Minh's bike

Just a few nice bike pictures on a mellow Friday morning (yes, I went to yoga and now I'm so relaxed I just want to go back to sleep). Not much to say about this - it's non suspension corrected 'cause Minh's hardcore like that. Blue. Good stuff.

HTFU, or Two Elk Ate My Homework

A sendoff for Mr. Chris Jung in the mountains. The ride started right with pouring rain and a visit to some random shop in Frisco for the Lat40 map (none of us had done it). We opened a map to see if the trail was shown, and *immediately* the clerk ran over to ask "are you going to buy that?"

Then, when he heard we were riding 2 Elk, his response was "I hope you don't get hurt".

Classy.

29 miles, 3k feet up and down, and a blast. Have fun in AK, Jung!

No pictures/shop update/boring

My brother and sister were in town for the last 3 days, so nothing really got done. I am *still* not ready to do a followup post on my new SS, and since I haven't had time to build a fork for it (and my camera batteries are dead anyway) there's not much more to say right now anyway.

Apologies to the folks who are getting very slow email responses. I have been trying desperately to stay on top of ordering parts, but it seems like the distributors have all conspired to screw up orders simultaneously (with some occasional help from me ordering the wrong stuff).

In short, I've been running around like a chicken with no head. Hopefully things will calm down here this week and I'll have time to do a fun blog post or two, as well as get some freakin work done.

Bored?

I should be working, but instead I spent one point five minutes watching Chris's silly self-filmed bike video. Man, that kid can climb fast!

Followup new-frame post coming soon, I promise.

In which Chris leaves his bottom bracket in for, like, 5 years.

No problem! All we need is some liquid wrench and a _4 foot_ cheater. And maybe a hammer (we didn't end up using it).

A new bike - finally

My personal bike (essentially resurrected from the dead/pulled out of the trash, which doesn't fit me) is becoming an embarrassment. Hence, I've been spending the weekend building myself a new frame. I've incorporated some interesting features (well, interesting to me, anyway) so I thought I'd do a quick post.

A quick warning: if you don't know what terms like "steering trail" and "front center" mean, this isn't going to make tons of sense, necessarily. So go google up some bike geometry terminology and come back.

Here's the basic rundown:

-70 degree head tube, 74 degree seat tube (offset from the BB shell for rear tire clearance). I'll use a setback post with this bike, most likely a Thomson layback. Trail is at 90mm with a 44mm rake fork, so pretty far on the high side. But that's what I like - stable and predictable. Twitchy bikes are not for me.

-68mm BB drop/11.9 or 12" BB height, depending on tires. I like my BBs low, and I'm not a big pedal-strike complainer. This is quite a bit lower than I would normally build for a customer planning to run 175 cranks.

-20.5" seat tube, 6" head tube, 23.4" effective toptube. Why such a weird combo of attributes? Well, I'm 5'11" tall with a ~36.5" inseam (with my shoes on). That means my BB to saddle measurement is 81cm - and to get the bars anywhere near saddle height, I either need a huge stack of spacers (ugly), a giant riser stem (fugly) or a long head tube. I chose the long head tube here. Standover is pretty high at about 32", but that's not an issue for me. And I need the short-ish toptube to keep the front-center reasonably short with the slack head angle. Also, that way I can run a 90 or 100mm stem comfortably.

-Black cat swinger dropouts (more thoughts about them in another post, once I've had some time to ride them) with 415mm (about 16.5") effective chainstays. Yes, I've apparently joined the short-stay mafia. And yes, the tire clearance is fine. With the wheel slammed forward all the way, there's reasonable clearance for a 2.3, and with it pulled back a few mm to tension the chain, I think pretty much any tire on the market would work fine. I may very well pull the dropouts way back and run something closer to 440mm chainstays, but this gives me the option of going super short just for fun.

-I'll probably add a direct mount front derailleur mount (it's pretty low profile) and I'm using dropouts with a hanger, so if my knees give out, I can put some derailleurs on. Of course, that's what I did on my last SS frame, and I never actually used the hanger, so we'll see.

This frame was inspired by conversations with my CB friend Matt (who is far and away the best technical rider I know) about how he wants a 29er version of his favorite frame - the trusty Chameleon. It's a VERY close replica of that geometry, tweaked to fit me better and for our local trails (ie, the steering geometry and wheelbase are very similar, but the BB is lower and I've made the frame really tall to accomodate my long legs).

