Big Bike Little Bike

The front end of Chris’s lugged cross frame is in the jig and ready for brazing. He’s a tall fellow so this one’s going to be big. I carved a couple of cutouts on the bottom bracket shell to match the Richard Sachs lugs. I’m liking the way it looks like a hungry baby bird (or is it just me?). Here’s the status as of now.

  

I finished a little fillet brazed stem for Steph’s bike this week as well. I’m not really psyched on the tiny stainless bolts I put on there so I’ll probably switch those out.

  

Rick built up his flatland frame which is hot. Well, as hot as a brown bike can look.



And finally, our good friend, former roommate, and future Circle A rider, Adam St. Germain, got 4th in the men’s 2/3 race in this year’s Cox Classic in downtown Providence. This year the race tortured the riders by partially sending them up Waterman and then down Angell. It didn’t seem to phase Adam (or Gabe Lloyd who got 6th). Nice job guys! Hannah was on site selling cupcakes made from scratch. And everyone else just laid around in the grass. Myself included.

 
 

Rick’s flatland frame is done and painted a unique palette of brown, pink, tan, and white. I’m a big fan of the argyle and painting it wasn’t as hellish as I was expecting. Still it was a full day and a bunch of basecoats. It’s being assembled and hopefully he’ll be riding it later today. More pics of the completed build to come.

  
 
 
 
See the full slideshow.

Chris’s lugged cross bike is up next! It’s currently just a box of tubes but it’s going to be so much more. Sparks will be flying later today.

The latest news in Circle A Cycles-land is that Steph is figuring out parts for her cross bike and Rick is getting a very rare flatland BMX frame. There are only 4 others out there. The amount of work that goes into one of these tiny frames is on par with a fillet brazed road bike - just fewer braze-ons. We put our heart into every frame no matter how small. Here’s the progress so far. Paint starts tomorrow and it’s going to be crazy. No joke. Stay tuned.

 
 
 
See the full slideshow.

Here’s the latest update on the flatland frame. The brazing is complete and I just have a little more work to do on the dropouts. Otherwise it’s ready for paint. And that happens early next week as the paint booth at the shop is finally complete. Also, next week I should be busy with a dropout replacement and I’m starting a cyclocross frame for my friend Hannah. I’ll be posting the progress here. That is all for now.

 
 
 
 

It’s starting to look more like a frame now. I have all the tubes tacked together and a fillet built up on the bottom bracket. Today I finish the rest of the joints and then the bridges. Then the clean up work. Fun.

  

The shop is finally getting to the point of being fully functional now. It’s still a mess but we’re pretty eager to work and get it configured to our liking. It ain’t pretty yet but we’re getting there.

 

I’ve started on my first frame here and it’s a flatland frame for my friend Henry. It’s a bit of a challenge as I’m trying something different for him with a more “traditional” flatland style with a gusseted front end for foot clearance. Check the pics. The brazing should start tomorrow followed by another update.

 

I recently did a little bit of testing of a funky LED bike light system that mounts on the wheels. The engineer who designed them, Dan, wanted to see them on a flatland bike in action. It was a fun evening and it definitely turned a lot of heads. Check out the video (6.8 MB).

http://www.monkeylectric.com/vid_bc1.wmv

So life is crazy. And I’ll share some of it with you in two fun little slide shows. On Saturday, three of us drove to the town of York, PA where we rode our flatland bikes in a parking lot for 5 hours (after driving for over 14 there and back). It was an amazingly fun time and I have the sunburn to prove it…and the pictures.

Then, as soon as I arrived in Providence on Sunday afternoon, I headed downtown to the Cox Classic to watch some friends try and kill themselves with speed. They came close. Here are the shots of that.

And the shop is coming along nicely. I’ll have more shots of our progress very soon.

It’s looking like I’ll be building a bunch of flatland frames in the coming months. After Jared and Jon got theirs, a little bit of interest has been generated. So expect pictures of tiny frames in the coming weeks. But for now, there’s the buzz on Global-Flat.

So the second and third fillet brazed Circle A flatland frames are complete as of this morning. Hope Jon and Jared are happy with the final product. I tried to document the process from start to finish for Jon. I kind of like the visual updates so I’ll probably be doing that for my future builds. Here are some pics for those who don’t have the patience for the slideshows.