A perfect fit!

I rode this frame (featuring sweet Schwinn 2-speed kickback hub) on a ~20 mile ride in VT on our vacation. For those folks who think all my personal bikes look weird - this is why. It is a *perfect* fit - saddle and bars both at the right height, correct reach, everything.

Longest quill stem I have ever seen

More pictures from Mark

I couldn't resist. I promise, non-36er content soon!

Lost in translation?

I really, really hope they meant "recent" or something, and not "prominent" here, because calling Hinault winning the tour on the first clipless pedals, in a clipless pedal ad, seems a  bit odd.

The Curry-Sixer - Complete!

Thanks to Mark for the photo. Back to work on Monday!

Before bombarding me with emailed questions, please read the 36er FAQ.

Aaaand... we're out.

And just in time. Ugh. It's supposed to be 114 in St. George this weekend!

For those who are curious, this week was devoted to fulfilling my promise of a wedding tandem to Redcoat and Smoyle, who got married a little over a year ago. Logistics (they live in Switzerland) and inertia kept it from happening until now, but I'm finally (almost) done. Yes, it's coupled to fit in an S&S case.

Bungee cords are crucial when figuring out where to put the couplers to fit into a case...

Note that I will only sell tandems to WW frame owners (ie repeat customers) and UT locals. I am FAR from a tandem expert and in many cases talking to Santana or Davinci is a better plan but I am pretty happy with how this one came out and I'd be comfortable selling you one if you're interested. Cost for a frame will be around $3000 but will depend on details so please call or email for a quote.

I'll try to get one more photo tonight of the finished frame.

We'll be back from VT on the 8th of July, don't expect quick (or any) replies to email/phone until then.

Photos and unsolicited ego boost from Matt

Hey Walt –

I just wanted to drop a note and say thanks.  I love the new frame, it rides exactly like it should.  I’ve put a few hundred miles on it in the past two months, rode a 24 hr race, spent hours cruising buffalo creek, typical front range stuff, and I’ve been kicking the crap out of my buddies on our regular rides (which is easily the most satisfying thing about this bike).

Going from a frame where every aspect felt just a bit off, to this one, has really opened my eyes to the importance of geometry and the major differences subtle changes could make.  I probably should have pushed for short as short can be chain stays and let you talk me into a shallower head tube angle, but that’s fine tuning more than necessity.  It’s going to be difficult to consider a non-custom frame when it’s time to update my full suspension rig.

Something that stuck with me from one of our conversations was when you said I probably wouldn’t be able to fit a regular waterbottle on the seat tube.  I’m not someone who likes to leave things to chance, nor take proper riding nutrition lightly, I think waterbottle would fit but I'm not going to risk it, so I just stick a beer in there for rides where I don’t carry a pack. Beer will always fit! I threw in some terrible pictures, just so you can see the full build.  

King of Spacers: Daniel

Bars higher than we designed for (I think he's just experimenting with position)? Check.
Zero rise stem? Check.
Flat bar? Check.

Result: the biggest stack of spacers ever, possibly. The next step might be some upside-down drop bars or something...

More on Daniel's bike here and here if you're bored/curious.

Eric - 99% done

I've spent too much time riding this week and kinda dug myself a hole, so I'm probably not going to reassemble this frame for pictures until it's back from powder. ISCG mount yet to go on, seat tube needs slotting... otherwise, she's done.

Now, for the geometry nerds:
-140mm travel in the rear (Eric can go up to 155mm with a rocker swap) and 140mm in front (or 150mm will work fine too). Squishy.
-67 HTA, 71cm front center, 63.2cm ETT, 104mm trail. Well into freeride territory, maybe even DH.
-43cm chainstays.
-13.6" (unsprung) BB height. Low (at least for this amount of travel) and aggro.
-True Temper Supertherm pipes throughout. Frame weight is about 7.5# with the shock (when I add the ISCG tab that'll add a little more weight).

This should be a killer bike on rough terrain, and capable enough to be pedaled up as well (though it won't be especially quick on the climbs). Fun times. Now if I can just get *my* freeride bike put back together...

Early Progress on Eric; Salvaged tools

First picture (doesn't look like much yet) of Eric's short-ish chainstay 140mm trail 29er. Lots more to come on that:

In the process of tightening down the main pivot, I managed to destroy my "GorillaGrip" allen wrench set. And I didn't have another 10mm anywhere, so I had decide if I was going to take 20 minutes to go to the hardware store, or be a redneck and make this:

Happy father's day!