I *should* have it assembled enough to ride later today, if all goes well. Perhaps more pictures then.

Stolen from Ed E...

Would you want this idiot building your custom bike?!?

Me neither.

Thursday (!!!) Recipe

You thought I forgot about the recipes. You thought I'd just talk about bikes.

You thought wrong.

Thursday.

Recipe.


Supa-Spicy Fried Rice

Mix up the following in a food processor or blender:
-1/2c sesame oil
-3 tbsp agave nectar or honey
-3 tbsp soy sauce
-2 tbsp rice vinegar
-1 tsp ground ginger
-1/4c chopped onion
-One lime worth of lime juice, plus as much zest as you can zest off it before you squeeze it.
-1 clove of garlic. Or 2. Or 5.
-2 tbsp Mae Ploy brand green curry paste
-1 tsp amchor powder (or just more lime juice)

Set that aside.

Now take 3 or 4 cups of cooked rice (oh, yeah, you should cook some rice...) and mix in:
-1 egg, beaten
-Finely chopped green onions, to taste
-Whatever other veggies you like

Fry that over high, high heat with a little vegetable oil until the egg is all cooked. You may want to cook the veggies beforehand, depending on what you've got, but it's pretty much all good either way.

Dump your sauce on your rice/veggies, mix up, and gobble.

Wednesday poll!

Your poll:
How well does the pictured bike fit Walt?
1) Awesome!
2) Looks a little too small. Maybe. Kinda.
3) Good God, what the heck is happening here?!?


Before you judge me too harshly, know that this frame is only mine because DHL ran it over 4 years ago and I had to build a replacement for the customer. Then for some reason I decided I'd ride it...

Yes, I desperately need a new bike. Now that my tapering steerer 120mm Reba fork is finally on the way, maybe I'll actually build it!

Random Stuff for Sale

Between me ordering the wrong things and folks deciding they'd changed their minds, here's some stuff I need to sell off. All prices include shipping in the lower 48. Email me if you have any questions. Thanks!

-Garmin ForeRunner 305 GPS watch/heart rate monitor. This is used (for about 2 months), but includes all it's original packaging and is in perfect shape. Sarah wanted it for running, but the wrist unit (it's a watch) is WAY too big and bulky to fit on her tiny wrist. It's so uncomfortable that she got a different HRM and isn't using this one anymore. Includes the HRM strap and charging stuff, as well as some sort of software. Make me an offer!

-Easton Monkeylite SL 31.8 bar. Carbon goodness, new in the package. $100.

-Easton EC90 300mmx27.2 seatpost. No setback. Brand new. Supa-light. $100.

-Raceface 5-arm compact bashguard. Got an old-school crank and need to bash some rocks and logs? You're in luck. $5.

-Cane Creek C2 1" threadless headset. Sold to Chauncey.

-Prototype WTB Kodiak DH 29er tires. GONE to PisgasProductions

New toys

Todd over at Black Cat needed some 44mm head tube stock, I needed something fresh and new...synchronicity, baby!

I haven't built anything with these yet, but I'm pretty impressed. Weight is right in line with the Paragons (the "SL" paragons are about 15g lighter, the standard models are 25g heavier, so for all practical purposes, the weight is a wash), there's a lot of adjustment, should be a bit easier to work with than the Paragons, and I kinda like the look as well.

For those who are interested, these are available on any frame for an extra $150. So the price is right in line with the Paragons as well.

Hopefully this will be the kick in the pants I need to actually build myself a new singlespeed. We'll see...

Back!

As usual, I did not take any pictures. You can see some of what we did at Gooneyriders, though. Congratulations to Chris and Eszter, and best of luck on all your adventures in Crested Butte!

The hit list:
-Colorado Trail at Cottonwood Pass
-Upper/Upper Upper/Tony's/sit around in town/Snodgrass/back to Upper and Tony's (Wedding ride!)
-Reno/Flag/Bear/Deadman
-Deer Creek
-Gunsight
-CO Trail off Tiger road in Breck

Anyway, I'm back to work, and I think I'm even caught up on email.

