The new Waltworks.com is here!

Check it out, I have an actual website!

It's still a work in progress (thanks for all your hard work, Giff!) but it's a big step up from my black page with a few bits of text.

There is a new blog at Waltworks.com and I will no longer be updating this one, but I will leave the blogger site in place as an archive of the last decade or so (!) of bike building, recipes, and general geekiness.

Please also note that for RSS feed folks, I'm working on making that happen with the new blog.

Ron - done

29 with clearance for 27.5+ seems to be all the rage these days. Fun way to have 2 bikes in one (though IMO the 27.5x3, 29x2, 26x4 bike is the way to go if you really want the Swiss army knife effect!)

This one is an all-arounder with Rohloff capabilities as well as the usual stealth dropper, loads of tire clearance, etc.

Still all fluxy

I can't resist putting curved bridges on these bikes with big tire clearance...

Get your high country rides in!

...because the dogtooth maple are already changing here in PC. Fall is on the way!

Thanks to Luis for the photo of Mt. Guyot.

Won't someone please think of the children?

Actually, I'm not joking. Come make your voice heard tonight at the Richins building and help convince Summit county to put a safe off-street pedestrian/bike crossing over/under I-80 at the Jeremy/Pinebrook interchange.

Details here.

Random photos for Ron

29/27.5+ with Rohloff/SS/geared capabilities, fun times.

Cleaned up and vented for DT welding-in

Fluxy

Like a boss

Front end

Toptube oxide rainbows

David - done

Another Pinhead fork, too.

Super aggro long front center/slack/low/short chainstay 27.5+?

Another customer bike I'd like for myself. Damn you, Dave!

Dave also has the distinction of being the first to get a boost (110x15) spaced rigid fork. In his case it'll swap out with one of the fancy new Lyrik 27.5+ units. Yes, another dummy axle joins the fleet...

I think for steeps and technical riding, the aggro geometry and big tires is hard to beat. For getting big air? Less great - but Dave could run some 29x2.5 Minions for that kind of thing, should he choose.

A few leaves starting to fall/change!

Geometry below. All supertherm, all stealth, 148x12 with some offset for a dishless rear wheel, etc.

This is the *short travel setting* "XC" mode!

Let your freak flag fly - and join the Waltworks crew in the 2015 Miner's Day Parade!

Running of the Balls!

The Waltworks crew will be (slowly) pedaling down Main St/Park Ave on Monday, September 7th, along with a bunch of other random people and organizations. That's right, it's Miner's Day!

Afterwards, we'll do a ride and then a party/BBQ at Waltworks world HQ!

If you've got a Waltworks bike you want to ride, awesome. If you don't, we can probably find you a loaner. And really, everyone is welcome as long as you're in a good mood and riding a bike. Scratch that, you can walk if you want. Unicycles welcome too. Costumes are encouraged but not required. We're not allowed to throw candy, sorry, but we can hand stuff out, so if you want to see tons of happy kids and get high-fives, this is your chance!

RSVP to me anytime before the parade. You'll need to be ready to go by 10am at Swede Alley and provide your own transportation (you can ride the bike path and/or singletrack!) We'll provide post-parade food and booze, and treats to hand out to kids.

Mr. Sparkle in Action!

Thanks to Kiefer for the photos! Makes me want to build myself up a MUNI again...

Kiefer claims he has yet to turn his knees into hamburger. That's a WIIIDE crown (and tire).

Nice 36er tire...

Aaargh...

I probably shouldn't complain since UT itself isn't burning, but this forecast sucks.

Sorry, Cascades...

29+ and full suspension - BRAAP

Yes, correct saddle height. I'm a freak.

A few days ago I posted a quick picture of the bike I'm calling "BRAAP". I'll let you decide if that's an acronym, and if so, what it stands for (Big Rowdy Alces Alces Proletarian?) But I can say that taken as a whole, it stands for super, super fun. And yes, full custom full suspension frames are now officially available (priced the same as the Ventana/WW configuration for now at $2500 w/shock), drop me a line for details.

First, the basics. Here's the bike:

BRAAP!

The executive summary here: modern XC geometry, 100mm travel, lots of standover, pretty darn short stays, pretty darn low BB. Designed to just *barely* allow the use of a Thomson dropper post with the saddle clamped at full ~28 degree downward tilt.

I wanted a long-day go-anywhere bike that would be fun for exploring rough/undeveloped trails, as well as snappy and responsive enough to be fun on a lunch ride. It's built super beefy (all Supertherm all the time!) because 1) I wanted to be able to loan it out to buddies/customers without worrying about how big they were, and 2) I crash. Sometimes hard. There's also the fact that honestly, being a weight weenie about a 3" tire bike when you're approaching 40 and have 2 small kids is ridiculous. If I wanted to be faster I'd drink less beer and ride more. The complete bike weighs about 28 pounds with fairly nice but not crazy parts.

