Thursday, June 28, 2012

Cool Beans...

We found some baby sunglasses in our rental car last time we were in SLC...

And yes, that is a WW onesie. If you want one, drop me a line and I'll try to get Jeff at Alchemist to make more...

Front Center: Someone is even nuttier than me

First, recall my front center non-rant.

Check it out: Richard Sachs doesn't measure (or know) the head tube angle or trail on any of his frames. Just designs entirely around front center.

Wow. I agree with ERichie that front center is super important - but I am amazed that you can produce a bike that rides well without taking into consideration, or even measuring HTA or trail.

To be fair, I think those things matter quite a bit more for mountain bikes (Sachs does only road and CX stuff). Still, an interesting perspective from someone who is the epitome of framebuilding success, with literally thousands of happy customers.

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Eszter rocks!

Record broken. By days.

I say it's the bike. Yeah, that must be it.

Seriously, congrats Eszter!

Monday, June 25, 2012

No more bikes for fast people

So I went out and tested my flabby new-parent legs on the climb up from the bottom of Doudy Draw to the top of Springbrook this morning at like 5am, when the temperature was less than 100 degrees. I figured I'd see how fast I could do it, but without absolutely killing myself. Keep in mind that I'm used to basically getting off the couch and being faster than everybody uphill.

It took a smidge over 11 minutes. I figured 12 was fast, so I was happy, since I've been on the couch for most of the last 6 months.

Then I got home and realized someone might have STRAVA'd that bit.

Dave, I hate you. Give back that bike I built you. Now I have to go do the damn climb again or maybe get back in shape. Or just call it good and hope for the big fish/small pond effect in Utah...

Edit: fixed the Strava link.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Don't call it Celeste

...because it ain't no Bianchi. Quick picture for Chris. Sorry, working on building/shipping/staying sane - not much time for blogging!



Edit: Want to read a crazy story? Cruise on over to Rody's blog. You will not regret it...guy was just riding along, he swears.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Almost Complete: Adam

Oddly enough, this is the first frame I have ever built for someone named Adam.

Anyway, just a couple of pictures, no words as yet. Geometry info and random musings in a few days - Sarah, Bean, and I are off to SLC for the next 3 days to get some stuff set up at the house. No email or blogging until we return.



Random Sunday ForSale: Talas 120 29er fork

I've decided I "need" a 140mm fork on the big bike, so:

-Fox 2011 Talas120 29" fork. Tapered steerer, 15QR dropouts, in great shape. This is NOT a Kashima model, but the stanchions are clean and everything functions well. Steerer is ~8.5" but I need to measure it so if you're not sure that will work, let me know and I can get it off the bike and take a measurement. Oh, this is the RLC, not the Terralogic.

Asking $400, shipping included in the lower 48. Or make me an offer. I'll get some pictures later this week.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Front Center: It Works, Bitches

First of all, this isn't a rant (really, seriously...) It's an attempt, as usual, to educate, inform, and maybe entertain. And as usual, I'm mostly talking about mountain bikes here.

So, back in the bad old days, when you walked into a bike shop (this is how I ended up with a 17" Trek OCLV as my first ever mountain bike and caused myself what will probably be a lifetime of knee problems because the saddle was 4" too low) you were asked to throw a leg over the bike and then attempt to pick it up. If the wheels came off the floor by some minimum number of inches, the bike fit you!

That technique had obvious problems, but the idiocy lingers - bikes are still "sized" by their seat tube lengths in many cases (some have moved to the "small/medium/large" classification system).

Now, some of you serious and nerdy cyclists reading this are probably saying to yourselves "Yeah, maybe for the folks shopping at Wallyworld... but me and my hardcore pals use toptube length to figure out fit." For practical purposes, sizing with (effective) toptube length is indeed a better way to go about fitting a bicycle, but it still has some serious drawbacks for folks who want to get their bike to both fit AND ride correctly.