I'm outta here

Going to Crested Butte for 5 or 6 days. Back on Thursday. Won't be answering emails/phone calls until then. You've been warned!

One day to ride?

Our imminent trip to Crested Butte inspired a conversation with my pals Chris and Rusty (over beers): if you had one day to live, what ride would you do? Feel free to post your favorites, I'd love to hear about them!

I'm not planning on dying anytime too soon, but here were some of my choices (only including rides I've actually done here, I'm sure there are trails all over the world that I'd love but have never seen):

-Reno/Flag/Bear/Deadman loop off Cement Creek in Crested Butte. Buffest singletrack on earth, perfect distance, mile for mile the best XC ride in CB.

-Quemazon/Guaje Ridge loop in Los Alamos, my hometown. My first ride with clipless pedals, too many years ago.

-Raven's Ridge/Winsor in Santa Fe. Climb to 12k feet, descend singletrack all the way back to town. Starts and ends near some fantastic Mexican food - if only they could teleport Nellie's there I could ride it every day...and gain 50 pounds in a year.

-Mrazek trail to Phil's area (or Mrazek out-back) in Bend. I am mystified why this trail isn't more popular - climb up, then turn around and do a _12 mile_ descent! Then go drink at Deschutes...

-San Juan trail (San Juan Capistrano). The best singletrack in the OC, baby! Buff, smooth, and super duper fun. Laugh at the silly people on 8" travel bikes as you climb up, too.

-Bachelor street trails in Northampton, MA. Our only ride here ended in a massive hike-a-bike epic, thanks to Hassan "Magellan" Ibrahim of the desert folk. But the trails were pretty darn sweet (even though I whined a lot about the roots). It doesn't hurt that Hassan has a deck and alcohol with which to erase the memory of the pain.

-Indian Creek loop. Contains what might be my favorite 2 miles of singletrack in Colorado, and it's just remote and uncrowded enough to feel epic - even though it's really not.

-Couple of poach/illegal rides in Boulder that I won't mention here. Everything I like locally is quasi-illegal or a full-on poach. C'est la vie.

Few shots of Troy's taper-steerer frame

The headset looks (IMO) totally fine without any rings brazed on at the transitions, so that's awesome. And the headtube (again, I have no taste) looks just fine with the 38/32mm down and toptubes.

She's a bit of a tank at 5.25#, but she's built for some punishment, so that's ok.

For those who are curious, I didn't have a 31.6 seatpost (this frame takes a Joplin) around to clamp the frame in the stand, so I used one of my adjustable reamers. That's what you see sticking out of the seat tube.

Special deal on a lightweight FS frame

A while ago, I had Sherwood at Ventana make me a run of very nice lightweight 29er rear ends (you can find out more here) They're about 250-300 grams lighter (depending on the exact rocker and bearing setup) than the standard rear end, and great for smaller riders (I'd recommend under 160 pounds) and shorter (3 or 4") travel.

In any case, I ended up with one extra, and I don't currently have a project waiting for it, so special deal of the day is this - order an FS frame with this rear end, and I'll toss in a free Fox F29 fork in the configuration of your choice - that's a $500 value (or more like $800 if you're paying retail)!

Too fat to make it work, and not willing to crash diet for the next few months? That's ok, if you send me a deposit in the next 2 weeks, I'll sell you a Fox fork with a non-weightweenie FS frame for just $350 - a nice $150 off.

Questions? Drop me a line.

In other news, I'll be in Crested Butte for Eszter and Chris's wedding starting on Saturday and staying though Wednesday or so. Limited email/phone answering will happen. You've been warned!

Words of Wisdom - from Miguel

So I feel bad about my whining on Friday, especially after this email from Miguel:

Walt!

you should enjoy the World Cup! Don't root for the US! you should root for upstart Chile, back after a 12 year layoff winning its first game in 40 years. You can root for all of the underdogs that have put in this year, even New Zealand tied Italy. Dont worry about the bad calls, this is passion at its best - even Brazil had a double yellow that was a poor call against one of its best players. Go protest in the streets like they would in Chile when a bad call takes place, take off work, blow your horn! Remember that this is all part of the song and dance - thats why win or lose they will carnaval in Sao Paulo.. Chile where there are hundreds of thousands homeless from the earthquake are in full fiesta mode. and you amigo should feel the same - forget the medal count that they shove down your throat during every olympics, forget always being the best: the US had the best comeback of this world cup and that is something to truly celebrate.

