Fort Fun

Sounds like the boys dominated the Fort Collins STXC again last night, if you're bored, you can read about it here.

Apparently the organizers are going to make them wait a minute or two before letting them start next week. It's not quite the same as racing in Boulder, obviously...

Hott new graphix

Fritz, eat your heart out. New wraparound "panel" decal. Also, WW 29er full squish frame with a humongous front triangle for your frame-packing pleasure.

These decals, for now, are available in black only. There's no upcharge, but they cannot be clearcoated, and as such, they're a bit more fragile than the powdercoatable conventional decals. You've been warned!

Auroboros

Taken from the bathtub, Snickers eats his own tail. While nesting on my clothing.

What, you expected the latest 650b info, or a recipe, or something? Pfah. I have better things to do, and besides, I'm apparently only interesting on this blog when I'm buzzed.

Seriously, if you're really jonesing to read about bikes, you can read some more 650b ramblings from Chris. My friend Martin and I just got done doing a design for his 650b 4/5" travel Ventana/WW frame today, so there will probably be more 650b-ness here in the next few weeks.

Get out and enjoy your Sunday, folks. I plan to.

Paging Sanford

Sanford -

I've sent you numerous emails with no response, so here's your info:
-Seatpost size is 27.2
-Seat clamp is included with the frame.
-You'll want a +7mm crown race

Sorry for the boring post, y'all. I am not sure what to do about this gmail problem.

-Walt

Weightweenies delight

First, a disclaimer: my singlespeed weighs, like, probably 23 pounds or something. I haven't weighed it, and all I really care about is that it works.

But if you're into geeked-out lightweight race bikes, Nick's new steed might do the trick. It's a custom 29er frame and Actiontec 65mm travel fork with American Classic/XTR/Magura type parts. Pretty tricked out. I was *astounded*, though, when the weight came out at 21 pounds even.

That's really light, at least in my book. Though clearly I'm not a candidate for the weightweenie hall of fame at this point. Thanks to Nick for the geeky pix.

Paging James Berry

James, if you're reading this, please give me a call. My emails do not seem to be getting through to you.

Number here is (303) 359-9392.

If any of y'all know James, please pass the word on.

As a side note, this seems to be happening a lot lately. What's the deal with Gmail not making it through people's spam filters?

Finally springtime.

Pictures from today's ride. Enjoy!

650b thoughts

So, I built a nice frame/fork combo for Chris, my second 650b customer, and I thought I'd share some thoughts (and pictures). If you want Chris' (admittedly initial) impression, click over to his blog.

Thought 1: I love options. I have to wonder about the folks who bash on 29ers, or full suspension bikes, or semislicks, or 650b, or whatever online. I'm really starting to think that these kinds of people just live for controversy. Well, I don't, and I think the fact that we have quite decent selections of rims/tires for everything (20", 24", 26", 650b, 29") is freakin' awesome. I love my 29er. I love the fact that Chris can get a 650b setup that he likes, even though a 29er wouldn't work out well. I love my 24" dirtjumping bike.

Thought 2: It's scary to build something you've never ridden. I'm not planning to build myself a 650b setup (I'm WAY to big for it to make sense), so building a frame for Chris (or anyone on 650b) is an exercise in trusting in your intuition. I know the *numbers* on the frame geometry are right where I want 'em, but the 650b wheels are the X factor. A little scary for me when I go out on a limb like this - the worst situation, for me, is someone who isn't happy with their bike. If I was in this for the money, I would have quit to sell subprime mortgages about 3 years ago... To be fair, the wheel size isn't *totally crazy* or anything - right in between 29" and 26". So it's not like I was doing anything revolutionary. But still - it's something new to me, and as such, it's a little scary/exciting. But if I just cranked out 29ers all day, I'd probably go insane.

