Reincarnation!

Shawn got this old tandem (over 50 years old, we think) frame for free.

Not such a stellar deal, it was broken in half.

A little re-mitering, a little re-brazing, and a reinforcing strut welded in (tip: do not try to TIG weld 50 year old mild steel, it's full of crud and voids and welds like poop) and she's good to go! Have fun on the way to school, Madeline and Shawn!

Bikes are not art

Framebuilding and the concept of "art" have always been a contentious subject (at least among framebuilders - read back through some of the archives of the phred.org framebuilders email list to see what I'm talking about). On a semi-lazy Sunday morning (we were out late at the in-laws place making dinner last night and watching the Nuggets rout the Warriors) I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents, here, where there's nobody to contradict me.

I'll come right out and say it. Bicycle framebuilding is not art. It's not even close.

There are really 2 big reasons why. The first has to do with meaning, and the second has to do with function. And they're related to each other. I will now attempt to explain - if you have more training in philosophy (or art) than me, try not to laugh as I blunder through this.

I'm not going to argue that bicycles can't be beautiful. They certainly can be, and some people have even told me that the ones I build are (which I'm not so sure about, but thanks). But lots of things are beautiful (it's of course in the eye of the beholder) and I think bicycles fall into the category of beautiful that I call, for lack of a better term "magpie junk". In other words, humans are like magpies in some ways - we like shiny things. A shiny purple/blue fade paint job can make a bike look like a piece of jewelry, and the magpie part of our brains wants to take it home and put it in the nest along with our other shiny things (ever wonder why there aren't any matte paint jobs on cars?) But to me, pretty things aren't art. Lots of things are pretty to lots of different people, in different ways, but a Faberge egg, or a diamond ring, for example, don't tell us A) anything about the mindset or emotions of the artist, or B) anything new about ourselves as the observers of the object.

So to me, art has to be intentional, in that there is something being communicated by the art (it doesn't have to be what the artist intended to communicate) and it has to be in some way transformative, in that it can (this doesn't always happen) make us see the world is a slightly different light. Bicycles generally fail on both counts, partially because of the second part of my argument: function.

There's no rule that says art has to be without function. But function cannot dictate the form of the object if it is to be art - with bicycles, we are constrained in a lot of ways. The bike has to be rideable, it has to have wheels, etc, etc. You could create a piece of art that *also* functioned as a bicycle, but if you start from a set of *requirements* that the object end up as a functional, human-powered, 2 wheeled vehicle, that's no longer possible, because function is dictating to the builder the requirements for the final form of the object. In other words, physics is really in charge - no matter what you do, the forms that will perform these functions are limited and dictated by nature.

Note that a bike could certainly have artwork attached to it - in the form of a paint job that communicates something of the artist to us, or a spoke card with a poem on it, or an android singing the blues. But the bike itself can never be art, in my opinion - after all, we could paint *any* bike frame, or attach a spoke card to *any* bike - the bike itself is the equivalent of the painter's canvas. It's just background.

That's not to say that custom framebuilding isn't creative - but it's like making jewelry, or fine suits of clothing, or whatever. The goal is perfect function, and pretty looks can often be part of the bargain as well, but the bike will never be art. Framebuilders are craftsmen, like stonemasons, or carpenters, or athletes. There's plenty of room for grace, efficiency, and beauty in all of these endeavors. But that doesn't make them art.

Eat your heart out, Steve!

Dude, my fillet skills are getting super dope!

(Note to those who aren't welding/brazing folks - this kind of super-acute joint is the *easiest* fillet brazing on earth. Don't be too impressed)

Yo!

I get asked to do a lot of forks for old Bontragers and Fat Chances whose owners had a crummy old Judy that finally died. In any case, I do a lot of these "semi-replica" type forks (it's not a *true* replica, but it's very close to the same look).

In any case, here are a few shots of the welding on the crown for ya, Steve. Should have her off to the powdercoater sometime next week.

Snow day! Also: super fancy fork for sale

Looks like Sarah won't be going to work today... we have at least a foot of snow and it's still coming down hard. NOAA issued a blizzard warning! I've already shoveled the walkway in front of the house twice this morning, and I'll probably have to do it again within 45 minutes. Sheesh. I get well just in time for this?

In other news, I got this fork from a friend at DT (he did me a huge favor) but it's a 100mm travel model, not the 80mm that I needed. Rather than pester him about it, I'd like to sell it off. Brand new DT Swiss (formerly Pace) XMC 100 29er fork. 1650g with an uncut steerer, air sprung, lockout-equipped, carbon lowers, never ridden or even installed on a bike. In other words, she's brand new. I think the retail price on these is something totally ridiculous - $1100 or so. Yours today for $700, shipping included in the United States. Or order a frame and it's yours for $600! I'm happy to ship overseas as well, thought it'll cost a bit more.

