Thoughts on full suspension 29ers

Nowork pointed me to this article over at 29inches, which I thought was pretty interesting, and I (as the personal owner at various times of both 4, 5, and 7" travel 29ers) tend to generally agree with the conclusion - that the 4" 29er is the "all around XC" bike for most folks.

I thought I'd offer a bit of the designers perspective on why I think that longer travel 29ers will remain a niche product. There are a bunch, really, from 2 angles - fitting the rider, and fitting the rear wheel.

The rider is the easiest part to start with, though both problems interact to a significant extent. When we add travel to a 29" full suspension bike, we start running into some standover problems.

Now remember, I'm on the record as saying I don't think standover is all that important, as long as you can comfortably get on and off the bike. And it's easy to build a hardtail 29er with standover well under 28" or so (without even resorting to any weird trickery), which means that most non-tiny folks with shoes on can ride them pretty comfortably. The dualy is a different story than the hardtail, of course - we'll be using some sag in both the front and rear suspensions when the rider is onboard, so to get the BB height where I want it, the whole bike gets taller. A 3" dualy, all things being equal, is going to have about 3/4" less standover than a suspension corrected hardtail. And every inch of travel we add will basically add another inch to the standover height. So as you go up, you eliminate folks who can comfortably mount/dismount.

Now consider, also, that as we add travel (at least on most single pivot frames) we've got to make room for the rear wheel to track up (as the suspension compresses) and towards the seat tube (this problem is mitigated to a very small extent if you've got a slightly rearward wheel path, but not that much - the seat tube is still in the 73ish degree range, so you'd need a *really* rearward axle path to keep the tire away from it entirely). And of course, you've got to make sure you can run a front derailleur, and all the associated cable clamps and stops and such need to clear the rear tire as well.

That wouldn't be a problem, except that the rear ends of 29ers are already on the long side (an average 29er hardtail is probably in the 445-450mm range for effective chainstay length). As we add travel, we have to either move the seat tube out of the way, or lengthen the stays to keep everything from smashing together - so looking at some of the popular bikes out there, chainstay lengths are in the 450-470mm range, with a few even longer. Those are mostly 4" bikes. As we add travel, we have to do more and more futzing to keep everything working right, or add more length to the chainstays.

Now there's nothing wrong with long chainstays for many people. Lots of people whine and moan about not being able to "manual" easily, for example, because 29ers have chainstays that are too long. Without getting too far into this debate (it would end up being a rant about how chainstay length should be custom for every rider and all sorts of lengths can be "right" depending on terrain and preference), while most of these people don't even know what an actual manual is (let alone actually being able to ride one), they do have a point, to an extent. If you're 5'10" tall and have 470mm chainstays, getting the front end up is, all things being equal, harder than if you had 445mm ones. The more travel, the harder it becomes to make chainstays short, meaning that you end up with a bike that works well for certain riders but really poorly for others. Not so good.

But at 4" travel, most of this can be pretty easily overcome. A 4" travel 29er (which is what I ride on many days) can handle most reasonable XC riding, and even a bit of chairlift-served silliness as long as you don't go too crazy. I think that the author is right - we'll see 4" settle in as sort of the standard for 29ers. What surprises me is that 3" bikes are virtually nonexistent - I can make a great 3" travel race 29er, but very seldom have anyone interested, whereas 4" travel 26" bikes are still quite common.

That was a pretty disjointed post, I guess, but it's Sunday and it's 65 degrees out, so I'm going for a (wet, road) ride and I don't have the time or inclination to re-edit it. So that's what you get.

Illness strikes again

I'm assuming I caught something from one of my 500 closest costumed friends, when we were all packed into the Spot for the bouldering comp on Saturday. Lovely.

In any case, there's a fresh foot of snow, and I'm sick. You know what that means - nothing is going to get done until I'm at least a little bit recovered, or the temperature gets up to a point where I feel like I can work in the shop without making myself sicker. The heaters can get it up to about 20 degrees above the ambient temp, but today that's not enough.

My goal is to do some design work and perhaps tinker with the website today, so theoretically, I'll be "working", but it's likely that no metal will get cut up or welded together. You've been warned.

If you didn't already think Eszter was awesome...

...check out this race report/interview at mtbracenews.com!

Help out a fellow in need

Robb (currently near the top of the frame waitlist) has emailed me saying that he's having some financial difficulty, and would like to sell his spot (ie, you'd buy his deposit) in line. Normally I don't do this kind of thing, but he's in a tight spot. Want a frame quick-like? You can be in the catbird seat, just contact him: deleted for details.

EDIT: Ken has taken Robb's spot. Please do not email Robb anymore, the deal is done!

In other news, the climbing comp went kinda poorly. In my opinion, they need to put a limit on the number of participants - people were waiting 15 minutes just to try a single problem! The black lights and costumes were cool, I guess, but I really preferred the normal-lighting non-Psychadelia comp from earlier this year. Maybe I'm just a loser.

