Sunday, December 22, 2013

Happy holidays, everyone - with pic from Cody

I'm out of town doing holiday family stuff until early January. Still answering emails and occasionally answering the phone but I won't be accomplishing any metalwork until I'm back.

Enjoy your holidays, everyone, and remember that frame prices are going up on Jan. 1 if you're thinking of getting on the waitlist.

Thanks to Cody for the picture!


Wednesday, December 18, 2013

The last rant (probably) of 2013: You don't value your trails enough

I've personally witnessed the following:
-Guy with a $5k+ bike on his roof rack drives into the parking lot at a trailhead.
-It's $5 to ride the trails for the day, or $40 or something for an annual pass.
-He reads the sign that explains this.
-Gets back in his car and drives away.

Now, maybe he got an urgent text from his mistress or something, but I can't help think of this anecdote when I'm thinking about how little mountain bikers value their trails.

Many of us (I'm looking at you, blog readers, as well as myself) think nothing of spending $90 on a tire, or $200 on a clutch rear derailleur to keep from dropping our chain, or thousands of dollars (or tens of thousands) on new bikes. Some folks get a new $5k+ bike basically every year. How much do you contribute to trail organizations, maintenance, or access? I know I don't give enough.

There are really two problems as I see it:

-Trails have traditionally been free and maintained (or not maintained) by outside organizations, so mountain bikers got a free ride for many, many years. It's like the internet - everyone expects free stuff now, because that's the way it's always been.

-Trails aren't in your garage gleaming and promising fun times. You (usually) can't possess them. You can't put them on a gram scale or impress your friends with them. They're physical things but they're at enough of a remove from your everyday psyche that they don't have the same pull as that new set of XTR brakes or Haven handlebar. Trails don't promise to make your wrists hurt less or to give you better traction or a bigger range of gears. But while a derailleur can (and will) be replaced in a few years after the luster has worn off (or you broke it), if access to a trail is lost - it's probably never coming back.

When it comes down to it, if you had to choose, you'd choose riding a mediocre bike on a great trail over riding a great bike on a boring trail, right? So why are mountain bikers mostly choosing the opposite when they open their wallets?

I don't know but I think it'd be a good thing if we all kicked in more, in both time and effort and dollars, to trails and trail access. I'm going to try to keep track of what I spend on bike stuff this year and plan to contribute 10% of that amount to my local club as well as IMBA in a mix of volunteer time and cash. I urge you to do the same. If you've got a fixed bike budget, maybe you can spend a little less on gear and a little more on trails. Or you can keep buying parts but do more volunteer work for your club. Need a gift idea this holiday season for a mountain biker friend? Maybe they don't need more cycling socks or an REI gift card but they'd like a donation made to a trail group in their name.

So here's the bottom line: we could all live with a little less bike stuff cluttering up our lives. We'd all like more places to ride and would hate to lose the ones we have. So start acting like it.


Monday, December 16, 2013

Now available: Curved tubes for framebuilders


I've spent quite a while figuring out a reasonable technique for making nice curved tubes with butted tubing and I've had a reasonable amount of luck (after ruining plenty of fine American steel in the process of learning what not to do). If these items are popular I may offer some other options that I commonly use (curved 31.8mm seat tube for 27.2 post, curved 34.9 seat tube for 31.6 dropper post, curved 31.8 supertherm top/down tube, 19mm twin toptube/seatstays?)

Without further ado:

Please note: All bent tubes will exhibit some minor ovalization. It is up to the end user/builder to determine appropriate diameter/butting and miter/cope/join appropriately. There is no visible ripple/flaw at butts/butt transitions (transition from bent/straight on seat tubes is visible). Butts marked for builder's convenience on request.