Framebuilders and filthy lucre

So we all know (hopefully) that building bike frames isn't a path to riches. Amazing fame, maybe. Lines of coke off your surface plate, maybe. Hummers in the back of an Escalade from a fine cougar after yoga, definitely.

Er, wait. What was I talking about?


Oh. Money. There's an ongoing debate in the framebuilding world about how much money one should charge. On one side are the crusty veterans (well, not all of them, but many) who probably feel a bit threatened by the youngsters who are willing to work for just enough to pay the beef jerky and pinto beans bill. These folks say we all need to charge $2000 or more, that every lug should be polished for at least 5 hours, and that anyone who makes more than 5 frames a year is a hack.

On the other side are the always-changing crop of semi-amateurs, newbies, and the occasional suffering fool who thinks he's a framebuilding monk. These folks charge $500 for a frame, make less than minimum wage, and can't understand why anyone would charge more. Their roommates who work at Orange Julius have to help cover their rent every month, but they keep it real by putting a lot of cool spoke cards on their stable of fixies.

Clearly, I'm exaggerating. But it's a real debate amongst framebuilders. As you'd expect, more experienced builders charge more than less experienced ones, and lug builders generally charge more than TIG, etc, etc.

My feeling is that you need to charge enough to live a decent life. Handbuilding bicycle frames is an old-school (anachronistic, even) way of building what is, for most folks, a luxury item. We're like the Amish of 2-wheeled recreation!

So for $1100 or so (and yes, that'll creep up as materials get more expensive and such) I can work a reasonable schedule, pay for my food and housing, go on vacation every once in a while, and save a few bucks. Folks who hang out a shingle and *don't* really intend to make a profit (or haven't done their homework to figure out what price will allow them to make one) are really hurting the folks who do this for a living to some extent, and when their businesses go under, they make us all look bad.

So bottom line, if you're going to be a framebuilder, sit down and do your homework before you start. If you're not capable of figuring out what your materials and overhead will cost, and how much time you'll need to spend on a frame, you're not ready to make bikes for money. Being a pro framebuilder is at least as much about being a savvy businessman as being a good welder.

Thoughts on steel vs. aluminum.

This is from a thread on the framebuilder's forum on mtbr. If you want to read it, click here.

That DH bike is all custom. Not just the front end. And it's all steel. Why didn't I build it from aluminum like most other downhill bikes?

A) If something cracks or dents, I can easily fix it without resorting to having to re heat-treat the frame or other similar shenanigans. I fully expect to be riding this frame in 20 years, if I still want to at that point.

B) It's not really any heavier in this application. Frame/shock are about 10#, whole bike is 37 or so. Same as any other DH bike. Aluminum isn't necessarily lighter for building abuse-proof bikes, it's just a lot easier to machine for making crazy gussets and swingarms and stuff. So you see aluminum DH bikes because they're cheap to make and most DH guys expect to kill their frames after a season or two and replace them anyway, so there's no need for them to be easily repairable.

C) Stiffness is mostly a function of tube diameter (this one has a 45mm downtube) and pivots (this is a BMX bottom bracket modified to attach to the swingarm). It's way stiff. You might be able to make it stiffer in aluminum with even bigger pipes, but it's plenty stiff as it is, so I'm not worried about it.

D) I like working with steel and suck at welding aluminum.

So there you have it. If steel was a little easier to machine, you would see a ton of steel DH and FR bikes. But it's prohibitively expensive to mass produce a lot of DH frames with steel, and the frames are basically expected to fail due to crashes and/or abuse. So cheap (and aluminum) rules the day.

Slow, long days...

So I did get some actual work done today. Seriously. I didn't make it to the powdercoater (or ship anything) as I'd planned. Why?

Simple. I got Sarah sick with what I (still) have. So I've been cooking, making tea, and generally playing Dr. Walt.

This has (thus far) been quite a disaster of a spring, but at least I'm healthy enough for non-aerobic exercise. I did manage an hour at the climbing gym and felt ok.

In any case, real bloggage tomorrow, I hope.

Bagels, bagels, bagels...

Yes, it's a recipe. No, it's not a bike post. Yes, I'm still sick (though recovering) and haven't gotten squat done on bike work.

I suck.

But, my bad working karma has paid me back: it's going to snow on Monday, according to NOAA. The same day I'm *hoping* I'll be well enough to ride at a mellow pace.

Lovely.

So if you, like me, will be spending some time indoors this coming week, make yourself some yummy warm bagels to keep you warm and happy.