Well said, my friend. If I could take back my whining, I would. People whose homes fell apart in Chile's earthquake are partying in the streets, and I'm whining about a bad call - time for some perspective. Go Chile!

Later this week: a post about bikes! And just for being so patient with me, here's a bike picture stolen from Millertime.

Foul!??

I'm not watching any more of the World Cup. I'm no truck-driving Sean Hannity fan America #1 kinda guy, but the minute 86 goal was a goal. No question whatsoever. We wuz robbed.

The constant blown calls (and I'm certainly not alluding to some kind of conspiracy, the refs have blown calls both for and against teams I like) and FIFA's idiotic explanation that the "human element" makes the sport more exciting (yeah, incompetence is always exciting...) have soured me on futbol, at least this year. No more for me. Maybe in 2014 I'll give them another chance.

Your Friday Silliness: Badass of the Week

Just check it out. You'll be glad you did. Real Ultimate Power meets Beowulf?

Early baby shower present

A friend of mine is very, very pregnant at this point, but she's a tough cookie and still riding her bike to and from work (12 miles!) Unfortunately, she was less and less comfortable (and didn't feel safe with her crappy/broken threaded headset and v-brake on the front).

Solution? Take some new-to-her parts from the stuff Tony recently gave me (thanks, man!) and build her a nice solid fork with a disc mount (and a LOOONG steerer!) We'll get it powdercoated when the baby comes and she's not riding for a while.

She writes:

Hi Walt,
Thanks so much for the beautiful new fork and cranks and other bits you may have donated for my commuter bike. We didn't cut the steerer and it is perfect! Pretty sure I will be able to keep riding in comfort for the rest of the summer now. Thanks so much again, and hope you guys are having some fun.

Thoughts on the new Paragon direct mount derailleur mounts

This is probably mostly going to be of interest to builders, but some of you major geeks might also appreciate it.

So long story short, direct mount front derailleurs rule for a lot of reasons. I won't go into it again here, but you can read my incoherent ramblings here, and here, and here. Suffice to say they rock.

I've been fabricating my own mounts (click here for a photo) but making them is pretty time-consuming and annoying. So when I saw that Paragon was making direct mounts (for $6 or something), I ordered a few to see how they'd work.

I'm moderately happy with them. The good points, first:
-They're cheap
-They're built to Paragon's usual nice finish standards

Now, the gripes. There are several.
-The "1 1/8 miter" mounts that I ordered aren't mitered for 1 1/8" tubes. Weirdly enough, they don't seem to be mitered for 1" either, or any other normal size. I'd say they're about 1 1/16" miter. That sucks, because I don't usually want to spend a bunch of time filing or milling a part that's supposed to be plug/play. Lame.
-They're way heavy. 38g before choppage (I'll explain in a second). My homestyle mounts are almost 20g lighter. Now, 20g isn't the end of the world, but there's just too much material on these mounts, IMO. This is probably because Paragon isn't interested in making 2-part stuff that requires any welding as an intermediate step. More's the pity - a piece of plate PLUS a small piece of tubing is really the best solution here, IMO.

The weight issue is partly solved by cutting off the (unnecessary) rear portion of the mount - this brings the weight down to about 25g - still heavier than the Walt-made model, but more reasonable. See the initial photo for a before/after comparison of the mounts.

The mitering issue I assume will be solved by Paragon doing it right on the next batch. In the meantime, for many of y'all builders out there, this is still a worthwhile item, just be aware that you'll need to do some mitering work, and also that it's not idea for very offset or curved seat tubes - this is best for plain-jane setups, really.

An Open Letter to Chris Mueller

Edit: If you'd like to help out (or just express your support) you can email the Red Lion at: info@redlionrestaurant.com

For background, please read the DC article here.

An Open Letter to Chris Mueller -

Chris -

As a Boulder resident of more than a decade, I've both eaten at your restaurant (which is great) and ridden my bike past on Canyon drive on my way to various destinations. I've always wished I could ride or hike the old road through your property to the top of Flagstaff mountain - what a fantastic route!

