Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Jason's frame... done

I am on a weird streak of building mostly road bikes (ok, dirt road bikes, but still) and everyone seems to want to use a zillion things attached to their frame - so my water bottle boss supply is almost toast! Jason used up 10 on just his frame and there'll be another 6 on the fork once I get it done... yikes, that's a lotta bottle bosses. But he'll be able to carry a lot of crap.

The hydrationmobile

Geometry breakdown is:
-71 HTA and 74 STA. I used a pretty long rake (50mm) fork to push the front wheel out a bit to help deal with Jason's annoying fender-overlap issues. With 40c tires, that means trail in the high 60s and front center of 61cm.
-The STA is a degree steeper than Jason usually rides so that he can use a setback post for a bit more cush.
-Chainstays are 45.5cm - nice and long for pannier clearance and stability on those long straight dirt roads that disappear on the horizon.
-BB height is nice and low at 265mm (again assuming big tires). Not great for a crit, but awesome for a long cruise or even a long hard effort out in the boonies. Without full on MTB tires, you're not going to get to a lean angle where hitting a pedal on the dirt is an issue in most cases so low and long is where it's at for this kind of bike.
-Clearance for 40c tires, fenders, bags, 3 water bottles, and the kitchen sink.
-Tubing is mostly Supertherm and Verus. Touring/gravel bikes get the crap beaten out of them and carry heavy loads so super thin/light tubes are a waste here. Frame is still a respectable 2050g, though.
-Paragon low mounts in swanky stainless. I love these dropouts for this kind of bike - they keep the caliper out of the way of the racks and bags really nicely.

Long story short - a bike for getting away from it all.

Temps in the 50s = sad skis

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