Making bagels is really easy. Do you think random stoners can get jobs getting up at 4am to make the bagels because it's, like, hard? Well, ok, to be fair, in my experience, all of my friends who get that job end up getting fired in about 4 days, but bagels really are easy.

Bagels ala Walt
-1 tsp yeast
-1.5c H20, warm
-2 tbsp sugar
-1 tsp salt
-4 c flour

Optional:
-10 cloves crushed garlic

Directions:

Mix the yeast, sugar, and water in a big mixing bowl. Give it 5 minutes or so to proof up (ie, for the yeast to have a huge sugar-orgy). Mix in all the other ingredients. If you have a stand mixer, have it mix on the slowest speed for 7 minutes. Otherwise, knead by hand for 7 minutes (think of it as training for rock climbing or keeping your hands from getting pumped on those long downhills).

Now cover up the bowl and let the dough stand for about half an hour.

Pull out fist-sized pieces of dough (you should end up with about 6 pieces) and roll them out with your hands into long strips, then make circles and squish the ends together. Put them on a baking sheet (with parchment paper on it) and cover them up. Let them sit for another 20 minutes or so.

Boil the bagels. It's that easy. Get some water boiling, and toss the uncooked bagels in. Flip them over after 30 seconds or so. Total boiling time should be ~1 minute.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 425. Put the freshly boiled bagels on the baking sheet and bake them for 15-20 minutes. When they're just *slightly* brown on top, they're done.


Edit: If you're bored waiting for the bagels to rest: you can go take this quiz on what kind of cook you are. I'm type "e", for what it's worth.

And I thought House of Leaves was weird...

I don't know if I can honestly recommend this book. It's one of the most compelling and engrossing things I've ever read, but I'm pretty sure I'll have nightmares about it, and I'm not sure if it was the right book to read on a depressing sick day for me when I should have been reading something fun and uplifting.

Geek Love. Imagine a Tom Robbins novel if it were written by Rob Zombie (assuming we combine the compelling aspects of their respective, erm... canons). So it's very good, but it's VERY messed up. That's all I can say, any further information will just ruin it for you.

Just don't read it when you're stuck inside with double pneumonia.

Also, I promise this will be my last sickness whining post. Bike stuff tomorrow, I pinky promise.

The end of the dream?

So soon? It's looking like my goal to storm the Winter Park Hillclimb is already in serious doubt - I came down with a cold 2 weeks ago, which has now transformed itself into double pneumonia. Lovely. Aside from the lack of getting *more* fit, all the inactivity has also allowed me to gain back 3 or 4 pounds (and no, I'm not interested in trying to starve myself while sick). So it's looking like I'll be starting over from scratch when I'm finally able to ride again in a week or two (assuming the antibiotics work with relative alacrity, that is). 2 months of riding the d*&! trainer and suffering in the cold... for nothing.

The thing that really sucks about the whole situation is that I've been here before - pneumonia (3 times in a single year) was what originally killed my ambition to be a "serious" bike racer. I could always maintain mid-pack fitness, and I could train a bit and be a LOT faster - enough to be duking it out with the really fast folks. But both years that I actually got fast, I almost immediately got sick, and stayed that way for months at a time. I'd rather be slower and able to ride than fast and sick all the time, so I gave up on racing in any even vaguely serious way.

I was hoping that some of the reason for the repeated illnesses in the past was my crappy nutrition and generally unhealthy bachelor lifestyle (not enough sleep, too much fun, etc). But I eat well now, and sleep enough, and am married to the lovely Sarah.

Apparently I just have a crap immune system, or the worst luck on earth.

I'm not giving up yet, but my confidence has really plunged.

Sheesh. I should just retitle this post "pity party". My life could suck a lot more, that's for sure.

Pointless decoration

Jason's frame has a new style of brace. Check it. Old chainrings weld up real nice.

Short stays, tire clearance, what works, what doesn't

I spend a lot of time explaining this (sometimes fruitlessly) over the phone, so I'm going to try to do a post about it that I can refer people to. Some of you who are super bike nerdy or amateur framebuilders may find this interesting, others may not.

I want to explain some of what I do to accomodate fitting everything (meaning: tire, chainstays/seatstays, drivetrain, front derailleur, seat tube) together in the rear end of a bike frame. More specifically, I want to talk about how to fit everything together when dealing with a situation that calls for short chainstays, big tires, and gears (meaning a front derailleur). This is something that comes up fairly often, since I build a lot of custom 29ers for smaller folks who really need the rear wheel squeezed up as close as possible. And because I build bikes for bigger folks who are convinced that short chainstays are going to make them into Hans Rey (sorry, dudes, it's not going to happen). But I digress. Taking the desire for short stays as a given, here's what has to happen.