Why? Simple - toptube length, taken in isolation, actually doesn't tell us where the rider's weight will fall between the wheels - and that matters a lot. Ever been on a bike with the front wheel way, way out in front of you? It's darn hard to weight the wheel in a turn, and that means - yep - washout. Ouch. Obviously the front wheel can be too close to you as well - time to go over the bars at the drop of a hat. Doh.

The reasons that toptube length doesn't work that well come down to 3 things: seat tube angle, head tube angle, and fork offset. All of these affect where the wheel is positioned relative to you, and since it's no longer the bad old days (when every mountain bike on earth was 71/73 and 38mm fork offset) that wheel positioning can vary wildly. The distance I'm referring to has a name - "front center" and it's one of the most important variables in determining if a bike will work well for you.

Take, for example, 2 bikes with identical toptubes, bottom bracket heights, and chainstay lengths:
-A 24" effective toptube, 72 degree seat tube angle, 72 degree head tube angle, and 38mm fork offset (this would be an "old school" 29er geometry) results in a trail of 80mm, wheelbase of 104.9cm and front center of 63.2cm.

If we change the seat tube angle by a degree, guess what happens?
-24" ETT, 73 STA, otherwise identical: 105.7mm wheelbase and 64cm front center. 8mm might not seem like much - but that's probably 40% of the difference in front center between a "medium" and "large" frame in many lineups. All because of a *single degree* of seat tube angle. Plenty of 29er manufacturers build a "small" size frame with a steep seat angle (to avoid toe overlap) that actually has the *same* wheelbase and front center as their "medium".

Ok, fine, 8mm. Big deal. Let's say you do something with the head tube angle and offset of the fork:
-24" ETT, 72 STA, 69 HTA, 46mm offset (similar to something like a Kona Honzo, or one of my personal bikes) results in a 108cm wheelbase and 66.3cm front center. That's 31mm longer than our 72 HTA/38 offset bike, enough to be quite noticeable to any experienced rider. And all with the same 24" effective toptube - if you purchased a bike purely on TT length, you can end up with a weight balance situation you never intended.

In many cases, people just accept a long front center and wheelbase on a bike with a slacker head tube angle because they're hung up on toptube length (or because they don't realize *why* the front center and wheelbase are so long). In fact, in most cases, it's better to design around (or shop based on) the front center to keep the front wheel where you want it. The toptube might seem too short or long compared to what you're used to - but it's easy to compensate for this with a longer or shorter stem, so that your contact points (saddle, bars, pedals) stay where they need to be.

Unfortunately, of course, lots of people have been taught that short stems=DH and freeride, and long stems=XC geeks. This is idiotic, because your priorities when designing a new bike, IMO, should be:
-Make sure the trail number is what you want. #1. The wrong trail number is always going to suck. Luckily this is pretty easy to figure out.
-Put the front and rear wheels where you want them to go.
-Pick a height for the BB.
-FINALLY, make sure the rider can fit onto the bike in their ideal position (ie saddle and bars need to be in certain places). Use an appropriate head tube length/stem/bars/spacers to position the bars and KEEP THE FRONT CENTER CONSTANT. Need a 110 stem? Fine. 80mm? Also fine. You'll adjust to the very minor differences in how you use the bars in 5 minutes. Adjusting to a bike where you're not properly balanced between the wheels is a whole different can of worms and often you just can't.

Obviously there's lots of other stuff that goes into a frame design (pick the right tubes, make sure all your parts fit right, etc, etc) but if you hit all those requirements above, you're on the right track.

If you take nothing else away from this, please, just remember that sizing a bike based on toptube length is only useful if your new bike is VERY similar to your old one. Measuring the front center on your favorite bike(s) will give you a great tool to figure out what bikes you might like in the future, and it's a great way to one-up your geeky bike friends or drive away single women (or men, to be fair) who think you're an idiot at a party.

For the very bored: MTBR thread about front center.

Edit: Thanks to the anon commenter who pointed out that I used mm instead of cm at one point. Fixed, gracias!

