Sunday, December 30, 2012

Gotta be prepared...

If you live in Utah, you have to prepare for emergencies. It's practically a state law. Costco sells the civilian equivalent of MREs (no joke) by the pallet here.


Of course, what you choose to provision yourself with varies. Yes, we stocked up on essentials while in CO, since there are some things that aren't quite so easy to get here.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Merry Day After Christmas!

Random holiday notes:
-There are 5 different Christian radio stations between 88.5 and 91.3 FM in Southern Wyoming. I did not venture further up the dial to assess how many more there are.
-The only other stations in this frequency range are all NPR, so you can give yourself cultural whiplash with just a quarter turn of the dial!
-This is the highlight of Southern Wyoming, until you get to Happy Jack and Curt Gowdy.
-Driving ahead of/in a blizzard is a bad way to transport 2 bicycles on a hitch rack. I am not sure my old man bike drivetrain survived. Sarah's cyclocross bike... yikes. It's going to take a lot of cleaning, at the very least.
-Sushi is a good Christmas dinner. Really, really good.
-The inlaws failed to get into a single argument the entire time, which is some kind of record.



Finally, Luis is a jerk who is out riding his bike (which is not covered with road salt and Wyoming mud) while we shiver in the cold. But we thank him anyway for the photo.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Mark's 650b - with powdercoat

I have gotten a few comments that I should stop posting pictures of raw frames because they're ugly (which, to be fair, is basically true) and post more of frames with powdercoat on them. So here you go!




If you want to see the original raw photos, click here. 

Geometry info:
-39.2cm/15.4" curved seat tube that takes a 27.2 post. Effective 70 degrees (yes, that's very slack).
-61cm/24" effective toptube and 69 degree HTA, but only 638mm front center (remember that slack seat angle).
-Pretty low (295mm/11.7") BB height paired with 170 cranks
-41cm chainstays with plenty of tire clearance. S-bendiness. Paragon sliders.
-Takes a tapered steerer fork (120mm travel) or 1 1/8" with conversion baseplate.

Mark is a Vegas dude, so I'm assuming this bike will see time out at Red Rocks and maybe up at Brian head as well. Amazing how much easier it is to fit in tires and such with 650b rather than 29" (as an aside, the frame will actually *just barely* clear a 29" wheel with a 2.1" tire).

Friday, December 21, 2012

Something tells me....

...that Don did not have 36er forks with 95+mm of rake in mind when he designed my fork fixture.


See, Jay? I am finally building your bike!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Oh, crud.


Houston, we have mobility. First objective? Thai peanut curry.

Holidaze 2012

Holiday info for folks waiting for stuff:

-I should be picking up everything at the powdercoater today and shipping it tomorrow. Exactly when things will show up at your door I don't know, though, since it's a crazy time of year to ship. As always you'll get a tracking number when I ship.

-I will be dropping off some stuff at the powdercoater but I don't expect them to have anything done until early January, so if your frame is headed to powder don't get too excited just yet.

-We'll be out of town (visiting family and friends in Boulder) from December 25th-29th. I probably won't answer emails or phone calls during that time but then again I might. If you have questions feel free to email them and I'll get to them when I get back. If you want to consult with me on the phone please wait until after I'm back (feel free to leave a voicemail)

-Don't expect any blogging action. Boulder just got a decent dump of snow so there probably won't be any riding going on, and I'm sure you guys have minimal interest in holiday photos, so no blogging until we're snowed in and bored.

Appropos of nothing, here's Pat's bike with his new rigid fork. Pat is a very big dude so those fork blades are actually lightweight *steerer tubes*.


Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Tuesday evening, um, recipe!

So I learned something interesting recently: you can buy Thai basil at Asian markets for, like, almost nothing. A big bag is $1.50 at the one maybe 1.5 miles down the road from us.

Rad. I've been trying to make decent Drunken Noodles for years, so I spent some more time experimenting - and using WAY more basil. Results? Awesome.

Here's what you need:
-1 c chopped Thai Basil. Yes, that's a lot.
-4 or 5 bunches of Bean Thread vermicelli. Or whatever noodles you want.
-2 tbsp oyster sauce
-4 tbsp soy sauce
-1/2c H20
-2 tsp brown sugar
-Tofu/meat of choice
-8 cloves of garlic, minced
-1 tbsp thai chili paste (the red stuff with the seeds in it)
-Broccoli or veggies of choice
-1/2 c thinly sliced red onion

So:
1: Cook noodles and tofu (separately!) to desired cooked-ness.
2: Cook onions, garlic, and chili paste in some oil in a big pan.
3: Mix up the soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, water.
4: Dump sauce and basil/tofu/veggies in aforementioned big pan, cover, and let simmer away for a while.
5: Dump in noodles and cook a bit longer uncovered until things aren't too watery.
6: Consume.

Yum.