Weirdly enough, I did the first 6 advanced problems with only one fall, total. With the exception of #1 and #5, they were *really* easy. And then #7-10 were *impossible*. Not sure why the difficulty ratchets up so fast, but it's kind of annoying when everything is either super easy or not even doable as a project. Especially since you've gotta wait 5-10 minutes between attempts because there are so many people.

This weekend is going to rock

Today I rode Picture Rock with Dr. Z, tonight I get to see Verdi's La Traviata (which I've never seen performed, believe it or not), and tomorrow evening is round 2 of the Spot Bouldering Series - Psychedelia!

I'm pretty excited. Maybe I can crack the top 10, if I don't climb like ass and my iffy pulley tendon doesn't flare up. And this time, no beer. Definitely no beer. Climbing+empty stomach+beer = disaster. Trust me on this one.

I will once again attempt to take some photos of the comp, but I'm guessing that they will turn out like crap, just like last time.

This one's for Rich (and Dave G)

Rich, I tried to call you back, but I was in the middle of a ride and I'm not smart enough to dial Australia, apparently. Call me back tomorrow afternoon.

And here's a picture of a 26" frame for ya. Dave G's new ride. No decals on there yet, but she's looking good. The swamp cooler? Not so much. Need to put that sucker away for the winter, methinks.

Yes, I do build bikes that aren't 29ers. In fact, I do it all the time, and I even enjoy it! Cross bikes, road bikes, 650b, 69ers, 36ers, and (gasp!) even 26" wheel mountain bikes.

I just won't ride those kiddie-wheeled deathtraps myself. ;)

Kidding. Dave, frame and parts will be in the mail on Monday.

Superdog

Yes, that's a salsa bowl. Yes, that's my insane dog, eating straight (super hot) salsa.

He breaks windshields with his head, he's found 7 different ways to escape from our yard, he's jumped from a 25 foot 2nd story window in Crested Butte to try to join us on a ride, he loves hoppy beer, and now apparently he feels the need to further prove his badassness by eating leftover salsa. In fact he'll take salsa over many other foods if given a choice.

Of course, he's also terrified of the vacuum cleaner and cameras, and his favorite thing to do in the evening is cuddle up with Sarah for hours. So he's not all tough.

Pele, you rock.

Weekend recipe: Salsa!

First off, this is something that my friend Hassan Ibrahim of the desert folk inspired me to make. By making it first, and demonstrating to me that making your own salsa is:
-Tasty
-Quick and easy
-Can be modified however you want and pretty much always comes out good
-Cheap

That's right, cheap. I got everything I need to make this recipe, plus a bag of chips, for $6, and nothing was even on sale. I did already have the vinegar, though. It makes something like 4 big jars of salsa. Can't beat that, unless you think that Pace is salsa.

Without further ado:
Hassan's Salsa, as interpreted by yours truly

Put these ingredients in a food processor (preferable) or blender (not as ideal, but usable) and blend the crap out of them:
5 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 medium to large jalepenos
1 medium sized habanero
2 tsp salt

The goal here is to have a lot of tiny chunks, or even a sort of chunky paste, of your chiles and garlic, so that it can flavor the salsa nice and evenly when you blend in the other ingredients.

Now add 10-15 medium sized Roma tomatoes, or whatever tomatoes strike your fancy. You don't need expensive or exotic tomatoes, though they can be tasty. If you're using a blender, chop them into large chunks before you throw them in to help speed up the blending process.

Blend in the tomatoes until there aren't any big chunks floating around.

Now chop up one medium sized onion and 1/4 cup of cilantro (you can do as much or as little cilantro as you want, it'll be good no matter what) and throw them in. Blend until there are no big onion chunks, and start eating!

Note that you have to keep this in the fridge, it'll spoil pretty quickly at room temperature. If you like something a little sweeter, you can substitute fresh peaches (or mango) for half of the tomatoes. Go crazy, throw all kinds of different crap in there - it's hard to go wrong. If you've got something especially good, post a comment and I'll try it.

This one goes to 11

Or, well, 7. But still, not bad. Today I put an XT cassette on the lathe, and when I was done, I had something freakin' awesome - a 1x7 drivetrain. That's right. 7 gears on a singlespeed hub - 15-34 (you could do 13 or 14-34 too if you wanted to). I rode Doudy Draw and Springbrook on the setup this morning and it works really, really well. Psyched to be out on the bike, even if I was still coughing a bit.