28.6mm diameter 9/6 single butted seat tube. 650mm total length, 75mm butt. Bottom 250mm is curved 10mm (approximately 1750mm radius). Appropriate for short-chainstay frame designs and will take a 27.2 seatpost. REQUIRES a sleeve or lug at toptube/seatstay cluster. 4130 cromoly. Bent/straight transition is visually obvious and overenthusiastic insertion of a too-long seatpost can damage this tube. Builder must adjust seat angle for desired saddle positioning. $60






-28.6mm diameter 9/6/9 double butted x 600mm. Butts are 100mm at each end. Curved 25mm over total 600mm length (approximately 1750mm radius). Appropriate for toptubes with curve oriented either up or down. 4130 cromoly.  Butt transitions are NOT visible after bending. $70








-31.8mm diameter 9/6/9 double butted x 600mm. 90mm butts at each end. Curved 25mm over total 600mm length  (approximately 1750mm radius). Appropriate for toptubes oriented either up or down, or for light-duty downtube. 4130 cromoly. Butt transitions are NOT visible after bending. $70






-Custom tube bending. Want something unusual? I can bend most sizes of commonly used bike frame tubing, both straightgauge and butted. Heat treated material will cost considerably more, but yes, I can do it. Contact me for a quote.

Heading out of town at the end of the week

Sarah and Bean are getting on a plane this morning to escape the awful pollution here in town (yes, Park City is calling our names... I'm expecting to move the shop again soon) and I will remain here for a few more days to tie up some loose ends and ship out a few items.

We'll return in early January. I'll be checking email and answering the phone on most days so feel free to email or call if you have frame or parts questions.

Also, please remember that frame prices will increase to $1600 for deposits placed after the end of 2013, so if you're thinking of getting a frame next year, this is your last chance to get in at the $1500 pricing. Contact me via phone or email for info on how to get on the waitlist.

To come this week on the blog: I'm going to be offering curved tubes for sale to pro and amateur framebuilders, and I'm finally going to put together another Waltworks jersey/shorts/bibs order for the spring, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Fatbike...schmatbike...2!

Or, snow posing, at least. Thanks to Minh for the photo. Much better than my sorry effort from a few days ago!


Also, thanks to Cody for this one:



Monday, December 09, 2013

Pics from Martin!

The Austin greenbelt, baby! Thanks to Martin for the pics of his slack front/short rear 29er (click the link for geometry info if you're that kinda geek).




Saturday, December 07, 2013

Fatbike...schmatbike!

Every once in a while you get just the right conditions for perfect snow riding on your normal mountain bike... and today was not really one of those days but Shoreline is still 95% rideable and 100% fun. I didn't see a soul on the trail in almost an hour of singletrack (amazing how much slower you go with 3" of snow) though I did see a few fatbike tracks.



My camera was not so happy in a blizzard, nor have my photography skills improved...but hopefully you get the idea.


Friday, December 06, 2013

Cool stuff from Dave

I've posted a few pics from this before, but here's the professionally written/edited story for those who like big long crazy bike adventures:

Oregon Coast Fatbike Adventures:

http://salsacycles.com/culture/guest_blog_synonyms_for_oregon_sand
http://adventureblog.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/04/fatbiking-100-miles-along-the-oregon-coast/

Check it out!

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Those curves are infectious...

Remember when if you wanted some curved tubes on a bike I would throw a big fit about how they didn't accomplish anything?

Yeah, y'all won on that one. And now you won on forks too - people have been asking me for years for curved fork blades but due to a combination of stubbornness and too much other stuff going on, I never got around to doing a fork blade bender. But I got a very strange request (for a fork with 125mm of offset!) that wasn't practical without bending the blades, and here we are.



Here's Mary's mountain/bikepack fork in the early stages of being built.

I know someone is going to ask so:
-There is no extra charge.
-This will only work with tapering/smaller diameter blades. I can't bend the big constant diameter ones safely for forks as the radius is just too small to do (at least for me) with larger diameter/thinner wall tubes.
-Yes, I can accomplish all the offset with the curve if you'd like unless you need a LOT of offset for some reason.

Monday, December 02, 2013

Finally...

1: Started David's frame (and finished the front end) after the holiday week from hell with sickness for everyone and me playing full time dad and full time nurse most of the time. Least productive bike building week ever? Probably.

Here's a bad picture - I think the white balance was screwed up on the camera.


2: Mountain bike season is finally over. Normally I would not celebrate this but the season usually ends around the start of November and at this point even I'm getting the jones to scrape the storage wax off the skis. I'm sure I'll be sorry I was rooting for winter to start when I'm out in the shop and the high is 23, though.