And, I'll be blunt: I got what I was going for. And then some (with some inevitable tradeoffs, of course). This is my favorite full suspension bike ever, and I must have owned 30 or so by now.

Loads of Chupacabra clearance

I'll do another post next week for those folks who are interested about the nitty-gritty of the swingarm and seatstays. Suffice to say for now that they're a mixture of straight-gauge 4130 and 304 stainless (for bearing fittings) along with a LOT of probably unnecessary work to attach everything to the dropouts (I'll use rockers next time and for customer bikes - much simpler/lighter/cleaner).

So, how does it ride?

In a word, it's like having a short-travel DH bike on the downhill, and a really capable (albeit not all that light) XC bike on the climbs. It has insane gobs of traction in even the worst off camber gravel type situations. It wheelies and manuals and pops around really nicely (though not as nicely as Stupidmobile, since that bike has a wheelbase that's almost 3" shorter!) It's extremely capable on steep terrain going up or down - no wander on slow techy climbs, tons of confidence on steep roll-ins and rough fast descents.

There are tradeoffs, of course:
-3" tires are pretty slow going uphill unless the terrain is really rough. You won't be getting any Strava PRs on your local dirt road climb on this bike.
-I wanted a very low bb, because I love how low bb bikes ride. In technical stuff when pedaling, pedal strikes can be pretty frequent (and potentially dangerous if you're going fast!)
-They are intact so far, but the bike demands to be ridden really fast on rough gnar, and I'm guessing I'll eventually shred my probably too-light Chupacabra tires.
-Chupacabras (and 100mm travel) aren't great for going off big drops or hitting big jumps at the bike park. To be fair, though, this bike was never intended to be a full-on DH sled and doesn't have the travel or geometry to be ridden that way.

Curved bridge next time!

Some people will also find the combination of larger tires and suspension to be just too much damping out of trail feedback - the ride can feel "numb" on smoother sections of trail and while you might be going really fast - in some cases it actually doesn't feel very fun because the bike is doing so much of the work. That's a line that everyone has to find for themselves, though, and on the trails I tend to like best (rough XC) this bike is perfect.

I'm pretty excited about this bike, not just because it's a blast to ride, but also because I can now do really fun and weird stuff with full suspension bikes (FS fatbike? FS 29er with 400mm chainstays? Super low/high/long/short/fat/whatever? All doable) and let the geek flag fly. Not everyone is going to prefer 29+ (or even fit on it) but that's the nice thing here - I can do 27.5+, 26+, 24" fatbike, 20", mixed wheel sizes... anything.

I'm not about to stop riding Stupidmobile (currently set up as a rigid singlespeed with, natch, a Chupacabra on the front) since Park City has a metric ton of trails that are way too smooth for any form of suspension at all. But when I wander into the shop, this is the bike I usually grab.

Mike - done!

After a powdercoat snafu (the acronym is quite literal with powdercoating...) it's finally ready to go!

This is an all-arounder with most of the bells and whistles (stealth dropper, tapered steerer, short stays, etc) but with nice normal QR 135 dropouts. Which is what I do on my own hardtails, too, because the through axle does nothing for me on a rigid bike and my legacy collection of QR wheels is going to last a looong time...

Red Baron and new scribble decals!

Lock prevents tipping over.

Give me a brake!

...says Bean. Good thing you can adjust the reach like crazy on old plastic SRAM 5.0 brake levers!

Frankenbike started out as Dora the Explorer from Walmart by way of garage sale. Yes, that's a Thomson post.

This was the old system:

You can do better, New York Times

In UT, there is a mountain bike biathlon series!

Some of you may ride bikes (or hike, or run) where people hunt, or shoot recreationally. Or some of you may be target shooters or hunters (I did plenty of target shooting as a kid but no longer own any guns, not even, sadly, for biathlon...)

In any case, there's some natural friction between the various types of outdoor recreation folks, and the NYT decided to weigh in with a pretty mediocre article.

It's not mediocre because it points out that lots of rednecks are, well, rednecks. And it's not mediocre because it talks about the death of Glenn Martin. That's a legitimate tragedy.

It's mediocre because it ignores the elephant in the room: population growth in Western states. You can look at the 2010 census for some numbers:
Utah 2000: 2.2 million people
Utah 2010: 2.8 million people (up more than 25%!)
Colorado 2000: 4.3 million
Colorado 2010: 5 million
Arizona 2000: 5.1 million
Arizona 2010: 6.4 million
etc, etc.

Can't we all just get along?

Match that with increasing interest in outdoor recreation of all types, and what you end up with is more people using the same (or less, thanks to various forms of sprawl/development) amount of land. A place that might have been totally deserted and fine for shooting may now have families camping all around, or a popular trail system, or a few houses sprinkled nearby.