So here's my proposal:
-Open your section of the road to the (nonmotorized) public in perpetuity.
-Offer Boulder County an easement to allow the Creek Path to be extended to your restaurant.

In exchange, I'll pay $1000 worth of the cost of a new (better designed) bridge. I am willing to bet we can easily find another 49 individuals (not to mention local businesses) to contribute. You'll get a free bridge AND a steady stream of couples and families able to access your restaurant without ever getting into a car, by making a short and scenic ride up the Boulder canyon bike path. Hikers and bike riders returning from the top of Flagstaff would probably love a cold beer, too.

This is a great opportunity for both you and the community. Let's not let it go to waste!

-Walt Wehner, owner
Waltworks Custom Bicycles

Tony's Frankenmonster

This bike has a lot going on, and it took *way* longer than either Tony or I expected, so we ended up rattlecanning it a nice blue instead of waiting the 2-3 weeks for a powdercoat. We'll take it back apart at some point and get that done, but for now, this is what he's riding.

This is the first (assembled) bike I've done with the new 44mm head tubes and humorously enough, we didn't get in the tapered steerer fork in time - so it's actually using a normal 1 1/8" inset headset with the Marzocchi that I bought a while ago to try out (that Tony is going to "test" for me...)

Anyway, it finally came together, after 8 months (you can read about the process here and here), numerous design changes, and at least $1000 worth of new tubing and cutting tools. Here's what Tony had to say so far:

Holy crap. I just got back from riding around my neighborhood like a 10 year old with his first bmx bike. Jumped off every curb and slammed over every rocky median. Woo and hoo. Can't wait to get this thing out on a real trail.

Oh yeah and the cable routing needs work and the rear shifting is wack but the front is spot on.

This is the first bike I've owned on which a 1 finger stoppie in the rain doesn't seem suicidal. You might want a 68 headangle on yours. Depending on how much uphill riding you do.

Still work to wheelie, but waaaaay easier than any 29er i've ridden.

It pedals better than I expected, but I do think a revalve is in the cards for the shock... definitely a marshmallow.

I'll report back once I have the gears working and everything tweaked just so.

Thanks for your time and tell Sarah thanks for letting you stay late at work!

Returning a favor...

Jeff is an ER doc (as well as the brains behind Alchemist) and he helped me out the other day with some gnarly metal that got in my eye - so in exchange, I built him this (prototype) bike mower.

It works pretty well, but the gearing (22x14 fixed) is way too high - I'm thinking you'd want more like 1:1 or even lower. Pretty fun idea, though, even if it's not too practical for steep hillsides or tight areas (though with the fixie, it's easy to back up). I think we can make it into the Daily Camera with this, so we gotta plaster some Alchemist and WW stickers all over the place.

I apologize for not wearing my helmet (in fact, I did almost crash at one point...)

New Toys!

Nausea inducing POV mountain biking from Eric!

Check it out here.

For some reason watching any kind of POV video like this makes me flash back to playing Doom all night in the mid-90s. And the soundtrack is totally appropriate.

The dog is obviously not observing the IMBA rules of the trail.

I will go on the record here as well: I am jealous of Pisgah.

Sneak Peek: New T-shirts

Thanks to Jeff at Alchemist for the preliminary design work. We hope to have these in a couple of months (Minh, Chris, you've both got one coming when they're done, thanks for your patience!)

These will be purchased directly from Alchemist, not from me, except for folks who are having a frame/fork/bike shipped to them, in which case the shirt will ship from me. Info on pricing and availability when it's available.

I hope to be back to a regular building schedule starting on Monday. The experiences of the week have been very sad, but also uplifting in many ways, and I can't thank everyone enough for the kind words/emails, food, and favors (Nick, Rusty, you guys rock).

Have a great weekend, everyone. Go for a ride, hug someone you love, drink a toast to someone who isn't here anymore.

On a lighter note...

I am back at the house taking care of Pele for a few minutes and reading some email - got this (name delete for privacy) and it made me laugh. For context, the fellow wanted a disc-specific, threaded steerer fork specifically to match his wife's "custom" cruiser bike, to be shipped abroad:

You are joking right ...............300 bucks for a fork ...........I don't have that much money in the whole build and i built me own wheels with a sram Imotion 9speed hub what are you smoking ???? for that money i will buy the feng shui jig and install a mount on my existing fork my self and then sell the jig again what is your fork made of unobtainium i will thank you for taking the time to reply to my email but that's all

Then, best of all, he felt the need to follow up his semi-incoherent email with this second one:

sorry i meant to say Phrunt Shui disc tab jig

Great stuff. Thanks for the smile, dude, I needed it today.

