Bullwhip

Ok so this is a big bike. 60cm top tube, 108cm wheelbase. But Paul’s a big guy so that all makes sense. The main frame is tig welded, with brass used for the Paragon disc brake dropouts & the tops of the seat stays. The tubing is a mix of Dedacciai Zerouno and Zerotre. Here’s some pictures of it getting jigged up & welded:

  

  

  

  

Team Circle A also did the MS150 ride last weekend; thanks to you, we raised about $2700 for the team and the entire ride made nearly $500,000! So thanks from Shawn, Shauna, Brian, Hilary, Tom, Garrett, Amy, and me! Here’s the only picture Garrett has sent me, Brian and I representing:

Next: more paint jobs, Paul’s complete bike, and stuff like that!

So first off, this weekend is the MS150 ride; it’s not too late to contribute if you can, the team page is here.

So Than picked up his straightened and spruced Bottecchia; in addition to some fresh paint, we replaced the bent cranks and smashed pedals, and gave it a tuneup. Here are some pictures of that, and of Than as he prepared to ride away:

  

I also painted a couple of frames for our friend John at Echelon Cycle Works in Vermont, formerly of Pawtucket. Here’s one now:

And I started cutting tubes for Paul’s mountain bike. More on that, and stories of the MS ride, soon.

So a big thank you to all our friends & customers (most end up as both) who came out sunday and helped us raise money for the MS 150 ride! We raised several hundred dollars for our team. It’s not too late to contribute if you can; the team page is here.

Here are some pictures from the festivities, and Brian has a whole slideshow here.

  

Lots of paint jobs are in the works, which you’ll hear about later, but the most interesting thing I did this week was breathe some new life into a battered Bottecchia. Than was hit, hard, while riding; he’s recovered well, not so much the bike:

  

It looked bad enough coming in, with a taco’ed from wheel and a left side crank that was bent all the way over the chainstay, but it wasn’t until we got it on the alignment table that we could see how bad things were:

As you can see the seat tube is bent wildly up - about 2 inches out of plane with the BB; and in turn the head tube, tt and dt were pulled left as well. After some wrestling we got it looking a bit healthier:

Now we’ve added some rack mounts, and Than is getting a full repaint. We hope to have him back on the road next week.

Coming up: Paul’s mountain bike and Casey’s touring rig.

Diverse projects have abounded the last couple weeks. I spent three days last week at Bikes Not Bombs in Boston, at a workshop sponsored by World Bike. We were experimenting with quick and dirty trailer designs, primarily for use in countries with few transportation resources. After a day of introductions and discussions of designs, I was privileged to team up with BNB founder Carl Kurz, and this is our creation:

 
  

The emphasis was on simplicity; no milling machines, no fancy tubing benders - we used a pulley off a car engine to bend the round stock to make the racks. Lots of folks took pictures during the workshop, which I’ll link to as soon as they’re up.

I also built a road bike for our friend John Sorensen; here are some pix of that:

  
And here it is with paint; it’s a crazy multi-layer custom action with a dark silver base and layers of translucent red over it. Hopefully today I can get some shots in the sun.

  

And yes, I said ice cream; Garrett and I worked on making his ice cream maker pedal-powered. We’ll debut it this weekend:

And somewhere in there I painted some more bikes for Bowen Cycle Works:

  

So I finished painting Steve’s single speed cross bike. Here are some pix. Also here’s a link to his blog which is quite excellent and hopefully will soon have tall tales about his hot new bike. Which looks like this:

  

   

Note the custom stop for the rear canti that lets you adjust the brake, & is slotted so you can pop the cables out for cleaning.

I also put a disc brake tab on an old Bridgestone MB-4. We made a brace to transfer the braking forces down into the chainstay; without that, I’ve seen many seat stays buckle:

  

And here it is primed and ready to rock:

So Kipp came by yesterday and built up his S&S coupled road bike; check it out:

  

Above you can see the Ritchey quick cable disconnects. These allow you completely separate the two halves of the bike without getting all tangled or messing up your brake & derailleur adjustments.