For those who are curious, I'm on the geeking-out binge for 3 reasons:
-I sold my singlespeed to Chris, so this is my only bike right now.
-The only decent rear wheel (that will work tubeless) I own currently is this one, and it's got a singlespeed hub.
-I've been too sick to ride or work and had nothing better to do than think of stupid bike ideas.
Other notes:
-With the SRAM derailleur, a longer limit screw and some derailleur cage grinding is necessary to get all the gears to work. I hear that this isn't a problem with Shimano derailleurs, but I don't have one of those.
-Yes, I'll be happy to modify a cassette for you if you want. For a reasonable fee. Just drop me a line.

This is what happens

...when you force a singlespeeder to ride a geared full suspension bike until he gets off his lazy butt and builds himself a new singlespeed.

That's right. 1x5, bitches. I have a mighty 15-30 "cassette", paired with a 34t ring. Sweet. I might change it to a 15-34 if I wimp out and can't handle the hills. The MRP chainguide thingy is pretty cool (light, seems bomproof, not stupid expensive), though it's a huge pain to set up. I don't know what their idea of a 50mm chainline is, but I'm pretty sure it's not the same as what my LX cranks think.

Of course, this all assumes I am actually healthy enough to ride sometime soon. I'm hoping this weekend.

Somewhere in this picture...

Chris has hidden a snarky bit of commentary, on his 650b singlespeed. Can you find it?

Random thoughts on frame fixtures

First off, for those of you who are interested (ie, those folks in line!) I'm on the mend. I got a solid 4 or 5 hours of work in today and should be back on track full time soon here. Still coughing and wheezing a bit, but the antibiotics seem to be killing the secondary infection I (always after I'm sick) have in my lungs.

Some random fellow posted some pictures of his new frame fixture on flikr recently, which made me think a bit about the fixtures that are out there. For folks who are in the market for one, this might be useful. For those of you who just like bikes, not frame fixtures, it still might be interesting.

The fixture does several things for you - it lets you produce a given geometry (ie, it holds the tubes in the position you want them to be when the frame is done), it sometimes serves as a way of holding onto everything when you're welding, and it can be used (assuming it's accurately made) as an alignment gauge as well.

Full-time/professional framebuilders are mostly concerned about ease of setup - if I have to spend half an hour with an angle finder and pieces of string to get everything where I need it, that's a half hour in which I accomplished, well, nothing, really. Time is money for the pros, and most of them, consequently, use Anvil bikes fixtures, which are meticulously made and thoughtfully designed - they have all the features you need, and none that you don't.

Here's a shot of the fixture I used (though mine is a much older version) - the Anvil Journeyman.

This sucker retails for about $3500. A couple others (which I don't like as well) are the Henry James (about $2500, I think) and the Bringheli fixture ($1300). Some shots of those:



You can see just from looking at them that the Anvil is quicker to set up (everything is clearly marked in terms of angles/heights/distances, and you'll never need a tape measure, protractor, or angle finder). But is that worth an extra $1000-2000? Figure the quick setup saves you just 5 minutes a frame, and that you do 50 frames a year that you sell for, say, $1500. In a year, you've saved a little over 4 hours. Assuming building a frame takes you around 10, you're already well on the way to paying for the extra convenience in just a year.

If, on the other hand, you just want to make one bike, or a few bikes each year for yourself and your friends, you can go the homemade fixture route. There are a lot of ways to do this, many involving a nice form of aluminum extrusion called 8020. Here's a link to the instructables page (with other links) for your convenience.

A common misconception about jigs and fixtures is that if the fixture is straight, the end product that comes out of it will be. In fact, the fixture's only role in alignment is to make sure everything is straight to start out - if joints don't fit tightly, or the welding/brazing isn't done well and in the right sequence, the frame (or fork, or whatever) will spring right out of alignment as soon as you take it out of the fixture. It's the quality of the mitering and the joinery that really determine alignment - while the fixture has a role, it's not nearly as important as many people think.

So the bottom line is that while I wish the flikr fellow the best of luck, he's entering a pretty competitive marketplace. Anything requiring that much material and machine time is probably going to have to be pretty pricey - and the Anvil is very hard to beat in terms of convenience and accuracy.

Oh, and if you really want to break the bank, the Anvil Super-Master is the way to go - for a cool $7200, you can be the envy of all the other builders on the block!

Report from Redcoat

Check it out here.

Here's a great shot of Eszter and the boys rolling in on her last lap. It's worth noting that if she'd actually gone out for her last 2 laps, she would have made the pro MEN's solo podium.

Edit: Eszter has a report (with lots of good pictures) up.

Nice work Eszter!

It *appears* (the results are a bit confusing) that Eszter has won the 24 hours of Moab on her Waltworks 29er, and is thus US National Champion!

If I'm reading it right, she lapped the field and got to quit riding at 9:30, too, which had to be pretty nice. She did 13 laps! Wow!

Hopefully I'll have a story and some pictures in the next few days.

As for me, I'm still sick, but I'm well enough to do a little bit of work in the freezing cold today. Joy. Nothing like blowing snot rockets on the concrete and watching them freeze, instead of racing your bike in 70 degree weather in Moab.

