Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Random construction pictures, not many words.

Not much to report today - I dumped a few photos from the chip on the camera from the last week or so. Yes, Guy's frame does really have a kickstand mount. No joke.

Also, as an FYI, we finally got our VT tickets - I'll be gone from July 15th-23rd in Vermont (and then off to Crested Butte from July 27th-August 6th). So it's big vacation time - I will be finishing up a couple more frames, then things will be on hiatus until early August. You've been warned!


Monday, June 29, 2009

Retroactive weekend recipe!

Martin dumped this stuff on Portabello mushrooms last night, and it was awesome. I'd eat it with a spoon by itself if I could. But I'd probably sweat to death.

Martin's BBQ Sauce:

1 cup ketsup
1/4c H20
1/4c vinegar
1/4c brown sugar
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp chili powder
10 cloves garlic, smooshed
1 tsp cayenne

Instructions:

Simmer it all for 15 minutes until it gets thick.

Pretty easy, pretty damn good. I think some jalepenos might go well, or some liquid smoke stuff...

Bike post tomorrow.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Awesome, not good.


My good friend Feldman, once upon a time, whilst attempting to explain Transformers (the relatively recent movie of a few years ago, not the animated one from the 80s or the new sequel) described it as "Awesome. But not good. Just awesome."

As an aside, this would be a good summary of the hilarious review of the new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen at IO9.

I eventually watched Transformers, and I'm inclined to agree. It's awesome in that it's exciting and action packed and so loud it makes your ears bleed, and after you watch it, once you've recovered a little, you wonder what the heck was going on, and why the plot made no sense. And you start to understand what having ADD must feel like on a daily basis.

Anyway, I found another movie that's not quite as awesome, but definitely also high on the awesome/good ratio. It's called Dead Snow. It has coeds, and zombies, and nazis, and chainsaws. It's great. And by great, I mean awesome. But not good. Sarah and I loved it. Go watch it, or rent it, or probably download it with cruddy homemade subtitles like we did. And let the awesomeness wash over you.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Friday LOL


If Eric W. wasn't such a good guy, I would never have agreed to build this monstrosity. Wait, that's not anonymous enough... let's call him E. Wever. Yeah. Nobody could guess that....

135mm of fork travel, 29" wheels, and a mighty 5' 6" of height? That's just silly. Then again, sometimes silly is darn fun.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Ubiquitous Wednesday Short Track Idiocy

Big field, no huge names except Colin Cares this week, though. Taryn got yelled at by some angry racer in the women's B's - who gets upset about a freakin' Weds night short track? For heaven's sake, there aren't even _token_ prizes!

As for everyone else:
Ben: top 10 somewhere after starting at the very back of the B's
Boardman: mid-pack after having to start at the back.
Eszter: 3rd
Sarah: 6th (best short track ever, I think - she was right behind some fast pro girls)
Miguel: Not sure - in the 20s?
Yours truly: 6th (best short track result in a LONG time)

Here are some random pictures. Tomorrow perhaps I will write about something of broader interest, for example the fine zombie movie that I watched last night...

Frame deal

Got a special on a built-up but not ridden 26" wheel frame. The custom wasn't happy, and long story short, I'm going to refund his money rather than keep trying to make him happy. The frame is in good shape, though I have had to do a little bit of alignment work to it to get things just right. Comes with a full warranty and such.

Details:
-16" seat tube, center to center
-22.2" toptube (effective)
-71 degree head angle, 73 degree seat angle
-80mm suspension corrected
-12.4" BB height, 420mm chainstays
-Clearance for big fat tires
-V-brake only (can be modified for disc mount at no additional charge)
-Includes a v-brake specific rigid fork at no additional charge

$1000 takes it. What's that, you say? Not that great of a deal?

Well, it also comes with your choice of one of the following:

-any of the 32-series Fox forks (well, you'd want one of the 80mm ones, but other than that, any one you want). Those bad boys retail for over $700, meaning the frame is practically free.
-any Stan's Notubes ZTR hub/ZTR rim custom wheelset.

Want both? Pay just an extra $350.

I'll also offer a full parts kit at my usual super-low prices, of course. Just want to see someone riding this bike, instead of having it sit in my shop gathering dust.

Email me with questions or for pictures, or just post a comment and I'll get back to you.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

When all you have is a hammer...

...or a TIG welder...