Of course, when usage increases, the most impactful activities are the first to be banned, and for good reason. It wouldn't be safe to go target shooting in Central Park (or ride your e-bike!) - as the usage of the area increases, some activities won't be appropriate anymore. With limited enforcement available on BLM and Forest Service lands, I think that what we'll see are blanket bans on various activities - some moron rednecks will ruin it for the responsible shooters, just like irresponsible mountain bikers ruin things for us nice folks.

The NYT, however, wants to play this as some kind of culture clash. There's certainly an element of that, but honestly, leaving out the basic numbers about how the land is being used is pretty irresponsible journalism. It's possible to enjoy and support recreational shooting and also realize that if an area is now super popular and crowded, it's not appropriate anymore - but it's hard to realize that's the real story when the article doesn't lay it out.

Big Green 36er

Actually, it's a "minimum possible size" model, but all 36ers are big. Thanks to Jon for the pictures!

Happy Weekend...

... says Stupidmobile 2: Non-Electric Boogaloo.

Details and more photos to come, but some numbers to clue you in: 29x3, 100mm, 42.5cm, 69 degrees, 30.9, goes to 11.

#braaap

Mr Sparkle!

With apologies to Eric... this Mr. Sparkle is pretty sparkly, and pretty darn weird. It might deserve the title. 6" tire clearance unicycle, anyone?

Sarah says I have a "caveman arm"

You all knew it was coming: the E-bike rant

Human power!

Nobody has actually ever pulled the trigger on having me build an electric-assist bike, but I imagine sooner or later it'll happen (despite the amount of weird stuff I do, I'll probably say no). There's a lot of controversy about the whole concept right now as the bikes get better and more capable and start (you'll see one in the next year or two, trust me) on trails, whether legally or not.

I'll say up front that I'm against motorized devices in the woods in general (though I used to race enduros on my trusty KTM). The impacts on other users and the terrain tend to be pretty high and there's an unfortunate tendency for some moto/quad folks to act like buffoons in the outdoors (ie, trash everywhere, shooting and leaving spent brass all over, requiring rescues because of their poor judgement and refusal to wear helmets, riding/driving drunk, etc).

E-bikes, on their faces, are a bit different. They are mostly pedal-assist - so the motor just adds some power when you are already pedaling. They're much lighter than a dirtbike and they use conventional mountain bike/hybrid parts and tires.

Obviously marketed to old folks!

The most commonly cited argument for letting e-bikes on trails is that it'll open up access to a variety of potential user groups who otherwise couldn't ride bikes - elderly or infirm folks who aren't fit enough to pedal up a decent hill are commonly cited examples. The "you just aren't thinking of grandpa" argument, though, is ridiculous to me. How many folks who are too feeble to pedal a bike are simultaneously fit and capable enough to steer and handle said bike? Almost none, I'd wager.

Furthermore, if you're that far gone (and yes, I'm aware that someday I'll be in the same boat) I have a hard time believing you could have even a minor crash on your e-bike without ending up in the hospital. There aren't a lot of folks in the world with wasted stick legs and muscular upper bodies who would be able to actually use these things.

No, e-bikes are basically aimed at lazy people. And I say screw that - if you're too lazy to get in shape to ride, do something else. If you're too feeble to ride, you have my sympathies, but you really don't need to ride your e-bike on trails if you value your own health or our trail access. E-bikes are motorcycles - and while I love the idea of electric MX bikes, I don't want motos on my mountain bike trails if they're gas, electric, or mutant hamster powered.

If you are missing your bike in the Boulder/Denver area...

...and it's a blue WW hardtail with very nice parts, please drop me a line so I can put you in touch with the shop that has it.

Laramie Enduro!

Nice job, Andy and Mike! And thanks to Mike's wife, I'm guessing, for the pictures!

RAL 5015...

Happy Jack, I think.

The preliminary list - worst bike names ever/marketing survey

Waltworks bikes don't have model names, since each one is different. But there have been some terrible bike names in the past (IMO Intense and the gun-name thing in the 90s/2000s was the worst).

But we're eating pancakes on a fine Saturday morning and thinking of terrible bike names. Feel free to contribute in the comments (no super offensive ones, please) and I'll edit!

Would you ride a Waltworks:


Spirit Animal?
Leishmaniasis?
EPT (are you listening, Niner? You need a women's model. Call me, we'll negotiate royalties.)
Bougie Camaro?
Peyote (for Niner, LSD)?
Stupidmobile?
Oliver North?
Duff (probably a bonus copyright violation too)?
FFUD (shoutout to REEB)?
Humpy the Moose?
Fergie?
Dapper Dan?
BFF?
Meat-is-Murder?
Finnegan's Wake?
Coach Z?
Oedipus (get the ReXTR build)?