riddle_nicholas' photostream

riddle_nicholas' photostream on Flickr.

Frames and other things in progress.

The Shadley - revisited...

I took a ton of pics of the Shadley's build process and have neglected to follow up on posting here. Of most interest to the framebuilder will be the front rack, which is an adaptation of cantilevered racks seen on omafiets, such as on my wife's Azor, which we got from Clever Cycles in Portland.
This was my first attempt at this rack. Well, when I say first, it was in actuality, many small attempts, working out jigs for the rack tubes, holding the rack mount peices together, etc etc. Lots of little mistakes discarded along the way. I probably should have documented these moments a little later, but is difficult to keep this in mind when faced with the frustrating barrier of a failed piece. Will do better next time.
Here's some pics of the Shadley completed along with links to the flickr and the Shape Field Office page.

The wife's custom roadie...

Morning all,
Keeping on my agenda to get back onto posting on a regular basis, (following my surprising discovery that I'm linked on Richard Sach's website,) I'll be taking you through the building of a road frame for my wife.
We sat down at the table to discuss her desires in a road bike. She wanted something classic yet contemporary, clean with no fussiness or excess metalwork, a sloping crown fork, stable geometry and she wanted it to ride just like her Colnago. The one we sold 10 years ago.
Ok.
So, using some CONI geometry magic, looking at Colnago's current thinking about geometry and comparing that with my old Grandis, I came up with some angles and dangles that I think will accomodate her. I put the seattube back at 73' to give her a little more uppper body and to put the weight back over the rear wheel to aid in climbing. [The terrain is very steep around here and have some weight back to push the pedels feels alot better than being over the BB.]
I chose a nice noodly tubeset, Colubus SLX which has generous wall thicknesses for my skill level. While my skills are progressing, I must be honest with myself about what I can handle. I'm not at the stage of sticking a .6mm tube onto a BB shell - I need a few more years and a lot more torch time for that. For now, an 8/5/8 tube will be just fine, have plenty of rigidity and matches my skill level.
This frame will also have an internal brake cable, stainless tidbits and Paragon's wright dropouts. Nice and clean.
This was the first frame to put into the new Anvil Jig - man, what a difference. Do yourself a favor - if you're working on a homemade jig, stop messing about. Call Don and order one. It will revolutionize how you work. Seriously. It is worth the investment on frame one.
Enough commercializing - now onto some pics. To be honest, I've done a miserable job of documenting this process but will share what I have.
You can see more of the process on my flickr page here.

long time, new post and new thoughts on design....

I've build another frame since the last you've seen along with a truss fork front end. However, I've been working on the big question of what it is that I'm contributing to the craft of framebuilding. Sure, each frame has its own little peculiarities, but at the risk of being an assembler of other's parts - what's the significant contribution that I'm working towards? While each of my frames has been a test of skills or an experimentation in handling, these have all been building upon the fundamentals, not ncessarily pushing the craft.
So, while this is far from being resolved at the time of this writing, I would like to encourage others to think about this as well: what is it that we're contributing the the larger body of knowledge? Of particular interest to me are novel applications of the bike, reinvention of old technology, (know where 'clinchers' comes from?) and the marriage of high-tech techniques with ancient ones.
So, subsequent frames posted here will be not only developing my fundamental knowledge, but will also be attempts to reconcile my desire to push the craft with new influences. While its a bit of a solipsistic folly to assume that one might reinvent/break the paradigm/or think out of the box in this regard, I think we can all apply our own passions to give it a little nudge.

Another video...

Yoni, a student in the Film program here at CCA, did up this quick little video - I like the spunkier editing. Anyone need a filmmaker? I can put you in touch with Yoni, he's got the touch.

Out on the ride....

Put a good ride in last week on the new singlespeed road, belt-drive bike. (From now on, called, the road bike.) I went from San Francisco, across the bridge, down through the hellish tourist enclave of Sausalito, then along the bike freeway that skirts just along the water's edge, and up into Mill Valley. From there, I followed the bike routes and paralleled, just briefly, highway 101 and watched the suckers in their cars. Yeah, they are a necessary evil, but still...what a sucker punch. The whole thing.
Anyway, from there continued on through Corte Madera, rolled along the well-apointed streets of Ross, through the adorable bungalows of San Anselmo and then into Fairfax, a happy, hippy rolly-polly town nestled in the golden hills crowned with victorious boughs of manzanita and redwoods. What a lovely place - I loved it. But, feeling full of myself, I pedaled onward up, up the long grinding climb northward. Till finally, I could take it no longer. One gear was getting to be too much. Not trying to kill myself, I thought it best to wander back into town, which took far less time in a tuck along the woefully paved roads, dodging gaping holes and cracks. Once into town, I sought out the local coffee shop with a view and happened upon Fairfax Coffee Roastery - jackpot! I decent cuppa and have something sweet to get recharged. To be honest - it was an ok cup of coffee. Despite the fact that they roast there, or at least have the appearance of one, what with bags of beans stacked on the floor, acting as an ad hoc bench/play structure, it was a disappointing up. Pumped with no dignity out of a standard issues food-service carafe into a paper cup, even though its obvious I'm not going to go ride with it, I sat with my bitter cup watching the town move about. (Coffee hint: if the wand on the espresso machine hasn't been cleaned since 1989, then its probably a crap joint. ) If they had just brewed them one cup at a time, it would have made all the difference in the world in the quality and the presentation. Oh well, plenty of room for a saavy expert to move in and steal the show.
After my coffee and oatbar, it was back on the bike for a liesurely stroll back into San Francisco. Hopped on the back wheel of a well-kitted out guy that must have been in his 60's, but he was sticking the rubber down like a hopped up teenager. That guy could go! Thankfully, he pulled my pathetic, art-school butt all the way to the bridge. From there, it was a trifle to make it up on through the Presidio and then home, where I could rest my weary legs and then watch a race on tv. Not a bad Saturday.

Video....

A video from Tim, one of the students in the Summer 2010 class at California College of the Arts.