Presented for your enjoyment (or not): Bean successfully using a spoon for the first time, and the aftermath of 5 minutes of inexpert spoon work (his father's day gift to me: covering himself in cashew sauce).

Happy father's day to all the dads out there!

Yes, that is a sweet vintage "Ice Cream Soup" Pee-Wee Herman t-shirt that belonged to Sarah's brother.

Curry-sixer!

Mitch - done

Man, I wanted to have this done a lot sooner but 4 hours is apparently enough of a time difference to give the whole family terrible jet lag. Wow, we are pathetic!

650b goodness

Anyhow, I've finished Mitch's 650b frame and fork. Vital stats:
-69 degree HTA, 45mm offset fork for 88mm of trail and a 62cm front center.
-73 STA
-42cm chainstays and 12.1"/307mm BB height. Plenty of room for a 2.4 tire.
-Single ring only!
-Paragon rockers!
-S-bends everywhere plus a swoopty toptube for cool factor.
-Built for a 44cm rigid fork or 80mm travel 650b fork down the road, future proofed for a tapered steerer if needed. The fork is built for a 15mm axle (dropouts just barely visible in the grass).
-Full housing and brake hose routed down the downtube (we've come full circle back to mountain bikes of the 80s!)

This is an all-arounder for Boulder CO and also for Mitch's side job doing bicycle safety instruction for public employees. Should be fun going around orange cones or out doing laps at Betasso.

Back!

I'm slowly working through emails. Jet lag sucks. Expect a slow spinup back to regular work schedule but feel free to call me and expect to get me as of tomorrow.

Random thoughts on our trip:
-The North Shore is just as rad as everyone says it is (even though we were there in summer). We lucked out and there were some 2-5 foot (Hawaii measurement) waves so we surfed at least 2 hours a day and also did a bunch of paddling/swimming/just sitting on the beach. Good stuff.
-If you don't know where all the reefs are and it's dusk, wear some booties. My feet got pretty skinned up.
-Weirdly enough, beer is pretty cheap (same price as anywhere normal) on Oahu and everything else is really expensive.
-Sarah is a much, much better surfer than me. She was up on her *first try* (and I'm not talking about some surf school crap - we just grabbed some longboards from the garage and paddled out) and catching everything after a day or two of figuring out where to be. I, on the other hand, generally made a fool of myself despite the fact that I should still have some muscle memory from surfing in Santa Cruz when I was a college student.
-Luckily my thrashed longboard, Under Armor "rashguard" (ie spandex shirt) and pleated Banana Republic khaki shorts (the pockets turn inside out and fill with sand, it's a great look) warned the other beginners to watch out for my idiocy.
-I realized mid-trip that I was surfing at a spot mentioned in a Beachboys song (Sunset) and thought that was pretty neat.
-Our place was apparently (who knew?) right by pretty much all of the best mountain bike trails on the island. I'll have to build some bikes to leave out there.

And we're outta here!

Back on June 11th. I'll be checking email occasionally but probably not in telephone contact.

Random pictures thanks to Martha!

First Look: Mitch's 650b

This picture makes the frame look sort of huge but it's a 22" toptube 650b. Unfortunately I'm  out of time to finish up Mitch's fork before we go out of town (or at least out of time to both finish it and get stuff shipped that is coming in from the powdercoater) so I'll do a more detailed post when we're back on the 11th.

Is that 2 bent seat tubes and a bent toptube...

...or are you just happy to see me?

Poachin'?

Actually he's not, the trails in question are open to bikes (complete with awesome hand-made signs from the landowner on the singletrack). Thanks to Rusty for the picture (and you can read more about his blinged-out 29er here).

City Creek with Cletus and Randolph

Sarah insists on pulling the trailer now that she's back in shape and can easily drop me if I'm pulling it, so to make things even, I rode the cargo bike and carried 2 special friends (plus the diaper bag). You cannot even imagine the looks our little flotilla got on the way up the canyon...

Daniel - done

I rarely build unicrown forks but Daniel is the right size and the application is right (road) such that I liked the profile of some existing blades so we went with it. For full fenders (but no racks) and 28c tires, riding in any weather on both pavement and smooth dirt.