Thought 2b: Someone mentioned to me recently that other than Wes, I have probably built more 29ers by hand than anyone else on earth (I'd estimate about 300 at this point). Pretty neat, I think. Of course, I could easily be wrong about that - there are nutty framebuilders you and I have never heard of cranking stuff out in their Unibomber cabins in Montana who have probably done 3000. But I'm the second-place non-crazy 29er builder, anyway. Or at least the second-place non-bearded one.

Thought 2b/b: Talk about parenthetical. The subject of beards has me sore (literally). I am "blessed" with, shall we say, abundant facial hair growth. My wife, sadly, believes that this is more of a curse, and thus I must shave, daily. Until recently, I was able to use a nice, safe, high-tech electic razor. But my hirsutitity (new word!) finally overcame the best that the titans of the shaving industry could offer (coincidence? I think not, look around at some of the bearded framebuilders out there...my stupid face is trying to follow along), and I have had to learn to shave with a (ominous music) *safety razor*. Now, most of you probably learned this from your dad when you were, like 5. Not me. I am terrified of sharp things, and even more terrified of sharp things close to my throat (in fact, so terrified that I sported a long, scraggly beard through most of high school. Yes, I was quite popular. Thank you for asking.) When I hit my 30s, I sort of assumed that I'd never have to deal with blades and foam and little pieces of TP and all that. I mean, my body should just slowly and gracefully go downhill (with bigger ears, and nose, and maybe some ear and nose hair) from here, right? Extra facial hair? Pfah! Not possible.

I was wrong. So wrong. When the cost of replacing the electic shaver head (a ridiculous $20) every month or so became too much to bear, I was finally persuaded (by Sarah) to shave with a, er, uh, ladies razor that she had handy.

Wow. I was amazed A) by how easy it was to shave, and B) how much my face bled all over the place afterwards. Thank god she didn't have any aftershave...

Um. Long story short, I am slightly more cleanshaven and somewhat lacking in blood these days. Also, I purchased some more manly disposable razors. The retro grouch in me kinda wants a straight razor, but I might *really* cut my throat with that.

Back to 650b. If you read all that, you're even more bored (Sarah's working late again) than I am.

Thought 3: Industry support for 650b stuff has been fantastic. There are 3 or 4 rims that are offroad-suitable, more tires are coming this summer, the fork situation (between kinda-compatible 26er forks and the WB 650b model) is under control, and Ventana is even making a 650b rear triangle for 4 or 5" travel (I'm building one in a few weeks - stay tuned). Good to see that the curse of the 29er (ie, nobody believing it was a legit format for a bicycle) isn't holding the 650b thing back. And kudos to Kirk Pacenti for kickstarting it. That takes some balls, and I hope he makes a bundle for sticking his neck out.

So, to sum up, I don't like my beard, 650b is cool, and you've just wasted 5 minutes of your life.

Until next time!

Fuentes starts the season in style!

A close 2nd place behind Rad Ross Schnell at Fruita!

Read all about it here: MTB racer report.

<45min 20k

Sounds pretty slow, huh?

Well, you'll be more impressed after you read the details.

I can only hope that I'm that much of a badass in 60 years.

A new look?

Built this fork for Sanford, who *really* wanted tapering blades. Unfortunately, his frame required the fork be suspension corrected, and since the blades are only 420mm long (enough for a ~450mm fork, but not a 480mm one, like what he needed) we came up with a new look - a much more sloping crown. I think it's kinda cool, and it definitely makes it possible to do a 465-470mm fork without moving the crown race up high like this one. So rejoice, tapering blade afficionados: I can now build squishy-fork length tapering forks.

As a side note, Ansel Adams ain't got nothin' on me. This looks like a bad mug shot, as if the fork had held up a liquor store, then been beaten to a fluxy pulp by the LAPD. I need to avoid taking pictures of stuff against dirty white walls, and the dog hair covered throw rug isn't helping. But the fork is cool, I think. I'll try to get a better picture of it when it's back from the powdercoater.

