Talk about sweet and nourishing!

I just about soiled my pants when I came accross this site.
http://antbikemike.com/index.html
Simply beautiful!

Bike People

Today I ordered some stuff from Nova and Henry James (Bike tubing and whatnot distributors). My call to henry James was answered by Mrs Henry James (I'm, sorry I didn't catch her name) and she was extremely helpful and personable. I am learning that this is how nearly all bike people are. What is it about bikes that attracts so many cool people?

Framebuilding photos

I had wanted to start a clearing house for links to photos of frames being built, but as with anything of any value, this already exists on the internet.

Check out Richard Sachs' "How Frames Are Made" page for lots-o-links to beautiful frames being built.

Elixer of the Gods

To hell with "energy drinks" and "gel shots", I like what this guy's sellin'.
http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10513.0.html

MozBike's Binbike

The MozBike site makes me very very happy. I truly believe that the bike building community desperately needs role models with a healthy distain for perfectionism. Something to bridge the gap between lugged steel artowrk on wheels and the choppercabras. Thank you MozBike!

The BinBike is genius. I have often wondered how I would be able to go carless when I need to be able to bring many pounds of cat litter home on a weekly basis. Something like this would be ideal.

Photo above is of the binbike prototype.

He landed it.

Make sure you have your sound on when you watch this video clip. I think he shoulda' used his big ring.
http://media.putfile.com/matwtf

DIY Porteur Rack

I wanted to (1) practice brazing, and (2) build something cheap, i.e. not a frame. I have also been reading a lot of the hype surrounding French Porteur bikes, and really like the concept.

So I went on a quest for local materials to build a porteur rack for my commuter/errand bike. As luck would have it, my local Autozone stocks 5/16" brake line, which I assume is mild steel. It is quite bendable using automotive tubing benders. I also had a length of 1" by 1/8" steel strap.

I used Stay-Silv white paste flux, and whatever generic brazing rod my local welding shop had on hand. It seems to work fine, but I am too inenxperienced to know the right stuff from the wrong stuff.
I fashioned a crude shadetree jig to attach the vertical supports. It actually worked great, and the final result is quite staright and fits the bike really well.

The only thing that doesn't seem to work well is using an axle to support the dropouts. The axle absorbs so much heat that it is very difficult to get things the right temperature for long, and I ended up overheating the shit out of it, and still not getting much penetration. I probably should have just tacked the dropouts and then finished them out of the jig.

Cyclofiend

Cyclofiend.com is basically the fixed gear gallery for non-fixed-gear bikes. Go there. Send photos.

New Boozhoundlabs Shirts

I just got the latest batch of Boozhoundlabs T shirts. Check 'em out here:

http://boozhoundlabs.com/shirts/

Gears Are Dead To Me

Behold the Scapin - my new 49:20 commuter. This bike has been passed around our group more times than the village... well, you get the picture.

Considering my commute seems to be confusingly uphill both ways, gears would be really convenient. But this bike is just too sexy.

be-yootiful bike

This French Porteur inspired bike is an amazing combination of vintage styling, classic construction, and new/old parts. I love the lug outlines. This is a collaboration between BB Bainbridge, and Curt Goodrich. It was inspired by porteur style bikes still being ridden in Paris after over 50 years of use. Modern technology - bah!

I like the cranks a lot. The lights mounted to the front rack are sweet too. Light on racks look nifty. And the wingnuts on the front hub are awesome.

framebuilding photos

So there is this blog called beatmaking videos, where folks record videos of themselves making hip hop beats using records, computers, keyboards, MPCs, etc. It is absolutely fascinating. For someone like me who is interested in building/creating stuff, but has no access to other people from whom to learn, a video is worth many hours of research.

So for bikes, photos of the frame construction process do the same thing. My plan is to post framebuilding photos here whenever I run across them.


For now, check out these photos recently posted to the framebuilding list: John Clay's fillet brazed frame. Lots of alignment shots. Frame alignment has been a hot topic lately on the framebuilding list.

shaft drive

I suppose that if internal gears are good, why not internal chains? They are certainly cool purely for funk-factor. That shaft is a bad mutha... shut yo mouth!

More photos of Alex Meade's shaft drive bike.

650B wheels, tires, and bikes

So I recently became a Rivendell member, and ordered all the Rivendell Readers on CD. The latest issue (which came in paper) has an article on the Rivendell Bleriot, a slightly more mass-production (and therefore more affordable) frame based on thier 650B wheeled Saluki.

650B is pretty neat. It is a hair smaller than 700C, and is therefore more durable, and easier to fit a smallish frame around.

I was curious what tires were available, and a quick search revealed these beauties:
These Panaracer Fatty Rumpkins have to be the coolest and weirdest looking tires ever. I love them. And they appear to only come in 650B. Best of all they are a nice fat 40mm wide. Yum.

This should probably be at least 3 posts because of all the coolness - 650B, that Bleriot frame, and the coolness of Panaracer for making so many really cool tires.

Abandoned NYC bike photos

Abandoned Bicycles of New York

geerz

The last few posts have covered the middle ground between fixed gear and single speed bikes and all-out 3 by 9 shifting monstrosities. That is the space in which I tend to exist. I wish I lived somewhere flat enough to rinde fixed or singlespeed, like maybe Manhattan where the steepest hill around is the Williamsburg bridge. But I live in a town built on Mesas at the foot of a mountain range. Hills everywhere. Nothing but hills.

So I am after some sort of compromise that let's me escape the complexity and aesthetic disrespect of derailleurs, but still be able to go up and down hills.

I was recently in Seattle and was talking to the winner of a messenger style alleycat race - I asked him if he rode fixed and he said something that made too much sense to ignore, "freewheels are just faster".

Word.

nexus inter-8

I have really been enjoying my Shimano Nexus 8 internal gear hub on my commuter. Oh wait - have I posted a photo of my commuter? I guess not. Here are a couple:

It's an Austrian made Austro-Daimelr frame from the thrift store, set up with flat bars and the majestic Shimano Nexus inter-8. This hub rocks. No chain slap, shifts while stopped, not too heavy, and maintenance-proof. My only beef in that the shifter is kinda plastic-ey. Oh well.

Anyway, I was curious how the internal 8 compared to a derailleur setup. I hopped over to Sheldon Brown's gear calculator to see. For comaprison I used my fully-geared mountain bike. The internal 8, with a 32 tooth chainring and a 21 tooth cog, gives you a gear range equivalent to having a 22/30 tooth granny gear and a 32/13 on the top end. Basically it is like having a mountian bike with no big ring. I don't know about the rest of you, but my big ring only gets used for powering down paved hills. I think I could live without it.

The basis of this whole idea is to maybe build myself a 29er mountian bike with an internal gear hub. That would rock. Of course, durability would be the main issue. We shall see hoe the 8 speed holds up.