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!