Geometry:
-73/73 head and seat tube angles.
-57cm toptube, 61cm seat tube (this thing would fit me perfectly!)
-Level/non sloping toptube for a semi-classic look (so a lugged crown fork might have looked more appropriate, but since it's all TIG welded, we decided the unicrown was fine).
-43mm fork offset, 60mm trail.
-60cm front center, 42cm chainstays, 27.5cm bb height
-For long reach brakes, fenders, and up to 28c tires (actually, I bet 32s would fit).

Pretty straightforward, really. Built to fit Daniel, with some oversized pipes to keep her stiff and tracking well, which will hopefully serve him well for a long, long time.


Edit: Here is your friday fun reading: 31 charts that will destroy your faith in humanity (seriously, read it, the title is a bit of a joke...)

Oh no he didn't....

Folks who are SLC locals will recognize this - the lookout on top of Mt. Wire. Almost 3000 feet of climbing from WW world HQ in only 5 miles - ouch! It's actually a pretty neat ride, though about 5% is hiking (at least for me, at least without a granny gear). The descent is pretty fun semi-techy stuff (I went back down the way I climbed up, will try something different next time) but you've gotta watch out for hikers and some of it is precarious/technical/steep/blind cornered. Fun.

As a side note, the climbing traction on Stupidmobile is amazing. Stupid short chainstays FTW!

Edit: Here's the elevation profile. Yes, it climbs 2000' in a little over 2 miles on the mountain itself. And yes, it's mostly rideable. I think there are really only 2 sections I can't imagine ever riding (though I walked a decent amount more than that this time around). And yes, this means I have gone over to the dark side/lame side and joined Strava.

Too sexy for a chainguide? Or not sexy enough?

So I was pretty excited about joining the modern world and using a clutch rear derailleur. No more dropped chains! No more chainslap!

And for a while, it worked out. Then I figured out how to ride Stupidmobile moderately fast and all of a sudden - every ride down Bobsled was chainless. Fun.

Sexy LX cranks from 2004 or something...

Back to the chainguide, I guess. Chalk it up to the weirdness of the chain angle on a 40cm chainstay frame, or to my incompetence, or whatever you want. I like to be able to pedal...

And yes, that's a practically new bike. Matte black. Yet to be washed. Crashed, many times. And I wonder why I don't attract the $10,000 road bike crowd...

A.... road frame?!?

Believe it or not, I do 4 or 5 road frames every year to go with the 50 or so mountain bike frames. I sometimes wish (from a monetary standpoint) that I built more - road bikes are pretty easy, all things considered - nobody bugs you about squishing 2.4" tires into crazy short chainstays, or 140mm travel forks, or weird brake setups. Someday I will eat those words when someone comes to me wanting a Di2 internal routing wonderbike, probably...

This is Daniel's, just after welding up the front end.

Sick kids!

I'm playing full-time dad today so not much is going to get done. Hopefully Bean and Leif will feel better tomorrow and I can resume a normal schedule. Probably no interesting blog posts for a day or two as I try to catch up.

Library Run!

Man, in Boulder we would not have made any impression at all riding our bikes to the library with a baby. In SLC, it's like we just landed from outer space, funny stuff. The bike rack is creative (yes, we took both the "b" and the "i") but we were the only people parked there on a nice 60 degree day.

FAQ: Dropouts

I go through a conversation about dropouts with pretty much everyone I build a frame for - and this isn't meant to replace that conversation, but it's a good background on what I usually use and what the pluses and minuses are for each option. This is rear (frame) dropouts only, fork dropouts are a lot less interesting in general (if you disagree I'll do another post on them, just let me know in the comments).

Dropouts I commonly use now:

-Paragon sliders. These are a mainstay for folks who want to singlespeed, singlespeed/geared, or use an IGH like a Rohloff. They allow all kinds of axle options and are super reliable - they won't slip, creak, break, or get scored up by the clamp bolts. In short they are pretty much set and forget. Back in the day they were cool and sexy, now they're everywhere so nobody will be impressed. If I were building myself a singlespeed, these are what I'd use. They will add about 150g of weight to your frame over a non-adjustable dropout.

-Paragon rockers. Another singlespeed/geared option from Paragon for folks who don't like the look of the sliders or just want the brake caliper tucked between the chainstay and seatstay. Also pretty reliable though they are a bit more complex than the sliders and don't have a tension screw for fine tuning chain tension (IMO not a big deal). Adds 150g or so as compared to a non-adjustable.