Waitlist updates and the schedule for the rest of the summer

So, to recap my crazy summer:

-We had a baby in April, and he is crazy and takes up a ton of time.

-We're moving to Utah at the start of August and I have to move a bunch of huge pieces of machinery along with all our other possessions.

And the coup de grace: We have 6 weddings to attend between now and the end of August (5 of them before we move; many of them requiring airplane travel and long weekends).

So here's the story for folks on the waitlist:

-I will definitely finish Celeste and possibly also Charles before the move takes priority. Everyone further down the list will be getting their frame built in UT starting in mid-August. I believe I will manage to keep everyone's wait to the 6 month estimate, but it's not a sure thing.

-New fork orders will NOT be built until I'm in Utah, so late August is the earliest you could get a fork if you order one now.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

In lieu of a rant...

I am too sleep deprived to make my rant about toptube vs front center make any sense, so I'm letting discretion be the better part of valor and just posting some unsolicited praise and a couple of pictures from Marco instead...

Got it put together pretty late last night and rode in this morning. Still gotta cut brake lines.

I was able to do some looping around MM so nothing big, but man, I think I really like it a lot. That front fork going from 95 to 120 really changes the way the bike sits and rides. At 120 it feels great going down, and at the lower setting it feel nice cruising along on flatter stuff and climbing.



Also jumps super fun, I love how it handles, it's almost like it wants to fly. It feels really balanced in the air..take-off is super natural and I don't have to work to get the rear wheel where I want it landing or really any time honestly. I love it. Tight turns feel nice too which I didn't expect. It's actually kind of wierd because it feel like it handles "quicker" but the front end still feels nice and solid. the front feels really planted which makes it feel super confident. That fork feels pretty plush too, I need to dial the air pressure a bit more. I think it works a TON better than the old fox fork. the descend setting sets it up super plush and coupled with the 120mm long travel setting it makes it feel like butter on the downhill.. I am still figuring out how I like it set for flat and uphill for flat dropping the fork to 95 kinda feel weird, but I think i am just used to my old bike.



The front end feels stiffer too, not sure what that's from, but I feel like when I pull on the bars nothing moves, I can just pull. I love it. My old bike flexed a lot when I pulled on the bars.

After work I'll go for a spring brook loop run. I already can't wait. I'll send a nice pic. I took some already but they are all wonkey and the brake hoses look retarded..

Thanks again, Marco

Saturday, June 09, 2012

Kickin' back - plus a race report

While dad is slaving away in the 95 degree heat, the Bean is relaxing and contemplating the finer things in life...



Now that you're done being impressed with how lame I have become as a parent, here's a race report from someone less over the hill than I, specifically WW team fellow Ian Smith.

The Dirty Kanza 200: You're doing a bike race where???

That's what most of your (Boulder) friends will ask when you tell them you're doing a bike race in the middle of Kansas. But, it seems the "gravel grinder" scene keeps growing, and I wasn't the only one from Boulder (or Colorado) there either.

One of the best parts about the Dirty Kanza is the grass-roots, community feel to the race and the entire weekend as a whole. Since it's beginnings in 2006 (?), the race has grown a lot and has gotten some great support from the local community. It just feels like there's a lot of positive energy behind the event. Many of the local businesses put up signs that say "Welcome racers!" I don't think I've ever seen that in Colorado...

On Friday morning, we were invited on a casual 1 hour spin to get the legs loosened up from the long drive. In the first 10 minutes, I started chatting with this guy who noticed my WWFD kit. Then he points down at his bike and it's a Waltworks! Ha! Turns out the guy lives in Littleton and has some in-laws that live in Emporia. I think his name was Brian.