Monday, December 17, 2012

And that's probably the limit... Absurdium pt. 3


Couple shots of the new silly project (yes, it's for me). This is a pretty small tire (just what I had sitting around, it's a Specialized something or other 2.0") and it's only got 15mm of space to the bottom bracket shell. Note the generous side knob clearance - this sucker can't go any shorter without running into trouble with bigger (ie 2.3+) tires and clearance to the bottom bracket shell - because it has 400mm (that's 15.7" for the metric-challenged) chainstays. Heck, the effective (ie level with the ground) chainstays are 39.4cm/15.5"!



Gadzooks, you say, why? Well, because I'm a silly, silly person and I want to see how it'll ride. I was dubious about the original , but I ended up loving it...so why not keep pushing the envelope? I love experimenting on myself, hence the various curved tubes, prototype dropouts (there will be more about those once I get the go-ahead from the manufacturer), offset rear end, etc, etc.

Geometry numbers for the curious folks:
-29" wheels, of course
-69 HTA, 97mm trail, 65.8cm front center
-73 effective seat tube angle
-59cm/23.2" effective toptube
-42.3" wheelbase. Yikes.
-For a 100mm tapered steerer fork
-305mm/12" BB height
-40cm/15.7" actual and 39.4cm/15.5" effective chainstays
-5mm offset rear end (requires a custom zero-dish geared rear wheel and 56mm outboard chainline), standard 73mm english shell
-Clearance for a 2.4" tire (but not a Knard, sorry)
-1x only - no front derailleurs allowed
-My usual long head tube and seat tube
-Way more curves than are necessary
-4.4#, give or take a few grams.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Tom

Another bike for a Front Ranger - intended for a kind of odd dual-use purpose: bikepacking AND semi-freeride aggro hardtail. Yes, those purposes can be hard to reconcile - enter the adjustable travel fork and dropper post that can be swapped for a rigid one.


First, geometry:
-43.2cm/17" seat tube at an effective 73 degrees (it's curved for tire clearance) for a 31.6mm dropper post. I am going to get some tubing made so that I can do this with something a tad lighter (this seat tube is an .065x1.375" sleeve/plug machined to press-fit into an .035x1.375" straightgauge tube).
-59cm/23.2" effective toptube and 637mm front-center.
-70 degree head angle (or 69 in the longer-travel Talas setting) set up for a tapered steerer 95-120mm Fox Talas. Trail numbers in the high 80s to mid 90s depending on the setting (low for bikepacking, high for getting crazy at 30mph on Belcher).
-43cm chainstays, clearance for a 2.4 tire. S-bends as usual.
-Built specifically for XX1. More and more bikes I'm building are rolling this way. Front derailleurs will be totally dead once some mid-level groups with that kind of 1x range come out in the next year or two. Heck, even at ~$950 (the price I sell to group to my customers) it's really not that bad of a deal.


Friday, December 14, 2012

Let's be honest...

...and just agree that being a framebuilder (assuming you've kinda managed to pull it off and make enough money to pay the bills) is a dream job. You get to make your own hours. You get to experiment with weird and interesting bikes, you get to build and design stuff, and you've got access for dirt cheap to all the coolest new parts. Yes, the hours can suck if you don't plan ahead and when you screw up, it's all on you, but it's still a dream job.

So there are really only a couple of things that suck. This is one: after you build enough bikes you will start getting emails constantly from people you built bikes for who are having cool adventures and going on trips to places you've never been. Like, at least one set of awesome pictures shows up every week at this point. I'm sitting in front of a computer, waiting to go out into my unheated shop and cut up metal (as usual, I forgot to bring in my respirator, so when I put that on to weld I'll get to feel all the frozen snot melting against my face) and I get this from Kimberly:



Subject:

Chile and Argentina on the Waltworks

Great adventure. Bike was perfect!
Thanks again!



Wednesday, December 12, 2012

CTR 2012: Anthony

Finished this summers race in 6.5days. Not blazing fast but enough for 20th overall. Was pretty happy with that as the longest I've ever ridden before was the Breck 100 and I never did an overnighter with my bags until the first night! Turned out to be a great race with amazing scenery, experiences, and new friends complete with a nighttime finish in pouring rain/sleet into Durango. Bike was fantastic for riding long days/nights and handled the bags perfectly. The geometry you put together for me keeps on working for long days over both rough and smooth ground here in CO. I did put a lot of new scars on it which are now nice reminders of the trip! Thanks again for building such a great rig.







Tuesday, December 11, 2012

This is why...



You should never, never ask me to pick out colors for you.

Blue bike. Purple-ish bin. Hideous. I'm almost proud of how ugly it is...


Monday, December 10, 2012

Absurdium 2?

More later (maybe much later) but let's just say this is a very, very silly project. Careful viewers will find some fun (read: probably stupid) stuff.


Sunday, December 09, 2012

Another oldie

Thanks to Eric W for the pix. '05 vintage super-tiny WW. Man, big wheel bikes for smaller folks are a LOT easier to do these days... longer fork offsets, nice tight-bend chainstays, direct mount front derailleurs that don't whack your tire (or 1x drivetrains with so much range you don't need one) and let you move the seat tube out of the way... Good stuff - hard to believe how much things have changed in such a short time.