-The tire has to have sufficient clearance to the seat tube. This is consideration number one, because if we don't leave room at the seat tube, all the chainstay/tire clearance in the world won't do any good. For a typical short-stay 29er, 435mm or so is the limit of chainstay length before a typical 28.6mm, 73 degree seat tube will get too close - at least, too close for comfort. There are, of course, ways around this - you can steepen the seat angle (sort of helpful, but limited) and run a setback post, or you can offset the seat tube forward and slack back the angle (think of a downhill bike where the seat tube joins the downtube instead of the BB shell). This is a shot of Jason's flux-covered 29er - as you can see, there's only about 1cm of space to the seat tube (and this is not a new tire) - just enough for the front derailleur cable plus a few mm of clearance. Tight!

In most cases, if anything, I'll offset the seat tube forward 5mm or so (so it's still attached directly to the BB shell). With a 68 or 73mm shell, there's no point in getting any crazier with seat tube offset, because chainstay/chainring/tire clearance is going to put the kibosh on shortening the stays any more anyway. Also, with 5mm of offset, a standard front derailleur will work ok - with any more, you've got to go to an E-type, and they suck balls, as we all know.

Which brings us to the second consideration:

-The tire/chainstay/chainring clearance has to work out. Here's a shot of Jason's 29er (that's a ~60mm width tire, a Panaracer Rampage, and this frame uses 435mm stays). As you can see from the shot, with a 32t chainring, there's just a few mm of clearance to the stay. The tire has 5mm or so on each side (what I consider the minimum). So all is well. But push that stay out any farther, and we'll be running into chainring/chainstay clearance problems. Likewise push the tire forward farther, and we'll have it rubbing the stays. Notice (annoyingly enough) how the widest point of the tire and the chainring almost perfectly line up with each other. Doh!

In this case, I've dimped the stays a bit for extra clearance, but without building a yoke, this is as much tire clearance on a short stay 73mm shell bike as I can easily do.

-What's that, you say? Why do I keep mentioning the shell width? Well, simple - 68/73 is not the only size available. I can also build around 83mm or 100mm shells. This pushes everything outboard quite a bit - 5mm on each side in the case of the 83mm shell, and more like 14mm for the 100mm. Crank selection kinda sucks (most options are downhill/freeride stuff) but if you want serious short stays and tire clearance, this is the way to go. You can stuff a 60mm wide 29er tire into a 425mm chainstay frame (as long as you offset the seat tube) with no problem if you use an 83mm shell. If you look back a few weeks, you'll see an 83mm shell (not that you can really tell from the pics) used on Marcus' 36er, where we *really* wanted to keep the stays as short as possible (check out how close the tire is to the BB shell - with the dropouts all the way at the back, too):


-In the case of singlespeeds, some of this goes out the window, since we A) don't need a front derailleur, and B) can mess around with the chainline to an extent.

If, say, we decided to run a singlespeed setup, and had a cassette-type rear hub, we could stick the chainring on the outboard position on the crank and get a free 5mm of space for the chainstay - meaning another 5mm of space on each side for the tire, or 10mm shorter stays with the same tire clearance (approximately). This of course assumes that we've moved the seat tube out of the way using one of the techniques mentioned earlier. So bottom line - singlespeeds can have shorter chainstays than geared bikes, all other things being equal.

-Of course, if you're willing to live with less space around the tire, or want to run a smaller rear tire, things can get even shorter. Generally speaking, it's safe to say that you can subtract 1mm of chainstay length for every mm of tire clearance you subtract (hence, 25mm tires on a road bike with 405mm chainstays, versus 60mm tires on a 29er with 440mm stays). Some people (myself included) don't like big rear tires. But then again, I'm not a huge fan of super-short chainstays either on my own bikes.

Whew! I hope that made sense...bottom line here is that there are a lot of options to get the wheels where you want them, but there are going to be tradeoffs as well in terms of drivetrain function and parts availability. No free lunch, as usual.

Lazy Saturday followup: Weightweenies, leave me alone!

In response to yesterday's post, Mike from VT asked about the weight of my scrounged-parts oval-bladed fork (aka SPOBFork1). Here's the story. Please keep in mind I have yet to actually ride this thing. It might totally suck. So don't go bothering me about buying one, please. I'll have some riding feedback when I get over this damn bug that's keeping me indoors all day in the beautiful 60 degree weather.

It's 885g (albeit with no powdercoat) with an 8" steerer. I could probably make it a bit (5-10g) lighter by cutting most of the plugs and the rack mounts off of the dropouts (since they're welded in, the plugs don't really need to be there).

So it's basically a 900g fork, give or take a little bit. Probably only appropriate for people under 170# or so? I'll be curious to see how it rides.