Later in the afternoon, we all gathered at the awesome Granada Theater right smack in the middle of Commercial Street, Emporia for the mandatory rider's meeting. Almost a packed house this year, as numbers almost doubled from last year. In addition to the usual race-related stuff, there was a whole bunch of giving away of stuff - I got a titanium spork, nice! There were also some great charitable things that the organizers had put together this year. A little kid got a new bike to replace the one that got stolen from him, the Adventure Monkey got a big pat on the back, and we heard the story of the Pablove Foundation, a local cancer research foundation. One of the coolest things the organizers did this year was get the Pablove Foundation involved in the race. For the first time, if you couldn't drag your significant other to Kansas for the weekend to be your support crew (like me), you could "donate" $50 to Pablove, and they would be your support crew for you. One drop bag sent to each of the 3 checkpoints, water and more food at each one, and a ride back to Emporia if you can't finish. Excellent.

Dinner that evening was provided by the Emporia Farmers Market again, which is also pretty cool. They were really organized this year and had enough spaghetti for the whole army of us to have two plates each, plus a salad and dessert.

I had two alarms, plus a wake-up call, to get me out of bed by 4:45 am. Not my finest hour, but I got through the rituals and drove the 3 miles back to the 6 am start at the Granada Theater. Some people rode this, but since I was alone, I figured the last thing I wanted to do was ride back home at the end of the day. Some girls on roller-skates held up signs to help us self-stage ourselves. We lined up down the street based on how many hours we thought we'd finish in, with the fast people in the front (at 12 hours) and the people that were just hoping to finish (at 18 hours plus) in the back. I came into this year much more humble than last year (having DNF'd last year due to the 100 degree temps), and chose to line up back in the 16 hour area.

This year, the weather would be SO much better... highs were expected to be in the low 80s, and most of us started the race with arm and leg warmers on! Emporia's finest gave us the roll-out at 6 am sharp. The start to a day like this is always pretty cool... 400 bikes rolling down the street and everyone's yelling and smiling. We headed south, over the bridge, and took the first right onto the dirt. Everyone filed in to the two main tracks in the road. I caught a quick glimpse of the front of the race... they had already rounded the corner ahead. 5 minutes into the race and I was already 2 minutes behind the leaders. Ha. I guess I didn't care about that though. My mission was just to finish... to see if I could actually ride my bike 200 miles (on dirt) in one day, and walk away with a smile (or at least a grimace).

It had rained quite a bit over night, which was nice cuz it really kept the dust down early on. But, it left the softer parts of the roads muddy, and any attempt to ride through it was not fun. So, passing people was an exercise in patience for the first 20 miles or so. I ended up getting caught behind groups of folks that were doing 12 or 13 mph. A nice casual pace, but I wanted to be up around 16 mph or so, in order to get the job done. At one point, I had just made it through a big group when my 7-year-old water bottle cage decided it was time to die and snapped in two. I got off and put the bottle in my backpack, and got passed by the same group that I had just gotten through. Doh!

The first hills hit at about mile 25, with a "big" one named Texaco Hill (there are some oil pumps in the area) a little later on. Once you get to the top of this hill, you're surrounded by the National Grasslands and you get an amazing view in all directions of green prairie, wooded gullies, and a bunch of cows. I didn't see any, but there's also a group of wild horses that are "managed" on these lands. We were well spread out by this point and rolled into the first checkpoint at mile 60 (town of Cassoday) in small groups or one by one. I hear they like their parades in Kansas. Right before the checkpoint (at the convenience store), there were about 30 people sitting in the shade in their lawn chairs cheering on the bikes as they came by. I'm guessing these were some folks from Cassoday just enjoying the "parade" through their town that morning.

I made it to the 2nd checkpoint in Florence feeling way better than I had the year before. I spent a good 30 minutes drinking a Gatorade and an iced tea and eating various energy foods. I loaded myself down with extra water and set out on the second half of the ride. I had just ridden 100 miles, and it was another LONG 60 miles to the next checkpoint. I got about 10 miles under the tires and realized it had gotten a lot hotter. Even the low 80s is pretty hot with the humidity they have there. I ended up having to stop 3 times in the shade for 5 minute breaks, just to cool the body down a bit and get some fluids and food in. Those breaks helped me stay calm mentally too... and to remember to enjoy my surroundings.