You end up using a $5000 piece of equipment for some pretty silly jobs. Here's a professionally built set of tomato ladders I just made for Sarah. We would have just bought some to go with the planters, but they were sold out (and they cost $25 each). I built enough for all 3 of 'em for $25 worth of steel and 15 minutes of time. Winner, chicken dinner.

Darn, they'll be ugly once they get rained on a few times. Hopefully the 'maters will actually get tall enough to need them!

The washers are tacked on as tie-on points - most of the actual plant-holding will be done with twine strung between the poles. Mmmm. Black Krim!

Monday, June 22, 2009

Kitchey sink!

Andrew's frame is what I usually call a "kitchen sink" model. It's got everything (or well, it will when it's done):
-S&S couplers
-Sliding dropouts
-Full cable stops
-Rack mounts
-Bottle opener
-Custom 100mm suspension corrected rigid fork (that's long, baby!)
-Probably some other stuff that isn't coming to mind at the moment.

Great bikes to do *anything* you want, but lots of work for me, and lots of little details to make sure and remember. All that junk adds up, too, weight and costwise. It'll be a ~$1600 frame that weighs over 5.5 pounds.

But it'll be worth it when Andrew can take his singlespeed on the plane for cheap, I think. Or his geared bike. Or whatever he wants.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

A few random shots of Guy's bike, thoughts on s-bend chainstays



I recently received some very nice new True Temper s-bend 29er chainstays (at no charge, no less - thanks guys) to mess around with. Here's a shot of the new stay in the fixture with the single bend (HOX5CS) 29er chainstay on the left for perspective.

Thoughts:

-The 30/16 (oval) profile is perfect. Love it. True Temper's other mountain chainstays tend to be 26 or 27 by 18mm. 2mm of extra space on each side is a godsend when trying to cram a big tire into a short-chainstay frame.

-They weigh a lot less than spec. Both of mine were 158g. That's almost 20g lighter than the spec sheet indicates, and a good 15g lighter than the HOX5CS (actual weight) that I've used a lot of in the past. A little sketchy.

-I'm sort of hesitant to use them for a bike that will see serious offroad use - the stay is, after all, lighter than the spec listing for the _OX platinum_ (a material with a higher yield strength) mountain bike chainstay, and the wall thickness is thinner than the OX plat models, despite the stay being made of somewhat less strong material. Was there a reason that the TT guys departed from the .81/.66 butting on the HOX5CS? I'm not sure, but I do know that these won't be appropriate for big or aggressive riders - which, in my experience, constitutes a big chunk of the 29er market (yeah, you guys and gals are studs, admit it).

-The bends aren't ideal for clearing decent sized tires. Some combination of an extra 2-3 degrees of bend at the forward (positive) bend and 2-3 degrees less at the negative bend would be better. As it stands, these are very hard to use for anything but frames intended for fairly small (2.0" and smaller) tires. The locations of the bends, on the plus side, are perfect.

In any case, I probably can't use these for much as they stand, except for smaller riders who aren't concerned with tire clearance too much, or for bikes that aren't intended for really rough offroad use. They are, in my mind, essentially cyclocross chainstays with a lot of bend. I'd love to see some tweaks to the next version to make them a bit more mountain bike appropriate and versatile.


Luckily, they're perfect for Guy's frame - he wants a fast singlespeed street/town bike with mountain bike handlebars, clearance for 2.1s for the occasional foray onto dirt, and light weight. Perfect! Here's a shot of the BB shell/DT/ST/CS cluster.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

As promised...

In no particular order: Redcoat, Sarah, Walt, crazy uncle Funnel Cloud.

Edit: Good Nick and Evil Nick both showed up as well! I'm not sure which one of them won the custom steel S&S coupled singlespeed category, though.






Problem solved!


Renee has de-flaked. I think. So thanks for all the offers, I believe our Crested Butte conundrum is dealt with.

Here's another picture of Chris ripping it up on his new 5" bike. Just so you can look at something interesting while I prattle on about last night's short track (Yuki said he'd forward some pictures, if I get them I'll post 'em).

As usual, stacked field. I talked trash with Jeremiah Bishop and local stud Alders whilst lined up and watching the near-formation of a funnel cloud about 2 miles north. Crazy stuff! I noted that being sucked up by a tornado while racing is probably my best remaining shot to make Velonews, but that I'd prefer just to finish mid-pack and survive the evening.

For once, I had a decent starting position and managed to be in about 10th from the gun (all time best start!) From there, it was a back and forth battle with my good friend and Velonews technical editor Paco. I had a hilarious crash in which a piece of fencing caught my rear brake lever, causing me to do a 180, and lost a few places, but fought back to end up around 7th. I was psyched - my best race of the year (and I didn't even get lost!)