For comparison, the usual tapering blades I use are 25.4mm diameter, with 1.3mm/.94mm butting (the thicker section being at the top) or 1.0mm/.7mm (I only use those blades for 'cross forks, generally). These are 1.2/.9mm (they started life as 25.4mm round tubing, and got smooshed into their current form), which is a nice compromise between the two - still beefy enough for medium/small people on mountain bikes, right in between the other two options.

Late night edit: I posted this response to Guitar Ted over at a weightweenie MTBR thread.

I've thought about this a lot, and the only explanation I can think of for being super concerned about grams here or there is that it's really easy to quantify and measure. Most people don't have an easy way to measure, say, rolling resistance, or aero profile, or whatever, but they can easily throw their bike (or parts of it) on a digital scale. You get instant, easily understandable feedback, with minimal effort. Sweet.

There's something about that weighing of things that makes a strong emotional connection to the European brain, I think. :)

And yes, of course, all things being equal, a lighter bike is faster. But the gains are really minescule - as I said, if you're a fast pro/expert rider, a pound of weight will only save you 5 seconds in a thousand foot climb. A few grams isn't even worth mentioning. If you've already done all you can to be fit, and you're getting frames for free, by all means use the lightest stuff - but if you want to race this weekend in sport (or expert, or what passes for "pro") and you have to pay for what you break, you should spend that money hiring someone to coach you instead. A dozen extra watts will put you at the front of the pack, bike be damned.

Lazy Saturday

...well, not really lazy so much as influenza-addled stupor Saturday. Sarah went out for a ride with the Avery boys that ended up being 4.5 hours, so I was left to entertain my sick (and hung over a bit) self.

Digging around in the shop, I found a lot of interesting stuff gathering dust. Most notably:
-Some really nice plug-in dropouts from Paragon that didn't fit the fork blades I wanted to use them with.
-A pile (15 or so) of tandem chainstays that I bought on a whim (and because True Temper pretty much gave them to me when I ordered some other stuff) and then have never used. I'm still waiting for a 350 pound guy who wants a road bike to show up...

Long story short, I put the dropouts in the ends of the tandem chainstays. Nice fit. Always kind of wanted to make a fork with "aero" blades (not for any good reason, just for giggles, basically). Since the chainstays are WAY beefy, there's plenty of strength there to use them as fork blades.

It was a bit of a pain (because the blades are oval, and don't match up for mitering with my round holesaws) to miter the crown, but not too bad. I had to do some creative vent hole drilling and plug the ends of the blades with foil, since I don't have any appropriately shaped purge plugs.

And the fork came together pretty nicely. I built it to be 465mm x 45mm rake (ie, a close match to an 80mm travel 29er fork) and I suppose I'll ride it myself a bit to see how it feels. Probably not something I'll really ever sell, since I have a grand total of about 10 more of those chainstays left and True Temper isn't making them anymore, but still a neat experiment. If it rides nice, I'll give it to my old college buddy Hassan, probably. And if it rides *really* nice, I'll go find some appropriate oval fork blades (or tandem chainstays) and start offering it as an option.

Early weekend recipe

I received a grand total of zero emails, phone calls, comments, or messages of any kind bemoaning my decision not to publish a recipe last weekend.

Yet I am not discouraged. I will continue to annoy my bike geek friends with my silly recipes, until they pry this crappy laptop from my cold, flour-covered dead hands.

Ginger Chocolate Cookies

Officially, you should probably mix the wet and dry stuff separately, but I never do, and these come out great. Original recipe (it's been heavily modified by moi) came from Sunset.

So, put all of the following in a bowl and mix:
2c flour
1/2c butter
1/2c water
1/3c chopped up crystallized ginger (you can find this at a health food store, despite the fact that it's pretty much pure sugar and hence not healthy at all) - chop it up into pretty small bits.
1/3 cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1.5 tsp nutmeg
1c brown sugar
1/3c molasses
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla
1/2c (or more if you like) chocolate chips

Put golf-ball sized chunks of batter/dough on a greased cookie sheet (or parchment paper, preferably) and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. Boom! A combination of the best attributes of a ginger snap and a chocolate chip cookie. Seriously.

Mountain bikes, alien civilizations, and arms races

No, this isn't a 1984 throwback post. I'm waxing philosophical (which is a hint to stop reading if that sort of thing bores you) about the relationship between technology and unanticipated consequences. With regard to alien civilizations, and also mountain bikes. I think.

This will become relevant to bikes in a minute, really. Bear with me.