Rolled into Council Grove and checkpoint 3 around 6:30 pm and was really tired. It was hard to eat much, but I got some stuff down. I was considering getting a ride back to Emporia from there. But, it was only 37 miles to the finish. Only? You mean there's still 37 miles of the same thing left between me and my warm bed? I took a 10 minute nap in the grass. It felt so good to just close my eyes and not have to concentrate on anything for a while. I felt way better after that and actually rode out of town with a bit of thunder still left in the legs. It was about 7:30 at that point, and I made it a goal to make it as far as I could before it got dark, since riding in the dark is honestly not my favorite thing to do.

I hardly stopped at all in those final hours, passed a few people, and got passed by some others. This one guy and I had been trading places all afternoon. He passed me one last time right before dark, as I started to deal with some pretty significant knee pain. There were some stingers of some hills out there and it got really hard to push up them. We passed by the reservoir and there were a bunch of folks out on their party boat cheering us on as we rode over the dam. I could see their cold beers... mmm....

Turned the lights on, tried not to take a wrong turn, and found myself back at the Granada Theater at 10:23 pm. Not bad. Got my "DK Finisher" pint glass, sat in grass for a while to soak it up, then drove back to my room and fell into bed without even taking a shower (or eating much of anything. Not eating much before bed really made me feel awful in the morning. I was still completely exhausted. But I slowly got food in me and felt better as the day went on.

Results are here: www.dirtykanza200.com Some good photos and other race reports can be found here: http://adventuremonkey.com/blog Or read Cornbread's blog report on what it was like near the sharp end of the race: http://cornbreadblog.blogspot.com/

Cheers, Ian

Wednesday, June 06, 2012

Stick a fork in it...

The deal is DONE. After months of agonizing out-of-state real estate shenanigans, the new Waltworks World HQ is ours: 148S 1200E, Salt Lake City UT.

Should be a great location for Sarah (we're only about a mile from her office) as well as for recreating - we're right near BST/Bobsled/City Creek and ~20 minutes from Park City. Good stuff.

Needless to say, I am really tired of dealing with real estate crap. Hopefully this will leave me a bit more time to get actual bike building done.

Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Monday, June 04, 2012

Jeff



Another HUGE bike. The picture really does not do the size of this thing justice - you have to take a step back and realize that it's got a 22" seat tube before you can really grasp the scale here.
And if Jeff can't wheelie on this bike, he can't wheelie anything, because it's got 41cm chainstays (which, for someone as big as him, seems a little crazy... but he can always swing the sliders back if the front end won't stay down, I suppose).
This has some fairly unusual features. To whit:
-Very short stays for such a large frame, as mentioned above.
-Very oversized curved seat tube to fit a 31.6 dropper post.
-Big long tapered-steerer friendly head tube.
-Supertherm (the BMX version of OX platinum) top and downtubes.
-Guides for a dropper post and stops for 1x use, but no front derailleur ever, no matter how much Jeff wants one.

Geometry:
-70 degree HTA with a 100mm fork. Goes to 69 degrees if you swap out for a 120mm.
-160mm head tube, 56cm seat tube, 65cm effective toptube.
-Roughly 12" BB height, despite the fact that Jeff is going to run 190mm cranks. This was his call in the end - I recommended a higher BB, but he loves to sit low, so that's what he got.
-41cm (effective)/41.5cm actual chainstay length. Super, super short. A 2.4 will fit tightly with the sliders slammed, or nicely with them slid back 5mm or so.
-73 degree effective STA, though the ST is bent almost 10 degrees.
-135mm spacing, though with a switch of inserts, you can go to 142mm (the sliders shown are just the beat-up ones I use as dummies to hold things together when welding; Jeff will get the nice new post-mount version)

All in all, this should be a wheelie/manual/bunnyhop machine up in Canadia for Jeff. Hopefully he's as used to pedal timing as he says, though - man, that's a low BB for 190s!

Wow

Chris has always had a talent for outdoor photography (see the Gooneyriders site for lots of evidence) but this might be one of my favorites - it really (for me) captures "epic".