of course, is that the shims have to be so thick (1.35mm where they slip-fit inside, a little over 2mm above and below) that the weight savings over a conventional 1 or even 1.25mm wall OX platinum head tube evaporates. For a 100mm long head tube, if we assume that the sleeves have to extend 5mm past the top and bottom of the head tube stock, and that they have to be 15mm (5mm outside, 10mm inside) long at both the top and bottom of the head tube, the total weight will be approximately 98 grams. Whoa! Not bad! However, a conventional 100x36x1mm OX Platinum head tube, which, generally speaking, is strong enough for medium sized riders on mountain bikes, is 86 grams, and a 1.25mm wall thickness head tube (ultra beefy - that's what I used on my DH bike) is only 106 grams. If we increase the length to 150mm (more typical for a road bike) the weight difference between the 1mm OXplat tube and the shimmed 953 comes down to just 1 gram, but the 953 still loses. I guess if you needed a 200+mm long head tube, there would be a weight advantage, but I just don't see that being a common thing.


I'll try to talk about the seat, top, and downtubes tomorrow or Monday, and then I'll try to do some summing-up type blogging before I actually get started building anything. For those who can't wait: thus far my impression is that the 953 is a huge waste of money. That could change, though. Stay tuned.