Sarah was 7th or 8th out of about 20 ladies, and as yet I'm not sure how everyone else did. More info and some pictures when I get them.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Got a place in Crested Butte? Want to trade


Posted this on Craigslist and figured I'd try here too. I had someone lined up to trade me a 2-week stay at their CB condo for a frame, but she seems to have flaked out (Renee, if you're out there, contact me). So now only you can save our planned Crested Butte trip...

"I run a custom bike business (www.waltworks.com) and my wife and I are looking for a place to stay in Crested Butte this summer from approximately July 25th-August 8th or so. So about 2 weeks. We have 2 large-ish but well-behaved dogs and would be looking for an unoccupied 2+ bedroom house or condo in town or at the mountain. We are good responsible people and not into partying or liable to trash your place - we just need a place to stay while we ride our mountain bikes on vacation.

I propose building you (or your significant other, child, mother, whatever) a custom frame in exchange (a $1200 value). In addition, I'm happy to sell you parts to build up the bike at well below market cost (I have OEM accounts with most of the major parts companies).

Interested? Drop me an email (walt at waltworks dot com) and let's chat.

Thanks!

-Walt Wehner
Waltworks Custom Bicycles
www.waltworks.com

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Pickett's blunder

Some folks have (rudely) asked me why I DNF'd Pickett's Charge (a race in Bend that I did on vacation). In my opinion, asking pointed questions about DNFs is on par with asking your niece if she's gained weight, but there's a pretty decent story here.

For those who don't want to read farther, I played the role of the Confederates in this particular charge. Which is to say, I was sent home with my tail between my legs.

To set the scene, prior to the start of the race, we had:
-Flown into town the evening before.
-Promptly consumed copious amounts of wine.
-Attended my first-ever (yes, it's true, I dropped out, myself) high school graduation.
-Drank more.
-Assembled bikes, while buzzed, at 1am.
-Woken up, confirmed that bikes sort-of worked (though my XT hub had blow up en route and the rear wheel could now be move half an inch side to side when installed on the bike), and located an overpriced and terrible eatery for breakfast (note to self, just scramble some eggs at home next time).
-Gotten delayed and blocked by a comical lack of knowledge of local topography, a stop for sunscreen (good call) and a MASSIVE walk/run against breast cancer called "Heaven Can Wait" running perpendicular to our route.
-Finally registered a mere 5 minutes before the start.

So long story short, we made it. And just in time. So I rolled up to my start wave and looked around in total bafflement at the massive crowd of (50? 60?) people. Turns out the race is low-key enough that the pros don't get a separate start wave. Well, I thought, no problem, I can just pass all these guys during the race. It's 34 miles, after all.

The start consists of about 2 miles of flat/false flat fire road. And the pace was INSANE. I wondered if I was A) really hungover, B) had 2 flat tires, or C) was being totally murdered by the experts. Turns out everyone was sprinting like maniacs for a good reason - when we hit the singletrack, it turned out to be about 1 foot wide, twisty as all get-out, and IMPOSSIBLE to pass on. And since I was solidly mid-pack in the mixed-up field, I was treated to the sight of some of the worst attempts at bike handling I've ever seen. On the rare times when I managed to get around someone and had some open space in front of me, I'd open it up and get some good speed up, but inevitably I'd run into another fellow picking his way along and be unable to get around except by utilizing one of two techniques:

1) Be a douchebag (note that I have no evidence that Gen. Pickett was a douchebag, he's just here for historical perspective) by cutting the trail and hope not to hit a tree/hidden snag/boulder/bottomless pit. I attempted this option only once, partly out of respect for the trail, but mostly because I went OTB over a log when I tried it.

2) Be an even bigger douchebag and yell/scream/throw elbows at the local folks who had legitimately outsprinted me for their positions. I elected to exercise restraint here. Some level of jerkery is normal in racing, but I figured it was my own damn fault at this point, so I really had no leg to stand on screaming at the folks in my way.

So about 3/4 of a lap went by, which really felt more like an extended fast recreational ride to me, and just as I passed a couple of people who had crashed, I managed to miss a turn (yes, again, and this time it was really pretty clearly marked) and ended up riding *the wrong way* through the finish line.

So anyway, DQ for me. They offered to help me re-find the course and get started again, but I just didn't have all that much interest anymore. So I waited around for Sarah to come by so I could ride with her...