One of the interesting conundrums of our times is that, while we've got all kinds of powerful and sensitive telescopes and instruments, and have spent a lot of time looking for evidence of other intelligent life around us in the galaxy, we have yet to find anything. This logic problem is known as the Fermi paradox, after the famous mathematician. There are several responses to the Fermi paradox, which are basically:
-Intelligent life actually is very rare, or unique (ie, we're special).
-We're looking in the wrong places or the wrong ways (ie, we're the only intelligent life using radio, everybody else is telepathic or something).
-Other intelligent life is deliberately laying low so that we can't detect it (ie, nobody likes us).
-Intelligent life tends to develop technology that allows it to quickly kill itself off, so at any given time, intelligent life is rare in the galaxy (ie, civilizations don't last long).

Call me a pessimist, but the final option seems the most plausible to me. We're a competitive, intelligent race of tool builders who have an exponentially growing population and limited resources - and better technology almost always means better weapons. My money is on all those alien species having wiped themselves back out shortly (say, within 500 years) after getting to the point where they could use radio. My money is also on humans to go the same route, but I'm trying to work this back to bikes now, so I'll stop with the depressing exobiology. The point I'm trying to make is that technology improvements always bring unanticipated side effects. Splitting the atom makes electricity, or it makes lots of people dead - it just depends on how you go about it.

Since I can't think of a good segue for this, here we go.

In the last 20 years, mountain bikes have changed a LOT. Here's a 1989 Stumpjumper:


I don't have to tell you that a basic XC mountain bike looks nothing like this now. You can easily poke around online and find a <30 pound 6" travel bike for <$1500, which is lighter, faster, smoother, and better in pretty much every way than the old Stumpy. You'll feel like a superhero on techy terrain on the new bike in comparison.

But that's starting to become a problem, I think. Inexpensive, commonly available mountain bikes are good enough now that even inexperienced or unskilled riders can tackle relatively steep and technical terrain in relative safety (well, safety for the rider, anyway), and can ride much, much faster on all types of terrain than they could on the bikes of two decades ago.

So instead of a few expert riders going fast on any given trail, along with some novices rolling slowly along, we've got a situation where lots of riders on long-travel, capable XC bikes can go fast enough on multi-use trails that they won't be able to easily stop in time to avoid a collision. The curves on the trails haven't gotten any less sharp, and the sight lines aren't any better than they were 20 years ago. And while brakes are unquestionably more reliable and easier to set up (cantilevers, barf) than they used to be, it's hard to argue that bikes actually stop any quicker - you can lock up a wheel with a cantilever just like you can with an 8" disc rotor.

In other words, the goal of building faster and more capable bikes may be incompatible with sharing trails with other types of trail user unless we come up with ways to avoid collisions and stop better. We already have lots of trails like this (bike specific ones, that is) at the bike parks and resorts - trails where having users go uphill would be unsafe, and even ones where having users going significantly different speeds (or stopping) isn't ok. Right now, the bikes that are capable of being safely ridden on those trails are basically only intended to go down - but they are getting lighter and easier to pedal every year.

If someday we could build a 15 pound bike with 10" of suspension travel, capable of changing geometry for climbing or descending, would it be a good idea to build it? I'm not sure. While I'd love to ride that bike, I suspect that making something like that available to the general public would lead to bikes being banned from a lot of trails. It's worth noting that motorized vehicles aren't really banned from trails because of some inherent unsavory quality of motors (they can be made quiet, stink-free, and unobtrusive) - they are banned because they go *too fast* to share the trail easily in many cases, or do too much damage to the trail surface. I think mountain bikes are coming closer and closer to motorcycles in their capabilities (which from a tech-geek standpoint is super cool), but that's a potential problem as trails get more crowded with users of all types.

I'm not trying to be down on new technology, but I do wonder what will happen to mountain bike trails in the next 20 years - I hope that my kids will be able to ride the same trails I do today, but I don't know if that will happen if any yahoo can go to Performance and buy a 10" travel cross country bike, then go scream down some local trail and run over people's kids and dogs.

In other words, hopefully we won't become the victims of our own technology. My solution? 1: Join IMBA, and 2: Take your long-travel bike and smash it with a rock, then get your old Trek Antelope 820 out from the rafters and pump up the tires...

Just kidding about that second part.

Good news for Betasso!

For those who want to read a LONG (the exec summary is at the beginning) statement about what BCPOS plans to do with the Benjamin property: click here (scroll down to "planning and public involvement")

For those who don't want to wade through it:

"A new trail system extending off of the existing Canyon Loop Trail will allow visitors to explore new territory and will provide diverse experiences including a potential future connection to Fourmile Canyon for mountain bikers and others. The new trail system will double the available trail mileage by adding 4.6 miles of additional trails, thus creating a total of 9.3 miles of multiple use trails throughout Betasso Preserve, one of the highest densities of trails on Boulder County open space properties."