Saturday, December 08, 2012

Adam

Off to the powdercoater she goes.

Geometry breakdown:
-53.3cm/21" seat tube at an effective 74 degrees, with some curviness for tire clearance. Takes a 31.6 dropper (or non-dropper) post.
-64cm/25.2 effective toptube and 71.1cm front center. Curvy swervy.
-69 degree head tube angle, for a tapered steerer 100mm travel fork
-31cm BB height with 2.3" tires
-41cm actual/40.5cm effective chainstays with 70mm of tire clearance (yes, you can run a Weirwolf with the wheel slammed). Paragon sliders. S-bendy everywhere for heel clearance and narcissism.
-Tubing is True Temper Supertherm for the front triangle (yes, you can bend them, if you are willing to put in the time) and then some Deda chainstays plus TT seatstays.
-111.3cm/43.8" wheelbase

Adam wanted something that would both steer quicker than his current setup and do well if he moves from TX to the Front range of CO. Hence: short rear end to float/jump/fly, slack front end for some higher speed stability, and nice beefy tubing (the frame is almost 6 pounds!) to handle Adam's considerable size. It'll handle anything he wants to throw at it, will get around in the tight stuff about as well as anything can for someone Adam's size, and should handle the fast/rough stuff of CO well too. Or at least that's the plan - only Adam will know for sure if we succeeded.




Thursday, December 06, 2012

New bed for Pele!

Thanks to everyone who emailed with advice on how to help out our hip-displasia-tastic dog. Our first non-invasive attempt at a solution: the gimpy dog bed, aka Kuranda.

He seems to love it so far, now we just have to see if it helps his stiffness and soreness. He sure looks comfy, and that's gotta be a good sign!


Brainfart of the year!

So I was building a fat fork, with some offset, for Jared, and I managed to do the offset wrong - instead of the centerline of the axle being offset 17.5mm, I offset so that the driveside is 17.5mm further from the center than the nondrive side (so I offset 8.75mm, awesome).

Needless to say, I have to build Jared a new fork. Which leaves me with a bit of a conundrum about what to do with this one, beyond just accepting the cruel taunting of my loyal readers.

So: want a great deal on a fatfork that will require some re-dishing of your wheel (or a wheel built for that offset)? Awesome, you have two options:
Option 1: Buy the fork from me for $150.
Option 2: Get the fork for free when you order a frame.

Here are the dimensions:
-135x10 spacing/dropouts
-447mm axle to crown
-38mm rake
-Around 130mm tire clearance (so anything will fit)
-Safe for anyone up to 225#
-Tapered blades, disc specific, some nice rack mounts if you want to run racks or fenders
-Black black black.

Interested? Drop me a line. I'll post a photo tomorrow.

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

Brief rant, brief recipe

Ok, ok, you'll get a recipe in a minute. First, a brief rant:

This is a common misunderstanding: a frame with a "stiff" (meaning, doesn't move side to side much when you're sprinting up a hill) bottom bracket is faster/more efficient/better for racing.

This is a bunch of crap, as anyone who has taken high school physics can tell you. 
-To make your bb move side to side, there has to be a force applied that makes it move that way.
-You generate this force when you pedal, because you're not a robot and you can't generate all your power in exactly the direction it needs to go to move the pedals. If you could somehow generate no side to side forces while pedaling, you wouldn't see the BB move side to side no matter how flimsy your frame was.
-If you have a very stiff frame, the bb will not deflect to the side as much, but that does not mean that any extra energy goes into propelling the bike forward. The force still goes into flexing the frame/bb sideways - it's just that since the frame is stiffer, it resists that force better. The end result in terms of watts to the ground is the same regardless of BB flex. 

Put another way: you cannot make your bike go by pushing sideways on the bottom bracket - it won't work if the BB hardly moves, and it won't work if the BB moves a lot.

That's not to say that super flexy is a good thing, but if you are buying a stiff bike because you think it's somehow going to make you faster/more efficient, you are throwing your money away. 

Now! Recipe:

Waltworks Peanut Satay

Put all of these in a pot:
-1 can coconut milk (NOT light!)
-1/4c red or green Mae Ploy curry paste (cut back on this for the milquetoast relatives from Iowa)
-1/2c peanut butter (sugary skippy type)
-1/4c sugar (you can get away with none if you want - taste test first and see if you want to add any)
-1/2 tsp salt
-2 tbsp white vinegar

Bring it all to a boil, simmer for a minute or two, and you've got some kickass peanut sauce for dipper or pouring directly into your gullet.



Monday, December 03, 2012

Random picture Monday

From Chris:
Hey Walt,So I have gotten some good rides on the bike and I really think you nailed the geometry & handling.  I guess I had been on too big of a bike and it is now obvious after riding this bike, its just so well balanced and quick yet very stable.  I just feel the weight balance over the axles is spot on, there is the proper weight on the front when cornering as well as the right amount on the rear when climbing out of the saddle.  It is night and day compared to my other two bikes.