Very bad things

We've had an (unexpected) death in the family. Probably things will be slow on the bike building front for a week, possibly a bit longer.

My apologies in advance. I will try to stay on top of emails and phone stuff, but no guarantees.

Matt's fork again, T-shirt news

First off, you may remember some of the construction shots of Matt's neat lugged fork. Here's the finished product, installed and ready to ride. Thanks for the pic, Matt!

A few people have asked me about doing this style of crown for them, and I'm happy to, but it's quite a bit of extra work (at least an hour) so I'm going to charge an extra $50 for the lugs, if you want them. And yes, I can put them onto a tapering blade fork if you'd like.

Second, the t-shirt and casual clothing (as well as jersey) situation has kinda sucked for a while now. The T6 guys, bless their hearts, are just too busy to deal with WW stuff, so the local boys (Jeff lives less than half a mile from me) at Alchemist are going to take over t-shirts. I'm hoping we'll have them available in a few months. In the meantime, I have some XL green shirts and XL hoodies available, but basically nothing else.

Quick shot of Troy's frame and tire/derailleur clearance

Folks, 430mm or thereabouts is really the limit for chainstay length if you want a big fat tire and a front derailleur. Check it out... yes, there's 3 or 4mm of room everywhere, but that's about it. And that's *after* I cut all the extraneous crap off the derailleur with a hacksaw!

What I've been doing all week/Tony's bike pt. 2

Remember part 1? Well, what with necessity being the mother of invention, while waiting for the head tube stock to finish Tony's frame, I designed and built Sarah's new FS rig - and some of the ideas I used on that bike seemed perfect for Tony's.

Problem was, I had already gotten past the point of no return with the build. Solution?

Start over from scratch. Ouch - probably 8-10 design and work hours down the tubes. C'est la vie - I want Tony to be psyched, not second-guessing the geometry. Plus he wanted lots of travel (5") and standover (this should be around 29"). Sometimes you gotta bite the bullet and toss some hard work in the scrap bin.

Anyway, here are a few build shots. More to come as things come together. Note the GIGANTIC supertherm 44mm downtube, 44mm/taper headtube, Joplin-friendly/kinked seat tube, and 83mm BB shell. I think the frame will actually be around 7.5#, too, which is fairly amazing given the incredible overbuilding I'm doing (Tony broke his last bike).

Troy's free ride 29er hardtail/44mm headtube

Warning, this one is long. Tony, you don't *officially* get the first bike built with the new True Temper 44mm head tube stock, but you and Troy's bikes will be going to the powdercoater at the same time - so I guess you can race to see who can assemble and ride the quickest or something. Someday, you'll be able to tell your grandchildren how you pioneered this awesome new technology - or they'll laugh at you because you're riding the future equivalent of biopace. We'll see.


First off, I had to actually buy a new holesaw. Crazy! I regularly get several hundred cuts from a Lennox saw, so I can't even remember the last time I bought one. For the builders out there, a 46mm saw works great, since they tend to cut a tiny bit oversize anyway (the head tube is 46.5mm OD).


Don Ferris has a time machine, I think, because the Anvil main tube mitering fixture that I bought in 2005 has a phase adapter that fits almost perfectly! Nice work, Terminator. Seriously, I was psyched not to have to spend a bunch of lathe time making one - though I did have to clean a LOT of dust off of this sucker.


Here's the downtube tacked in. Note that I've welded the top portion, because the toptube will be compound mitered here and hence I have to weld it in advance. Otherwise... well, bad noises, weak joint, not fun for anyone. Troy's going to be slaying Pisgah (or, well, riding there) on this bike, so it needs to be non-fragile.


Whole head tube/toptube/downtube assembly, tacked. Some folks have said this head tube will look weird. I can't say I think it's that weird (those are a 38mm and 32mm downtube and toptube, respectively) and I'll take the mega-stiff front fork over looks any day. But that's just me.


