I don't even know where to start...

Sweet left-hand drive bike matches the sweet left-handed Flatiron Wasatch views!

New wave old school

Tig welded with a 1" head tube and threaded fork?

Ok, Mark, you crazy guy. I'll go buy a 1" reamer and make it happen. And yes, you can put your 1989 Chorus cranks on it. Thanks, Phil Wood, for making the only remaining decent square taper BBs...

My camera does not show the sparkles or do it justice at all.

Downtube shifter bosses. Good thing I have a whole bottle of them, at this rate I'll use them up by around 2500AD.

Couple more for Colin

This baby is pretty much Stupidmobile 2. Super short (41cm) chainstays, offset rear end, the works. If I have time I'll update with geometry tonight.

Lots of tweaks to fit 2.4s and super short stays.

DR2010s, no through axles here

Stick a fork in JJ, and Colin's almost done too

Geometry geek-out later in the week if the wee ones let me have a minute of peace!

Yes, this is a big frame. Upside down DBinline is just for the picture, it'll have a Fox.

Seatstays would be helpful

My friends are all jerks

Who is going to cop to propping this up on top of (how apropos!) my rubber mallet?

Fun times at urgent care...

I managed to rub a metal shard (aluminum oxide is great as an abrasive - and great at abrading your cornea, too!) into my eye yesterday so this morning through early afternoon was spent at the urgent care getting it removed and lots of weird crap put in my eyes. Numb eyeballs are a funny feeling.

Regardless, for everyone whose email I replied to very late, my apologies. I'll get on it tomorrow, I promise.

Support Mohawk Matt's new clothing company

I am not normally a Kickstarter kinda person, but I have been friends with Matt for many years (CU cycling team, woot!) and I like his ideas for performance-casual cycling clothing.


Interested? Check it out and kick him a few bucks to support launching the company here.

I am always right.

Just ask my wife. Or Lane. He said, a year or two ago, that he wanted a fat fork for a dynamo hub with no brake mount. Because he's just a stud.

I said, "hold on, brakes can be nice to have. Paint, too."

But Lane held firm, and now he's got a fine patina of iron oxide (he's a NM boy so it will take about 100 years for the fork to really rust enough to matter) and a brake mount added by my NM framebuilder homey Chauncey. Plus the world's ugliest ziptie.

Tis the season for fatbikes!

Always bet on...white?

Spotted at Caribou

There are plenty of things I don't miss about Boulder (cough, NIMBYs, cough) but the BMA social events and rides aren't one of them.

Awkward double negative alert... I like BMA. The Caribou classic is neat. I don't remember whose bike this is, though. Thanks to Peter (not the owner) for snapping the picture.

5" travel dually with a dropper and TALAS... wracking my brain...whose bike are you?

Working on JJ and Peter

Some of the parts I need are here, others are not, but I made what progress I could and now I'm going to work on a couple of fat forks... apparently it snowed in CO last night, winter is coming!

Lots of standover

Sleeve is for the rocker pivot, not joined up yet/positioned

Machining stainless sucks

Custom swingarm/chainstay assembly. Yep, that means you could do FS 29+ or fattie...

Hurricane in...Hurricane?

Actually Nevada, but close enough.  Basically everything in UT that isn't coming from the east coast comes up I-15.

I get a lot of stuff shipped up I-15. Like, say, the box of downtubes I need for JJ's frame (and Peter's...)

Doh. Gonna be a little delay...

Another classic blunder?

2, actually. I didn't start a land war in Asia, and Dave didn't bet against a Sicilian with death on the line, but...

Popsicle in the tub? Classic blunder.

Knard clearance and puny 2.3s? Classic blunder!

A big one

Let's be honest - 95% (or more) of the folks who come to me for a custom bike are just really picky about what they ride. They could fit on a stock frame but for whatever reason they can't find exactly what they want, or they think it's really cool to have something handbuilt with exactly the geometry and components they want, or maybe they (inexplicably) think having a Waltworks will make them cool. Lots of reasons, all good ones, but realistically, most people could make a stock frame work if they had to.