-Paragon DR2010. The plain-jane basic disc dropout that I use for almost every geared mountain bike I do. Light, strong, reliable, easy to work with - nothing to hate here. If you want to carry loads on a rear rack or mount fenders, these aren't ideal - go with the low mounts.

-Paul Horizontals. If you're old school and want rim brakes, or you want a track bike or fixie with no brakes at all, these are super cool and scream street cred, since PaulComp makes badass stuff. They also feature a TON of adjustment (something like 40mm) if you never want to have to add/subtract chain links when changing gears. Note that I will do these with a disc tab if you insist but it's really better to just use some dropouts that are intended for disc use.

-Paragon low mount. If you like the disc tab tucked into the gap between chainstay and seatstay, and/or you want to carry racks and run fenders, these are great since the caliper is out of the way of the eyelets. They have a replaceable aluminum derailleur hanger, which is a bit of a bummer since steel dropouts really don't need replaceable hangers, but c'est la vie. Available in "expedition" versions with extra material if you're paranoid or carrying huge loads.

-Paragon Polydrops. These are currently only useful for geared bikes but they offer a couple of axle options, a split for future belt drive compatibility, and the cool factor of being the newest thing to come out of Mark's (Paragon owner) crazy brain. I have a set on Stupidmobile and I like them just fine, though I'd probably just use the low mounts or 2010s for a plain-jane geared hardtail. Not great for folks with heel/chainstay strike issues as they are super long and will be right at ankle-bone distance for some riders.

-Paragon DR2007 (and variations). For road or 'cross bikes with rim brakes. These come in a variety of angles for different sizes of frame - nothing special to say, they just work.










Other stuff I've used in the past:

-Breezer vertical dropouts. I used to use a ton of these but I don't much anymore because A) they're more work for me than plate-type dropouts, and B) many people end up having problems with compatibility for trailers (or axle-mounted racks) and apparently a lot of my customers now have kids. Still available if you want the hooded dropout look, though.

-Surly horizontal dropouts. I used these for some singlespeed/rim brake frames back in 2004 and 2005. They are still made and I can still build with them if you're looking for a hooded horizontal dropout.

-Surly Instigator dropouts.  Used on some long-travel full suspension frames I built a long time ago. Canyonero!

Stuff I will only use under protest/refuse to use:

-Black Cat Swingers. I built myself a bike with these and had nothing but trouble with them - they slipped under pedaling forces unless I went nuts tightening things down, the derailleur hanger (when running geared) was so flimsy I would end crashless rides with it bent due to just shifting, and the last straw was that under heavy braking on rough/loose terrain, I kept having the rear wheel slip *backwards* at the brake side and lock the tire/wheel into the chainstay. Other people have had better luck but I've heard the same story from other builders and riders I trust, so I won't build with these.

-Socket-type/lug dropouts. I am a TIG guy, but I can competently braze with a variety of materials. So I can build with dropouts that use sockets, but I prefer not to because it's inherently limiting - I can't pick ANY seatstay or chainstay that I want, sometimes the angles are fixed, etc. If you've got a dropout in mind that you like, I might be willing to use it or I might not - drop me a line and check before you get too excited.

-EBBs. I've changed my tune on EBBs since Niner release their fine Biocentric 2 (and the PF30 version). So if you want and EBB, there you go.

David - done

David wants to ride slow techy stuff, and the geometry of this bike reflects that - no suspension, short wheelbase, and a high BB. All in all, it'll probably quite a handful on fast stuff, but great fun when your goal is to pick your way up/down sections other people are walking.

Geometry:
-70 degree HTA and 43mm offset for trail in the high 80s.
-64.7cm front center and 23.2" effective toptube.
-12.5" BB height with 2.3" tires, higher if you go bigger.
-42cm (adjusts to 44cm) chainstay length with generous clearance for a 2.4" tire.
-Curved seat tube to keep out of the way of the tire
-Non-suspension corrected geometry with a 425mm fork axle to crown.
-29" wheels.

And yes, it's a singlespeed, since David is not a sissy like me and wants no gears.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about 36ers but were afraid to ask

Picture of Mark's frame and fork that I just finished up for reference:

Now, due to popular minimal demand, all your 36er questions - answered!

-How tall do I have to be to ride a 36er?
There are 3 answers:
A: If you aren't concerned about great fit or handling and just want something fun and different to toodle around on, 5'8" or so is probably the lower limit.
B: If you're moderately concerned about fit and performance, but are willing to give up a few seconds to your buddies, 6' is about the limit.
C: If you're over about 6'10" or so, a 36" wheel is actually probably your best option, assuming you're ok with a rigid bike.