I promise that will be the end of my whining, at least about my current illness.

Small quantities of 880t welding rod

2/15/14 Edit: Shipping costs are up substantially for me. Cost is now $48/pound, shipping included. Just FYI.

I get emails at least once a week about this topic. Yes, I will sell you a small quantity of Weld-Mold's excellent 880t welding rod. By "small" I mean "at least one pound". Weld-Mold only sells it in 10# tubes, which can get pretty pricey. Lucky for all y'all folks who want less than that (10 pounds is probably enough for about 150 bikes), I have tons of it in my garage.

If you need multiple pounds, please email me, as you'll save some shipping money that way.

I'll put a stable link to this page over on the right side, but for now, you can just buy buy buy without even scrolling down! I have .035", .045", and 1/16", and I'll even sell you a mixed pound of any combination of those three sizes if you're not sure what you want. $48 a pound, shipping included. If you live in HI, AK, or outside the US, please email me, because you'll owe me more than that to cover shipping.

Diameter

.035 .045 1/16 Custom mix (add a message with details)

TV Time!

I'm generally one of those smug "kill your TV" asshats, except that I just watch my TV on Hulu while I ride the trainer, which makes it ok.

And I'm so sick that I pretty much did nothing but watch TV on the computer today. I tried briefly to do work, but I found that extended (say, 40 seconds) standing makes me dizzy. So don't expect much framebuilding or blogging progress in the next few days.

Random thoughts:
-Fist of the North Star is just as bad as I remember from high school.
-The new Stargate Universe show is pretty much a straight ripoff of Battlestar Galactica, but then again it's made by pretty much the same people. Also, why couldn't they use the camera drone thing to shut the shuttle door? For crying out loud, they're supposed to be smart!
-John Stewart is funny, but I was pretty disappointed that Sarah Vowell, who's a great author, was a terrible interview.

Those are my thoughts on pop culture for the day. Expect another such update in, say, 5 years.

I have the worst luck ever

I have spent the last 2 weeks obsessing about 24 hours of Moab. I put my dually together, I spruced it up with nice parts (stolen from my singlespeed, but still nice), I borrowed a couple sets of lights from generous folks, I got a USAC license for the first time in probably 5 years, I lost sleep thinking about riding fast at night...

And this morning a friend stopped by to ask if I was feeling sick. Why, yes, as a matter of fact I felt a bit under the weather. Turns out he has H1N1 and just found out. So I probably have it too.

Unless a miracle occurs and I wake up feeling great, it looks like my entry fee, license fee, and hard work are down the crapper.

The perfect end to a race season in which I failed to complete a single event longer than half an hour, I suppose. Sure would be nice to catch a break, though.

Doh.

Pele vs Windshield

I got cut off by some idiot turning left on Regent and had to slam super hard on the brakes...captain hard-head came flying from the back seat and *destroyed* the windshield.

Damage to car: $300 or so, probably. We'll see what a new windshield costs.

Damage to Pele: Nothing. Damn, dogs are tough! Even if this particular one looks like a little sissy while sitting in Sarah's lap.

Low mount disc dropouts in the wild...

...or just installed on a frame. Got a couple requests for a few shots of these actually installed on a frame. Here they are. Also, as usual, my rambling thoughts.

I like the following about these dropouts:
-They save me time, since the disc tab is integrated to the dropout. Also, there's no need for a seat/chainstay crossbrace. Very cool.
-They end up weighing only 15-20g more than a breezer/tab/brace setup. Pretty much insignificant. I can also cut down the driveside tab a bit and save about 10 of those precious grams if needed.
-They keep the caliper nicely out of the way of rack/fender/whatever mounts. Good stuff.
-I think they look pretty spiffy. I used to every once in a while be able to cram the disc mount down onto the chainstay on bigger bikes and loved the look. This is a much easier and more elegant way to do the same thing.

I don't like:
-They're hard to use with small frames, since the disc caliper won't easily clear the seatstay. Extra bending on the seatstays is required on any frame much under 18" (seat tube, center to center) or so.
-They cost a bit more than breezers. Not a big deal, really, but hey.
-The derailleur hanger is replaceable. Some people would list this as a positive, but not me - I have built probably 300 bikes with steel (integrated, non-replaceable) hangers and only ever had to fix *one*. I'd love to see the low disc mount dropouts made with an integrated steel hanger. I doubt Mark will do it anytime soon, though, so in the meantime, it's probably a good idea to have an extra hanger in your pack in case of disaster.
-For some brakes, rear brake cable routing (especially for Avid mechanicals) is weird and ends up having to go down the downtube, under the BB shell, and along the chainstay. Not a big deal, but funky in some cases. Most hydros (though not all) can use more conventional routing along the seatstay as long as you're willing to adjust the angle of the line where it enters the caliper.