  

The bike comes in at just under 19lbs complete; the couplers add about 10oz, which is handsomely offset by the superlight Ritchey WCS carbon fork. Kipp has promised a slideshow of breaking down the bike into a case, so watch this space!

My next bike is for Stevil Kinevil of Swobo. They make some of the hottest & coolest cycling clothing out there. For Steve I’m doing a single speed cross bike, matched to the nutty Hunter Supercrown fork he sent me.

This is going to be a very clean, fully welded bike. Steve’s focus was simplicity and durability; I’m using a mix of Deda Zero and Zerouno main tubes, with Columbus Zona S-bend chainstays and Spirit S-bend seatstays.

And here are some detail shots of the assembly:

  

Should be painting it by the end of the week!

Circle A number 151, that is! Kipp’s demountable! Yes, that means it’s take-a-part-able. That doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as nicely, tho, does it now?

Let’s take a look:

  

  

I know what you’re thinking. Why the add-on seat color? Why not a fancy point like on Carrie’s? Well, I’ll tell you. This bike will often be demounted, and packed into a box with the seat post out of the frame. A fancy point would be very vulnerable without the post in place, and could cut its way out of the box to wreak havoc on the populace! IT’S EATING ITS WAY THROUGH THE HULL!

This week I also put together an adult trike for my friend Al. He’s having a hip replaced and isn’t doing so well on two wheels.

Here’s to a quick recovery! Coming up - Stevil Knievel’s single speed cross bike!

Another first! We can’t stop! Local man-about-town Kipp wanted a bike he could take on planes and in trains, so for him we’re doing our first demountable. We’re using S&S Couplers, lovely stainless doohickies that allow you to break your full-size frame into two pieces! And then put it back together again! It’s true! Here they are:

So using these require that we take the top and down tubes, cut them in two, and braze the couplers in. I got True Temper tubes with extra-long butts (yes, we like big butts) so that I’d be brazing the couplers in the thick section; then I had to make a jig to hold the two sections of tube in line during the brazing. Kipp got this 80/20 which allowed us to jig it up nicely. Here are some shots of that, and yes those are lengths of old innertube holding the sections in place:

  

 

Then I mitered the tubes as usual. It’s a welded road bike with sloping top tube. Here are the joints before welding:

  

Here’s some shots of the frame in the jig, after welding & brazing, and out of the jig:

  

And here you can see how the entire frame & wheels will fit inside a wheel-size box about 12″ deep:

Room to spare, and that’s a bike with a 58cm top tube! Next up: Kipp’s complete bike, & Steve’s single speed cross bike!

Liane picked up her mountain bike on friday. It’s totally green. I’m not even kidding.

Here’s some detail shots. She’s running Avid Juicy 7 brakes, Sram XO twist shifters, and a Sid Team fork. It has a cool lockout you can see inboard of the right brake lever.

   

Having painted the fork I wasn’t excited about putting zip ties all over it to direct the brake housing so I made a little aluminum holder that’s bolted in where the canti posts were:

And here’s Liane on her test ride. Look at that smile!

So I finished up Liane’s mountain bike this week. She wanted it this hi-visibility green so she doesn’t get shot at by any off-season hunters:

Here’s a closeup of the BB shell:

And here are those great Paragon disc dropouts:

Liane is going to be using mostly Sram XO components, with Avid brakes. The last hydraulic brakes I worked on were from Garrett’s 1972 VW bus so that’s going to be fun. She’s running a Sid fork which I took apart and painted the lowers to match:

I’ll post more pictures of the complete bike later this week. Also I painted two frames for other folks this week: first, this beautiful retro-style single speed made by Liane’s husband Mark:

And this road bike from Bowen Bicycle Works in Connecticut:

Keep them coming. Next week - Kipp’s s&s coupled road bike! stay tuned!