What happened then will have to be written up tomorrow, because my fingers hurt and it's almost my bedtime. Suffice to say there are bodily fluids involved, as well as prize money.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Big in Japan: Followup


Here it is! Thanks to Derek for the photo.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Back!

Chris took this picture of the bike that a bunch of us kicked in money/effort for as a birthday present. It's a 5" travel, 26" wheel "freeride" bike. Really fun setup, with a nice slack/aggro geometry but not so much travel that it's going to wallow through in situations where you need to aggressively move the bike around under you (ie, hop a log, whip the rear end around a tight corner, etc).

A lot of people think the attribute that distinguishes downhill or freeride bikes is the amount of travel - and this is just nonsense. A lot of folks will ride faster and smoother, and have more fun, on a bike with 4 or 5 or 6 inches of travel than 7 or 8 or 9. Riding a DH sled to it's full potential requires serious skills, commitment, and the courage to risk broken bones and worse. Many people don't really want that, but they buy a DH bike anyway and end up unable to get the wheels off the ground or really have as much fun.

So really, the main trait to look for in a bike that's intended to go downhill (whether you want to pedal it up or not) is the geometry - you want 90+mm of trail (but exactly how much is going to depend on where and how you ride), clearance for fat tires, good fit both while standing and sitting (word to the wise, you do NOT want to slam your seat all the way down to ride difficult terrain), and appropriate brake/shift/pedal options. With bars too high, you'll get lazy and straighten your legs when descending - likewise with them too low, you'll have a hard time with steeper lines. If you can't bunnyhop on flat pedals, you should stick with clipless (or learn to j-hop). I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: pick a bike for freeriding or DH riding based on an honest assessment of your skills and what you want to do, and ignore the travel numbers in favor of picking a good geometry for your preferences and terrain. Unless you're a very skilled rider, a super long travel bike is only going to hold you back.

Sunday, June 07, 2009

45-second vacation post


-Bend is awesome.
-I sucked quite badly at Pickett's Charge (word to the wise, there is a reason everyone sprints the first 3 miles of fire road - it's the only place to pass on the ENTIRE COURSE).
-Sarah won $75 by getting 3rd in pro women!
-I love how my FS 29er rides, but good god is it heavy and slow.
-Mid-pack expert/semipro riders (my companions) can't handle their bikes to save their lives. It was like a cyclocross race out there.

Tomorrow, bouldering!

Edit: Here we are looking classy at TJ's graduation.

Friday, June 05, 2009

Vacation!


A couple semi-useful photos for those of you who have a custom WW full suspension bike. They fit quite nicely in an S&S case for travel purposes:
-Take all the air out of the positive chamber of your fork and bottom it out.
-Remove rear triangle (you'll need a 10mm allen) and dismount shock from lower mount.
-Slam all that stuff in there. Might want to remove derailleur hanger, too.
-Avoid those d*&% airline fees.

This is how I do it (hopefully you can tell what's going on).

In other news, finally found an elevation profile for the Pickett's Charge race. 700 feet total elevation gain per lap! Pretty sweet, except that it's a 17 mile lap... not exactly a climber's course. C'est la vie, I'll be at the back fighting to hold onto my dignity, probably.

Weird fork project pics and goodbye!

Spent a few hours doing this extremely odd (132mm threaded 1" steerer, 407mm axle-crown, disc specific) fork yesterday. Since threaded steerers are few and far between these days (I have a stockpile for this kind of project that I purchased NOS from True Temper) I had to custom make a sleeve/crown race to fit the non-butted section of steerer tube (mine are too long for this particular bike).

Turned down some .058"x1.125" 4130 on the lathe, welded on a ring, and presto...done. One super weird fork, off to the powdercoater.

I enjoy weird jobs like this one, because it lets me be a little bit creative and solve some interesting problems. I also feel good knowing that it's really something that you can't get anywhere else. It'll hopefully be ready to ship out to Marc when I get back from Bend.

Speaking of Bend, for those who don't know, I'll be out of town from June 6th (tomorrow) through 13th. I will have my phone and may check email once or twice, but I'm on vacation - don't expect quick replies (or necessarily any reply, until I'm back in Boulder). If you live around Bend and are interested in riding, please feel free to call (my number is listed on the main WW website).

Thursday, June 04, 2009

Boulder to implement bike-share program?

From the "wow, what a dumb idea" department: the city of Boulder is applying for grant money to run a $1 million bikeshare scheme.