"In addition, if an opportunity arises, BCPOS will investigate the feasibility of a potential new trail in the southeast corner of Betasso Preserve that would provide a new link between Boulder Canyon and the Canyon Loop Trail."

The meeting to provide comments and meet up with BCPOS (open to the public) is March 24, 2009, from 4:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. The meeting will be held in the Houston Room at the Boulder County Clerk & Recorder's office (1750 33rd Street, Boulder).

Photos from Old Pueblo

Nick and Yuki, represent! Yuki left us for Team Topeak-Ergon this year, but he's still on his trusty WW until they hook him up with a new bike. Nice work, guys!

Random pictures

Mike and Jon were both promised pictures. Here they are. Minimal commentary tonight, though, as I'm feeling like I'm getting sick and didn't sleep well. Sorry about the weird formatting, something odd is going on with either A) blogger or B) my brain. I'll leave you to speculate about which is more likely.





The only picture that is probably interesting to those of you who aren't Mike or Jon is this one - for the hobby frame builders out there, here's a great way to hold your brazeons in place. Just get some spring clamps, weld/braze some pieces of tube into the jaws, and then braze/weld some big fat welding rod (like I've done) or old coat hanger, or whatever, onto the other side. Presto! Brazeon holder.

New tube blocks, yeah!

My old tube clamping blocks were made from a 2x4, a process that took me about 5 minutes with a circular saw and a set of spade bits. Yes, they sucked really bad. But they worked well enough, so I used them for 5 years and probably 300 frames.

But these are way nicer. Thanks to Erik (and his frakkin awesome woodshop at UofA) for making these for me. I'm psyched!

For those who are curious, I believe they are poplar.

Interview on Twentynineinches

The guys at TwentyNineInches.com interviewed Ted Wojcik and I about steel framebuilding, 29ers, and the custom bike industry recently. Worth a read if you're bored on a Sunday afternoon.

Please note that I'm *much* more handsome than I look in those pictures. The camera adds 10 pounds, you know. And in my case, it subtracts rippling muscle and a strong, clean-shaven jawline. Really.

You know you're a cooking geek...

...when you buy 50 pounds of wheat gluten at once.

And when someone thinks your name is "Watt", I guess.

As an aside, how can anyone make any money on this? It came from freakin' GERMANY. So you've gotta grow the wheat, rinse out the gluten, package it, ship it across the Atlantic and most of the US, and then sell it to the end user (me) after going through several middlemen for $85?!?

Not that I'm complaining, but that's astounding to me. I guess the fact that I can buy 25# of flour (which I also do on a regular basis) for $6 is equally amazing - that's what, 70,000 calories or so? For $6? Crazy.

Nice graphics!

We ran out of time to powdercoat RC's frame before his big trip to Spain, so he has apparently decided to take matters into his own hands...

Pretty sweet.

It's 70 degrees out (and finally not windy), my knee seems to be semi-functional (I hurt it being stupid this weekend), and Rusty loaned me the new Neal Stephenson book Anathem. Hence I am not expecting to do much productive work today or tomorrow...

Just kidding. I'll get work done. I just won't sleep, or something.

NAHBS thoughts

So I never go to bike shows. Never. I hate them. I spend too much time on my feet, destroy my vocal chords, and start to hate bikes from talking about them so much (which makes you wonder why I post so much to the blog, no?) I posted this in response to the NAHBS show prizewinners on a thread on MTBR. For the record, I think NAHBS is a great idea - but you'll never see me there.

I doubt anyone who attended would say that NAHBS sucks (though of course this statement screams "selection bias"). And I'm probably the wrong person to ask, since I avoid bike shows like the plague (hate traveling, hate crowds, don't really want to spend a nice weekend talking about bikes instead of riding them).

Shows and awards are an interesting problem with bikes - they want to make headlines and draw attention, but if they only give awards to crazy/weird stuff, they risk making the entire weekend into a freakshow rather than a bike show (didn't a highly decorated $3k kids trike win one year?).

The Naked bike is the most "innovative" one there in terms of appearance - but it's pretty much a standard single pivot suspension setup that's been gussied up with chrome and _wood_ (not sure I see the point of a wooden seatpost, except to get attention). Not sure you want to continue too much farther down that road - I'd rather ride most any of the other bikes given awards, personally, because I'm not the type to spend much time looking at my bike while I'm riding it, and I don't trust wooden parts all that much.

Personally, I think that they should *only* give awards to bikes that have been ridden at least a little, and preferably quite a bit - the IF carbon bike that was glued together the week before the show (and may very well never have been ridden) is truly a dumb choice, but I'm guessing not many carbon folks show up, and they can't give Crumpton the award every year.