Here we're all welded up. Again, I think it looks fine. Plus, how much do you stare at your head tube when riding? Not the head tube for the coffee shop bike parking crowd (Martin, Charlie - I'm looking at you guys...) but pretty rad if you want a stiff solid front end.


Here's the front triangle welded up, in the fixture. Yes, the seat tube looks weird and huge. That's for a good reason - Troy's running a Joplin post, which needs a 31.6 ID. That means 1.375"x.065" tubing, turned down on the lathe to slip fit into a 1.375"x.035" seat tube, then welded together. Light? No. Functional when the trail gets steep? Yes.


Yes, this frame has 17" (~430mm) effective chainstays, and it will fit a WTB dissent with decent clearance everywhere. All hail the wondrous Shimano direct mount front derailleur! Troy should be able to wheelie and manual until he either goes off the trail (as Hassan and I usually do) or gets on the cover of Dirt Rag. Actually, strike that. Mountain Flyer is the new Dirt Rag. Dirt Rag is the new Bicycling. Bicycling is the new crap tabloid you can't help staring at in the checkout line.


Going backwards, here's the seat cluster showing (if you look carefully) the welded-in shim/plug that will allow the 31.6 Joplin post to work. This solution is kinda heavy, but I'm hoping to talk True Temper into making some 30.9 or 31.6 compatible seat tubes sometime soon. We'll see how that goes - they have been really cool about getting stuff done for me over the last 5 years or so.


Final shot. Again, beefy, not light, built to huck yourself off idiotic stuff in Pisgah and survive, even on days when you're not feeling heroic.

Paging Steve Smith

Steve -

I've tried a couple of times to respond to your email, but no luck so far. I'm assuming I'm spamblocked. Try calling me at (303) 359-9392.

Fashion photo shoot

The long-awaited shots of me, modeling a shirt from Alchemist Threadworks. Damn, I look hot (so hot that I believe I recall Jeff making a comment that my portion of the shoot was better than the portion with the professional model... boo-yah!)

Pay no attention to the thinning hair.

For what it's worth, Minh, that's your frame (the dark blue one), just before I realized there were bubbles in the powder and had to take it back. Doh!

The other frame is my first-ever cyclocross frame from 2004 or so. I am taking off the drivetrain to dimple a chainstay for better chainring clearance.

What a spring - don't ride this weekend!

Here's the email from the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance. Just as background for those who aren't from Boulder, this is *high desert* and we usually are riding up at 9000 feet by this time of year. Not this year. Even the trails in town are mud...I'll let the BMA say the rest:

Front Country Trails Are Extremely Vulnerable
Please don't ride today
Springbrook Loop Closed to all use
Join Our Mailing List

First and foremost, THANK YOU for demonstrating restraint this winter. The trails are in better shape at the end of this winter than what we've seen in much drier years.

But we could undo all that this weekend. We are soaked, and even though the farmers love it, the trails are set up for a perfect storm of mud, bikes, and enthusiastic riders.

Here's how bad it is: Today OSMP is taking the unprecedented action of closing the Springbrook Loop to all use. It's a real mess up there, and braiding of the trail is already occurring. This is the first time in memory that OSMP has taken this action.

We applaud OSMP for taking this action. Sometimes you have to take this step to protect these precious assets.

Who knows how soon we will dry out? We strongly encourage everyone to make use of the sites below to determine if the trail is ridable. And don't forget to contribute to them if you have information others can benefit from.

44mm headtube stock is here!

Schweet! Just in time for the tapered steerer Fox forks, baby!

Packing and shipping greasy sharp metal tubes is not my idea of a fun morning, but everyone who preordered should have their tubing by the end of the week.

I have some extra for those who still want to order, click here for the PP page.

XT cassette mods

I keep getting pestered by people interested in buying a modified cassette (see This One Goes to 11 for more details) so here's the official word.

I will sell you the following, shipping in the lower 48 included, for $120:

-XT M770 (11-32 or 11-34) cassette with back side driveshell removed (depending on your hub, you may or may not need to run a spacer or two inboard to clear the spokes)

-I will also remove the outboard drive shell down to the smallest cog on the carrier. This means you'll also need a spacer in most cases to run a separate single cog (or two). Essentially, I remove as much material as possible from the drive shell of the carrier-mounted cogs, meaning that you'll use spacers to fit tune the fit.