Not Jan. Why? Well, he's not quite into Andre the Giant territory but he's close. 7 feet and almost 400 pounds means he can't fit on, let alone safely ride anything off the shelf. Plus, he wants to go *mountain biking*, not just toodle around on the street. Lucky for him I've done bikes for folks his size before.

Leaves still green for another few weeks.

To make it happen, the usual uses for various stock frame tubing get thrown out the window. To whit:
-The seat tube is an upside-down (thick portion at the bottom) 1.6/.9 x 34.9 True Temper tube intended for a 31.6 post, with an additional plug of .065x1.375" (sorry, it's bike tubing vs. aircraft tubing and metric mixed with SAE as usual) welded into the top for the post.
-Downtube is .049x1.75". It's like a softball bat!
-A heat-treated 1/7/1 x 34.9 "downtube" is the toptube.
-Chainstays are .049x7/8" 4130.
-Seatstays are .035x3/4" 4130. To put that into perspective, those would be pretty beefy *chainstays* for a normal rider.
-NOS 12mm downhill dropouts (Jan will run a 135x12 rear hub, since we needed the strongest thing we could find and 36h drilling - that means an old-school Hadley DH hub) that are made from full-on 1/4" 1020 steel plate. Wow.
-The bike will run a WB tandem suspension fork with an uncut steerer and a 3" riser bar (as well as a riser stem) to get the bars high enough (Jan's saddle height - 90cm)!

BB cluster of doom. Had to crank up to 150 amps for some of this!

The final weight of the frame, because I know everyone will ask, is about 9 pounds. I'm expecting the complete bike to end up in the high 30# range.

Geometry, for those who are interested:
-70 degree HTA and 90mm trail. 29" wheels.
-73cm effective toptube and 796mm front center.
-50cm chainstays and 34cm BB height (Jan will run 185mm cranks)
-92cm standover!
-For a 31.6 post not because it's going to be a dropper, but because it needs to be big and strong (Thomson).

Some of you may remember my infamous Yao Ming Gunnar rant.  So:
-We were not on an infinite budget and custom headsets, 36" compatible suspension forks, or even custom cranks were out. So some things were done to enable compatibility with relatively standard (ie Surly Mr. Whirly 185mm cranks, 135x12 DH hub, 29" wheels and compatible suspension fork appropriate for Jan, etc) components. Could Jan fit a 36er? For sure. Would it be the best option for him to go mountain biking? Probably not given that he wants suspension.
-Frame weight is under the "10 pounds or it's underbuilt!" claim I made back then. But it's close to 10, and I'm not sure what could be much beefier and have any useful effect on the ride. Time will tell!

WTF?

Oh jeez.

Dave's 29+

This was a fun one - and should be fun to ride, too.

Usual clean shop. Sigh.

Geometry geeks:
-68 HTA, 703mm front center, 103mm of trail. Yup. For going fast and falling off crap.
-42cm chainstays. That's right. Knards probably won't clear by much with the sliders slammed but he should be able to run with decent clearance at 42.5-43cm. The newer 2.8-ish 29+ tires will probably fit ok slammed.
-SS or 1x only, and only room for a 26t chainring. Yowza.
-62cm effective toptube.
-Built for a 140mm fork, tapered of course.

That's wide.

In short, this bike is for being dumb with big fat tires and big speed high in the mountains in CO. Freeride hardtail meets fatbike? All I know is I wish it was mine!

Jersey order ... finally getting done

I'm finally finalizing the WW jersey order (turns out when both the bike builder AND the jersey guy have a kid in the summer... not much gets done!)

I'll be ordering a big pile of swanky made-in-the-USA jerseys and I want your feedback (leave a comment, or email me).

As of now, I'm ordering sizes S-XL, in club (ie, pathetic out of shape people with kids) cut only. So, if you: 1) Want a size smaller or bigger than that range or, 2) Want a race cut jersey, please let me know.