2 things I wonder about

First, for all of the bike geeks, the second thing has to do with bicycles, so don't freak out. We'll get there in a minute.

So here's the first thing I wonder: why isn't recycled toilet paper (or any toilet paper) brown? Now, when you pulp up wood (or old paper) to make new paper, you have to bleach it to get it really white. Great for writing up the great American novel or whatever, but doing it to wipe your ass seems silly to me, *especially* with the recycled stuff (which is, natch, what Sarah and I get). I mean, how much extra energy and gnarly chemicals does it take to turn something white that's going to be used for butt-wiping? Doesn't that defeat the whole point of making it from recycled paper?

When I started ranting about this to Sarah, she said "People would never buy brown toilet paper". When I pressed her on this point, she added "because they're all stupid". Hmm. She might be right, there.

So now, on to the bike rant. My good pal McCalla recently started using something I haven't seen before - an SDG "I-beam" saddle and seatpost. I took one look at the design of this post and saddle and said something along the lines of "all other saddles are obsolete". Then I did a little research and realized that they've been around for several years, but they haven't really managed to become very popular, as far as I can tell.


Here are a few fun facts about the saddle/post setup:
-You've got something like 60mm of fore-aft adjustment, instead of maybe 20-30mm with a conventional saddle.

-Adjustment of tilt/angle and fore-aft, plus clamping, is accomplished with one nice strong bolt. Simple! Yes, if the bolt broke, you'd be screwed - but the same can be said of any conventional seatpost - in fact, conventional posts just have more things that can break, and all of them are just as critical.

-The saddle weighs 125 grams. And it has *actual padding* and kevlar sides, so that you don't have to buy a new one every time you make the mistake of, say, leaning the bike up against a wall. No carbon shell on ti rails idiocy here.

-They're CHEAP. A <150 gram saddle goes for $60 or so. A nice carbon seatpost is $85 or something, and a decent aluminum post is <$50. Better design and lower weight than saddle/post combos that cost twice as much, or more.

-I can't imagine a scenario in which you could break the I-beam. On the other hand, I've broken lots of conventional saddle rails.

-This type of design would work *unbelieveably well* with the new-school seatmast type road bikes. One bolt to clamp the mast AND the saddle would save the weightweenies some serious grams, eh?

There are two downsides I can think of:

-You lose the "suspension" element of the shell of the conventional saddle, which can sag between the rails a bit. I think you could easily make an I-beam design that would accomplish the same thing, though it doesn't exist now.

-Saddle and seatpost selection, to be honest, kinda sucks. Same story as 29er mountain bikes, back in the day, but we all know how that worked out...

Given that my current saddle/seatpost are in good shape, I probably won't upgrade myself until they get really ratty, but rest assured, one of these setups is in my future. Hell, SDG should *give* me one for giving them a writeup like this, totally unsolicited (you listening, guys? I'm looking to sell out here...)

And hey, all you brown TP manufacturers could hook me up too. There's space left on the jersey for another sponsor...

Tim's stem and fork, happy Friday

Just to prove that I haven't been slacking (well, ok, maybe I have) this week I've:
-Done our 2007 taxes.
-Built forks for Tim, Sanford, and Adam.
-Built a stem for Tim.
-Built a frame for team-member Nick.
-Almost finished building a full suspension frame for Fritz, with the exception of the shock mount.
-Gotten part way through Tim's frame.
-Ordered and shipped countless random things.

Of course, I wanted to *finish* Tim's frame, as well as Fritz's, but c'est la vie. Taxes basically ate an entire day, and there's not much I could have done about it.

Took a quick snapshot of Tim's fork/stem for kicks. Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

Long-delayed final vacation photos

Just a few. In no particular order:
-Ocotillo was all leafy and blooming when we were in Tucson. Very cool.
-Some of the awesome Tucson mountain park singletrack.
-Sarah working a funky V2ish sit-down start to a problem at Cochise.
-The gang (minus yours truly) at Cochise Stronghold.