Thursday, October 31, 2013

Quick pics for Peter and Cody

Geometry geekery to follow over the next few days, stay tuned, geeks.

That's very, very orange.

No, I didn't braze in the H20 bosses yet.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

It liiiives...

...and just in time for Halloween!

Experimenting with some stuff with a custom-built chainstay assembly. This one is a first attempt - 42cm chainstays? Check. Postmount? Check. 12x142? Not this time, I wanted to use some old scrap dropouts because I'm dumb, so it's QR. Version 2.0 will be 142x12.

The hard part to deal with visually is the 3/4" round tubes. They are plenty stiff and strong, but they just look weird mated to the (also 3/4" in this case) seatstay assembly.

Not for sale yet, please don't bug me about it for a few more months. Yes, there will be a Stupidmobile FS in 2014...


That is one seriously bald rear tire. Yikes.

Edit: Seriously, nobody is going to mention the amount of seatpost out? Yes, that's my actual saddle height. And it's a 20" seat tube...

I also have been working on actual customer's bikes, don't worry. Here's Cody's front end getting ready for some chainstays.


Friday, October 25, 2013

Yes...

...this is enough chainsuck damage that you need a new chainstay. FWIW, no, I did not dimple this chainstay for chainring clearance. That's all chain jamming action.


Thursday, October 24, 2013

29+ thoughts for the bored and/or curious

I built Gal a 29+ (ie, Knard tire compatible) frame and fork this week and I'd thought I'd share some thoughts. Keep in mind:
1) I have only limited time myself on this tire (on a Surly, natch) on dirt.
2) This is the first one I've built (though I've built lots of 26" fatbikes which have some of the same issues)
3) I had to re-do like 4 things because lots of things about these tires aren't intuitive if you spend a lot of time doing skinnier (ie conventional mountain bikes) or fatter (full fatbikes) frames.

Damn you, photobombing leaf.


SO!

Here's my take:

-If you want a 73mm BB shell and conventional drivetrain, your lower limit for chainstay length is around 45cm, just like the Krampus. Surly has basically squeezed all the tire into the space that you can at that length, there's not much you can do trick-wise to go shorter. I only mention this because it's the first question everyone will ask me.

-If you throw the "conventional drivetrain" part out the window by either using a wider shell (83mm or 100mm would both work here) or offset rear hub/wide chainline, you can get down to about 43.5cm (which is what Gal's frame is). If you really go crazy, the tires are 390mm radius so I guess in theory you could do 42cm and have 10mm of space at the BB shell but it would require a 100mm BB and super wide chainline.

-Big tires are not the same as suspension. They do great on small obstacles and low speeds. The faster you go and the bigger the stuff you hit, the more the lack of damping will hurt you. That's my experience, anyway - YMMV. As as aside, it's "damping", not "dampening". Your suspension doesn't need to be moisturized.

-Toe overlap may be a problem for you even if you have never had it on any other 29er. There's basically 20mm of extra tire sticking out in both directions from the hub so even folks in the 6 foot/average American male range will have to keep toe overlap in mind.

-If you're worried about cutting the sidewalls of your tires, use the 27 tpi Knards. The 120tpi are way thinner, scary thin, even.

-If you mainly want to ride on snow, just go 26xhuge. The Knards are in no way competitive with really fat tires on snow.

-The Knard will (sort of, warranty violation, blah blah blah) fit in some suspension forks so unless you have handlebar height problems with a long fork it's nice to do a suspension corrected frame in the event that you get old and fragile like me and want some cush. The shortest fork I can easily build (rigid fork, that is) will be around 43cm.

-Bikes are fun, I loved building this bike even though I wanted to punch myself in the face a couple of times because I messed up easy things, and I think my 2014 bike (Sarah and I have an agreement: I can build myself 1 bike a year) will be at least Knard-front capable if not front/rear.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

A few final shots - Gal's 29+

Just moments after congratulating myself on the curvy brace, I realized it was 10mm lower than I wanted so now it's coming back off... sigh. Still, looked nice while it lasted.




Monday, October 21, 2013

Monday more pics!

Thanks to Adam, and welcome back from your injury.

It's a good thing I have so many friends and customers who can handle a camera and live in beautiful places, because my photography and composition skills? Whew. Not good. And my local rides here are on the big brown piles of limestone and conglomerate that constitute the Wasatch foothills - fun, but not so scenic in general. Plus, I never stop to take pictures.

Cool-ass tree. Bike is ok too I guess.

Artfully distressed, carefully curated...shoot, I sound like a hipster

BC=Skinnies!

Random Photo Monday

Thanks to Joel for the pic. He says "Two Waltworks, near the top of Brushy Hollow trail, Douthat State Park (one of IMBA's epic rides)..."


Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Photo dump - Gal's fork

29" tire clearance (a Knard will have ~12mm on either side), suspension corrected in case someone starts making a suspension fork that will swallow that huge tire (I know, I know, you can cram 'em in some forks...). Faux lugs/sleeves - which apparently we're now calling "bi-lam". Or something. In this case they're basically just decoration, but that's the beauty of custom stuff - if it makes you happy, you can have it and you don't have to justify it to anyone but yourself.

More on the frame (couplers! loads of tire clearance! offset rear triangle and weird drivetrain!) next week.






Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Straight outta Albuquerque...

Thanks to Lance for the photos. Alien loop!



Thursday, October 10, 2013

Breakaway 29er Pic from Dave

Set up in SS mode and enjoying some fall trails (and unexpected days off, apparently, thanks to the gov't shutdown). Thanks for the picture, Dave!


Wednesday, October 09, 2013

More Pix - Peter

As a side note, if anyone finds a GPS on Bobsled, drop me a line. :(










Monday, October 07, 2013

Peter - Photo Dump 1

I took a lot of pictures, here's batch #1. More in the next few days as well as some geometry discussion.

Note: the ".06" tubing is 1.375"x.065", a perfect slip fit for a 31.6mm post.











Friday, October 04, 2013

Fall is here!

I got snowed on on my ride yesterday, even! Weird combo: dusty sandy blownout trails, and snow. A nice combo for ending up upside down in a bush...luckily it still had leaves on it.

Here's a picture of a bike I didn't build (ok, I built the seat tube portion for Feldy 'cause it's nigh-impossible to fillet braze some of the fiddly bits) but it's a great shot of Kenosha's fall colors.


Thursday, October 03, 2013

Tapered steerer rigid forks?

Yep, I've done it. Yep, I'll do it for you too. But buyer beware:
-You won't get any improvement in ride quality. If anything it'll probably be harsher.
-It'll cost you a cool $75 extra.
-It's heavier by ~50-150 grams depending on the fork (ie depending on whether I'd use an SL steerer or standard).
-You can easily just use an adapter baseplate ($12) from King or Cane Creek and run a 1 1/8 straight steerer on your tapered headtube.

Thanks to Mike for the pics!





Wednesday, October 02, 2013

Fat bike on the beach!

Thanks to Dave for the pictures (and finally building the darn thing up!)