So no, I don't think NAHBS is retarded. I do think giving out awards is a process fraught with problems, but it draws attention, which is the point of the show. So it's something that they will probably continue doing.

As for me, I'll be out riding.

-Walt

Go big or go home?

Yep, here it is. Thanks to Marcus for taking the pictures.

Ride impressions: it is very silly. I only rode around the parking lot, so no idea how it would work on an actual trail. Marcus is optimistic that it will rock out. We'll see.

Would I build another one? Yes. Would I build one for myself? Only if I was *really* bored. The fit was amazingly close to ok (with no toe overlap) despite the fact that I'm only 5'11". But my attempts at J-hopping met with, erm, stupendous failure. Then again, with those wheels, I don't think you'd even need to loft the front wheel to make this sucker roll over pretty much anything.

A Framebuilding Guild?

Check it out for yourselves - The Framebuilder's Collective.

I'm not sure what to think of this so far. The FAQ section (hard to find the link, look at the lower left portion of the page) seems to be pretty vague, in that:

-Essentially anyone can join up (as long as you say you've been building bikes for 5 years) - this looks like an effort to keep amateur and new builders on the outside to some extent, probably because of the frustration some folks feel about the way the framebuilding chat rooms (ie, frameforum, phred.org, mtbr) function these days.

-There are no standards. I wouldn't expect people to be inspecting each other's work anyway, and the marketplace tends to weed out anyone who builds really junky stuff.

-There doesn't seem to be a concrete goal - "desire to pool our experiences, talents, and resources so that they all be can shared with whoever and whatever is next" doesn't count, in my book, because those things can (and are) done online and in RL all the time without any organization whatsoever. The front page says some stuff about advocating for material suppliers to make appropriate supplies for framebuilders, but as of right now, I don't see that as being a problem - we have more tubing and parts suppliers than ever. Furthermore, most of those suppliers are actually pretty openminded about making new stuff, as long as you make a minimum order - it's pretty easy to post up something that says "who else is interested in a 42mm downtube" (or whatever) and go from there.

They do also want to "Support and promote ethical professional framebuilder practices" and "Mentor and preserve proven framebuilding techniques and business practices" - both of these sound like efforts to weed out some of the large crop of sketchy, uninsured newbies who have been hanging out pro shingles in the last few years. I don't see that as necessary, given the state of the economy, but I do agree to some extent that small framebuilders are starting to get a bad name from some of these folks (and no, I'm not naming any names, but folks who have followed the online bike geek community in the last few years can no doubt think of a number of examples). The problem, of course, is that you can't really force anyone NOT to open a business - perhaps the goal here is to set the guild members apart from rank newbies through their association with the group. I tend to think word of mouth does the job just fine (ie, I'd rather get a bike from builder X, who's been around for 5 years, than builder Y, who nobody has ever heard of).

I'm not sure how this will work out (and I currently have no desire to join the group, since I'm not convinced there are any benefits to be had) but I wish them the best of luck in whatever it is they're trying to do. Maybe the goal(s) will become clearer over the next few months. Kudos to all the founding members for making the effort - let's just hope it's worthwhile.

Weekend recipe

We made this for Aaron and Sasha on Friday night. It's a standby of Sarah's. Super, super good, and really easy.

Butternut Squash Lasagna ala Sarah

9-12 (depending on how many layers you want) lasagna noodles
4 c milk
2 tbsp rosemary (dried and crushed)
6-10 cloves of garlic
4 tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
3# of butternut squash, peeled and cut into cubes
Bit of olive oil
2 c shredded parmesan or romano cheese

Take the cubed squash and dump it in a bowl with a splash (2 tbsp?) of olive oil. Mix everything around to coat the cubes and bake on a baking sheet for 25 minutes at 450 (stir everything around a bit to keep it from burning after about 12 minutes).

While you're doing that, cook the lasagna noodles and prepare the sauce.

Sauce is easy: bring the 4c of milk and rosemary to a simmer in a pan. Simmer for about 10 minutes. As you're doing that, cook the garlic (crushed) in a saucepan in some olive oil or butter. Slowly add the 4 tbsp flour to make a nice rue. When the milk is ready, strain it through a sieve or cheesecloth (to keep the rosemary chunks out) into the saucepan. Whisk to mix and simmer until it's nice and thick, also add the tsp of salt.

Add the squash to the sauce when it's done, then make layers of lasagna (put some sauce on the bottom to make sure the noodles don't stick) using the noodles, cheese, and sauce. Save some sauce and cheese for the top. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, covered with foil, then remove the foil and bake for another 10. Consume.