So why would I say this is stupid? Well, it's pretty simple, really.

If we assume that a halfway decent town bike costs, say, $250 (that's assuming you buy them in bulk - and yes, you can even get a mostly American-made bike for that price), you could just buy 4000 bikes and give them to anyone who wanted one. Or buy 2000 bikes and pay someone $50k a year to run a little bike stand and help owners maintain them for the next DECADE. Even if you pay extra for really nice stuff, and spend, say $1000 per bike (and use as much domestically manufactured stuff as you can) you can still buy 1000 bikes, or 500 bikes and a lot of money for maintenance. Heck, you could even just rent the bikes for a nominal fee and charge people if they were returned damaged - there are so many better ways to do something like this.

You could even throw in some tight jeans and ironic t-shirts to keep up with the fixie trend. Though you might blow through money pretty quickly doing that. The blue aerospoke wheels are probably a necessary expense, though.

I'm pretty sure there aren't even close to 1000 people in Boulder who both want to ride a bike and don't have one/can't afford one. If you have any motivation at all to ride, you probably *already have* a bike. If not, a quick trip to a bike shop, or a garage sale, or the Sports Recycler (used sporting goods place here in Boulder) is pretty easy, and it's not that hard to end up with a decent used bike for <$100. I tend to think that folks who can't overcome the limited obstacles involved in acquiring a bike are unlikely to actually ride to work on one.

It's also worth mentioning that you can get a bike for *free* from Community Cycles just by volunteering there for a day or two. And they'll even teach you how to fix it up. Why not just hand them some money for decent tools and replacement parts, help them expand their reach in the community, and call it good?

I ran a "yellow bike" program in college, and it was a lot of fun, but in the end, it was basically a waste of time. If people don't feel that they have an ownership stake in something, they treat it like crap most of the time. I predict that this program will be a huge waste of money, assuming that the grant application succeeds.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Belated weekend recipe and out-of-town musings

For those who don't want to hear the musings, skip down to the recipe. It's good - sort of an Asian-BBQ style dish. Hard to describe.

Anyway, long story short, I'll be out of town in Bend, Oregon from the 6th-13th. Sarah and I are quite excited about all the riding and climbing (and breweries).
-If you need a question anwered before I leave, ask me NOW. I will not promise to check email or voicemail while I'm gone. It's a vacation.
-Sarah and I are thinking of entering the Pickett's Charge mountain bike race. I'm excited to race against some of the Bend big guns (Trebon, Decker, others) and some old friends who now live there (Cody, you're going down! Or maybe not...) Couple problems, though:
1. I will be arriving on a plane the day before and will have no chance to do anything but assemble bikes before the race, let alone spin out my stiff legs or warm up, or preride the course. Strike 1.
2. It's 34 miles long. For a nancy-boy like me, that's an eternity. The longest race I've done so far this season was 30 minutes. Not good.
3. I'll be riding my 30+ pound 4" travel full suspension/travel bike, which is equipped with some of the crappiest and heaviest parts known to man. I haven't raced a geared bike in at least 6 years, and I've NEVER raced a full suspension bike. Hoo boy.

So rather than trying to do well in the race, my goal is to go out way too hard and see if I can stay with the fast guys, then probably blow up after the first 17 mile lap and toodle on around again at a cooldown pace. I'm in fantastic shape right now, but I've got a TON of excuses for a poor showing. Perfect!

Anyway, we'll be riding pretty much every day, so if you're a Bend local and want to go for a spin with some Boulder folks, or just have a few beers and boo every time Kobe touches the ball, drop me an email or a ring.

Crazy Asian Coffee-Curry BBQ Seitan (or your choice of helpless animal flesh)

Throw all of the following in a saucepan:
1 tbsp oil
2 tbsp diced onions
10 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp thai green curry paste (I like the Mae Ploy brand)
1 cup ketsup (no joke!)
3 tbsp hoisin sauce
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp rice vinegar
4 tbsp soy sauce
1.5 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp instant coffee crystals/grounds
1.5 tbsp packed brown sugar
1/2c water

Cook and mix until it's a nice syrupy mess. Now add:
-1 pound seitan
-3c chopped bok choi

Cook for 10-15 minutes until the sauce is nice and thick and the seitan has absorbed some of it. Serve over rice. Post comments praising recipe. Repeat.

Alignment vs. symmetry

A rant in less than 1000 words.

By Walt.