-What's the minimum effective toptube length?
As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of ETT for fitting bikes, but for the sake of comparison, someone with a size 48 foot, 175mm cranks, and otherwise normal frame design ("normal" for a 36er is pretty weird, though - 69 HTA and 90+mm rake for front center in the 73cm range!) a 25" effective toptube is about the minimum.

-Can I get a suspension fork?
No. In theory I could build you a custom headshock fork for a 36" wheel, but nobody has ever asked me to do that - because the resulting handlebar height would be truly insane (think bars 6+ inches above your saddle if you're anywhere under about 6'6") and the travel is pretty limited (70mm) on those old headshoks.

-How much will my 36er weigh?
Somewhere in the low to mid 30s (that's pounds) depending on the parts you use to build it up and whether it's running full gears, 1x or singlespeed. You might be able to geek out and get under 30 but it would cost an arm and a leg.

-Can you build wheels for me? What rims/spokes/hubs?
The best combination of parts I've found is Shimano low flange (meaning centerlock) hubs paired with 14g straight spokes and Nimbus aluminum rims. 36 spokes, 3 cross. And yes, I can have these built for you. Cost ranges from $700-900 depending on hub choice. High torque generated by the big wheels will mean that the 29er-specific hubs (ie M529) are your best bet for durability.

-How about an internal gear hub (IGH)?
In general I advise against these due to the enormous torque loads and low gears used on the 36" wheels. Remember that Rohloff (for example) has a minimum ratio of 2.4x1. On a 26" wheel your lowest gear is equivalent to about a 22x34. Scale that up by 40% and your lowest gear is going to be about 30x34. If that's low enough, great. If you're willing to ignore the Rohloff ratio limits and take your chances, you can get lower, of course.

-Ok, so what's the best drivetrain?
I like an 83mm BB shell and 50mm chainline GRANNY GEAR. Why? Because a 22t chainring on the front is like a 30t ring on a 26" wheel mountain bike, so you want to put the granny gear where the middle ring would be - that's the gear you'll be in almost all the time. In many cases I just recommend running granny gear only and a wide range cassette (11-36 10sp or 10-42 XX1 if you've got the budget) in the rear. Front derailleurs are doable too if you want one, of course but you'll *never* need a big ring so granny/middle is plenty.

-How short can you make the chainstays?
51cm is about the limit, really. Yes, that's super long. No, you won't be manualing very easily unless you're very tall. Tough luck. It's a 36er.

-What dropouts do you like to use?
Paragon low mounts for geared bikes, Paragon rockers for singlespeeds. Why? They both have super long tabs that allow the use of some commercially available oval chainstays. The new Polydrops would work well too, I imagine.

-Can I get my bars to the level I like relative to my saddle?
Assuming your saddle is 77cm above your bottom bracket, the lowest the bars can easily go (assuming no spacers, an inset headset, and a -17 degree stem/flat bar) is about 1" above your saddle. So to run perfectly level (this calculation assumes a ~12" BB height) you'll need your saddle up at about 80cm.

-What's the standover like?
Lowest standover without doing any weird curving of tubes is going to be in the 34" (measuring to the midpoint of the TT) range. Some amount of shenanigans (curved down toptube, lowered/braced toptube, etc) can squeeze out another inch or two if needed but if standover is a big concern of yours, a 36er is probably not the bike for you.

-Are 36ers fast? Are they fun?
36ers are, for most normal sized humans(meaning under about 7 feet), slower than other mountain bikes. They have heavy wheels and tires (much more so than you would expect just scaling up from smaller parts, since the components are mostly made for unicycles) and no suspension options. There is really only 1 decent offroad tire.

Fortunately 36ers are super fun. Traction is excellent, the feeling of sitting "in" the bike is amazing, and lean-steering them is almost mandatory. For XC riders who want a totally different experience on the trail, plus lots of compliments and questions at the trailhead, they are a blast. For folks who are concerned about every last second/gram/watt, or cleaning that tough section, or hitting all the drops and jumps off the side of the main trail, they are less attractive.