-For those who have some chainring size flexibility, or do not need a super-low bottom gear, I recommend the 11-32 model. The 11-32 has 5 cogs on a spider (18,21,24,28,32) and 11,12,14,16 cogs separate. This means you have a good deal more flexibility if you can fit even one single cog onto the cassette body. The 11-34 cassette spider/carrier has 6 cogs (17,20,23,26,30,34), meaning that unless you can fit 7, you're stuck with the 17 as your highest gear.

-I also remove the "key spline" so that the cassette will fit onto King or other hubs that are non-keyed.

-Wait time is typically about 2 weeks, I make each cassette to order.

-As of now, there is not a 10 speed cassette that will work well for SS hubs. 9 speed is it, sorry!

-A +/- 1mm spacer kit is available for $25 if your hub didn't come with any. You will want to be able to *precisely* fine tune the position of the cassette on the hub in order to fit as many gears as possible.

If you already have a cassette and want to have it modified, the cost is $65, return shipping included. Please email me to confirm that I can work with the cassette before sending it.

Keep in mind that using these modified parts on your bike requires decent mechanic skills - if you're not good at working on your own bike, don't even ask. If improperly set up, using these parts could easily destroy your rear wheel, derailleur, chain, and more. I am offering no guarantees or warranties - this is a mod that is NOT approved by Shimano. For what it's worth, though, I have been running it for 6 months with no problems.

Want one? Click on the PP link and order away.

Configuration

11-32 without key spline 11-34 without key spline 11-32 with key spline 11-34 with key spline

Miguel says...

...chamois and Cinco de Mayo go together great!

I think that bad dog likes me!

One of the individuals pictured is a wonderful friend who brings joy to all who know him. The other is a surly, hairy freak who sleeps on our couch and eats all our food.

Can you figure out which is which?

New FS 29er stuff

Warning: Long, potentially boring post. Contains applied trigonometry.

Recently I built Sarah a totally kickass full suspension race bike. It was light, agile, and fast. And it wasn't what she needed at all, because we both have been racing less and less over the years, and there's a good chance she'll be pregnant later this year. Meaning that as a second bike to back up her hardtail, it had some significant shortcomings - she needed something really stable, plush, and comfortable, with _lots_ of standover for easy dismounts in any situation.

So I started over (quite a while ago) and went back to the drawing board, or in my case, graph paper (yes, my computer is ancient).

In essence, what I needed was a way to move both pivots (the main pivot, and the center rocker pivot) in 2 dimensions. In the past, I've moved the main pivot around quite a bit, and I've moved the upper/rocker pivot some as well, but have been restricted by the seat tube/tire/rocker interference problems that can result from some configurations. Luckily, this has gotten MUCH easier to do in the last 6 months or so, thanks to Shimano's new direct-mount front derailleurs for mountain bikes.

Solution? Bend the seat tube. Or so I thought. It turns out that the area available for the bend in this situation is *really* small - probably only 2", which needs to bend 16 degrees. It turns out that's not very doable with .035"x1.25" tubing, so I decided to cut the tube at an 8 degree angle and weld it back together. Not the most elegant solution (and one that requires some reinforcement) but mechanically, it's great.


Here's a picture of the end result: 435mm chainstays, 13.2" (no sag) BB height, 100mm travel front and rear, and 28" standover. This is probably the absolute limit for short chainstays for folks who want to run a front derailleur (and I had to do some *serious* modification of the derailleur itself to make it work here), but for 1x9 or 1x10 dedicated setups, there's really nothing stopping you from doing as short as 425mm or so, even with quite a bit of travel.

This particular frame is about 6.5# with the shock - it's got a straightgauge toptube and I used a *really* beefy downtube as well, because it'll get loaded into a case and put on the plane when we travel - so it needs to be able to handle some pretty rough treatment without denting. For normal sized folks, 6.5-7.5# is probably the range, with the really huge guys of course going up from there. So not a weightweenie FS bike, really. C'est la vie.

I'll do an exhaustive report on the new FS bike that I'll be building for myself in the next month sometime that will hopefully explain some of what's going on here in more detail (with actual construction shots and blow-by-blow), but I think it's a neat setup and I thought I'd do a quick post on this one just to whet everyone's appetite.

Doh!