So my friend Mohawk is building (with assistance from me) himself a 29er frame to race on this year. Yesterday we were chatting about seatstays (I've ranted about what a pain it is to make them match up before on the blog) and he said "how asymmetrical do they have to be before you get speed wobbles?"

This brings up, for me, a rant topic: most people do not understand the difference between alignment and symmetry in bike frames. Nor do they understand the purpose of alignment very well.

Before I get started, I'll note that basically nobody understands speed wobbles (go read some of the hundred-page threads about them on various forums if you don't believe me), but asymmetry isn't generally thought to be a culprit.

Alignment consists of only a few things: BB shell, front and rear axles, and seat tube in plane (remember that the seat tube is actually perpendicular to this particular plane). This means the axles can't be offset to either side (if you drew a line through the center of both axles, it would pass through the center of the BB shell) and the axles and BB shell run parallel to each other (when the front wheel is straight, anyway). It also means that the seat tube joins the BB shell at exactly 90 degrees. You could spend some time describing this set of relationships more precisely, but that's pretty much the idea.

And that's it, really. No matter what shape the frame is, or how bent various tubes are, if those things all line up, your frame is in alignment. Here's an example of an aligned frame that is NOT symmetrical:

Other examples could include many full suspension bikes that use asymmetrical yokes to allow better tire/chainring clearance, Cannondale lefty forks, and your drivetrain (after all, unless you have a weird BMX, all the derailleurs, chainrings, and chain are on the right side).

The second part of this rant is about what alignment is, and how closely aligned a frame needs to be. I was inspired to post something after this thread showed up on the MTBR framebuilding forum. For the record, I always try to build a perfectly straight frame. But as in any real-world endeavor, geometrical perfection is only an abstract concept when the rubber hits the road - I'm sure if measured carefully, every frame I've ever built is crooked in one way or another. I'd bet any frame from any builder or company is measureably not straight as well - but it doesn't matter at all. I've ridden frames (before I started building them, as well as a few early ones I made for myself) that were *hilariously* out of alignment - we're talking 5-10mm, just look at the frame with one eye closed and you'll see it type stuff, not tiny amounts. They all rode pretty much fine, without any detectable pulling to one side or another, or weird behavior at any speed.

Remember too that the frame can be in great alignment and the bike can pull and ride weird - problems with headsets, hubs, forks, wheel dish and true, tires, saddles (try riding on a saddle with one bent rail sometime!), and even cable routing can cause bikes to pull to one side or another or behave oddly at speed.

So here's the bottom line: Bikes are *never* perfectly straight. You can go totally nuts trying to make them perfectly straight, but it won't matter much to how the bike rides unless something is *ridiculously* wacky. If front and rear wheels seem to sit straight in the frame/fork (remember, asymmetrical stays can make this a tough determination to make), and the bike doesn't pull to one side or exhibit any weird behavior, you should ride away into the sunset and never worry about alignment again.

If you take nothing else away from this, just remember: the proof is in the pudding. If your bike rides straight, it's as aligned as it needs to be.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Just a moment too late...

Some of y'all may remember be bemoaning the fact that no appropriate downtube for a 300 pound rider on a 29er exists (well, no butted ones, anyway) just a few weeks ago while building a frame for Derek (see "Big in Japan" in the archive).

Then yesterday Ben at TrueTemper sent me the new 09/10 price list/spec sheet.

Remember how I said the Supertherm DT was perfect, but not long enough? Looks like they were spying on me, because there are a couple really nice new 29er downtube options for big/abusive riders:
MXST-DT02 Round Main Tube 34.8 735 1.00 0.70
BMXST-DT03 Round Main Tube 38.1 750 1.00 0.70

For those who aren't on top of the TT spec info: first number is diameter, second number is the length (these used to be a nigh-useless 585mm long) and the last two numbers are the butting - 1.0mm at the thick sections, .7mm at the thin ones. And remember, Supertherm is the same material as OX platinum - super hard, super tough, great stuff. Sure, you add 100 grams or so to the frame by using these monsters, but for the right rider or bike, it's totally worth it.

These tubes are beefy enough for ENORMOUS riders doing *silly* things. They've also done a 31.8mm toptube (or a downtube for something really weird) with nice long butts and the same thickness:
BMXST-DT01 Round Main Tube 31.8 675 1.00 0.70

Anyway, most of you probably find this boring as heck, but I'm psyched. Of course, I have quite an inventory of 29er tubing to work through for "normal" riders, but it's good to know that the next super-duty frame I build can be done with one of these bad boys instead of cheap/heavy 4130.