Random Bonty Photos on a Sunday Night

I do a lot of 1" forks for old Bontragers and Fat Chances - a testament to how much people still like them (or at least are nostalgic enough about them that they'll spend more on a fork than the frame was originally worth new). Always fun to provide a way for someone to enjoy an old bike again. I used to get a lot of requests for 29" front wheel 69er-conversion forks but that seems to have mostly gone away now - but hey, who wants to throw a 36" wheel on the front of their downhill bike? 

Thanks for the photos, Greg!

More non-bike stuff - plus a few 36er pictures

Great article at Wonkblog today about Keynes and post-industrialism. Check it out.

Also, progress on Mark's 36er! I'm hoping to finish tomorrow - would have today, but thanks to our neighbor deciding that 3am was a good time to set off fireworks, I didn't get much sleep and mostly wrote off my Friday after screwing up repeatedly while working on seatstays.

U...tarded? Or, Thursday Night Complaints

First, it's a terrible idea to ban "all recreational human powered vehicles" on the University of Utah campus. I put this in the "stay off my lawn you damn kids" category of law in which stuffy people find anything that kids do annoying and hence worth making a rule about. It also would mean I theoretically could not bring my wife her lunch on my bike.

Second, why not just enforce the existing laws against, say, recklessly harming people? I'm pretty sure it's illegal to knock people over whether you're skateboarding, bicycling, or running on stilts - so if skaters are injuring people, campus police should give them tickets for that. Just like I should get a ticket if I run someone over with my bike, or my car, or any other vehicle. Of course, enforcing a reasonable law about not harming others would require actually paying campus police to go do it, and that's just not as much fun as making a whole bunch of new rules.

Third, what kind of sad-sack journalist doesn't even do the basic reporter thing and, say, call the campus police or whoever and find out how many injuries have been recorded due to skaters? We have the lone "professor injured 18 months ago" anecdote but no details, along with a bunch of inflammatory language like "careen". It might be the case that students are being maimed daily. Or it might be that a professor got bumped, fell down, and tweaked his knee 18 months ago and all has been well since then. We don't know, because the reporter didn't do her job. But hey, who wants that kind of information anyway? Using data to make decisions? That's crazy talk!

Stolen bike!

After you build enough bikes, sad things start to happen. People run them into their garages. People crash them and break things. People (gasp) stop riding them and take up golf, probably.

But the worst is when a bike gets stolen. And several Waltworks bikes have been ripped off lately - this is the latest. If you see Eszter's hardtail (it had a Fox on it when stolen) please let me know. It was taken from the campus of CU last week.

Ashish also got his bike stolen in Denver, but thanks to his renter's insurance he got a brand spanking new one (Ashish, let me know if you want a riser stem to replace that zero rise one!) Nothing like a replacement-value insurance policy - now he's rolling on tapered/15mm/XX1 bling (plus a bit slacker front end/shorter rear end) to replace the somewhat dated bling he was rocking before.

Needs a stem with some rise?

Garro-style

XX1 is the bomb

29" wheels look really tiny...

...if you mount them on a 36er fork!

More tomorrow as I start Mark's frame. 36ers are the next hot thing, you heard it here...

Clif!

Clif is a very, very tall guy. I built him a mountain bike a few months ago. Now for the road (dirt road) bike!

Yes, that's a ton of head tube extension. Yes, he'll probably look kinda silly. But hopefully it'll keep the front triangle a bit stiffer to help prevent any weird behavior at high speeds.

Geometry for the geeks:
-62cm ETT, 60cm seat tube, 665 front center.
-72/73 head and seat angles, 65mm trail
-43.5cm chainstays, clearance for a 43c tire, 109.3cm wheelbase
-25.4cm (yes, 10 inches!) head tube
-11.6" BB height (Clif is running 200mm cranks)
-Canti/v-brake only - I couldn't talk him into discs!

Great Friday Afternoon Read: The Story of Paragon Machine Works

Mark has been in business for 30 years now and he's seen it all. Check out his little autobiographical essay on his early interest in bikes and the evolution of the company here. A fantastic story full of interesting stuff for those of you who are bike geeks.

Off Topic: Van Halen and Brown M&Ms - if it sounds too crazy to be true...

...then it probably is.

I was unfamiliar with the Van Halen story but it's an awesome example of sneakily checking to see if someone is going to do their job. I often wonder why job postings don't use similar (ie "Your resume must be entirely in Comic Sans") little tests to eliminate folks who don't read carefully.

Of course, I often don't read things carefully enough myself.

Bike post tomorrow, I just thought this was a neat anecdote.