Darn kids are growing too fast...a new ride

Had to run out of state for two quick days for some family stuff and came back to some vandalism at the shop....slashed tires on the Volvo, sliced window screens on the building, and a broken window. Kinda frustrating as I try to be really generous with the kids in the downtown area and you'd hope for a little positive karma in return. I suppose that is one advantage of having a shop at your home and not in a separate location. Oh well, pick up and move on.

Now that I am back in the shop today, I had a nice visit with Dr. Knob. He arrived with a broad smile and a little something hidden behind his back. With eyes closed, he set me up for his surprise... a Groovy ceramic tool and pen holder. Pretty cool, eh?

Mark glazed it in a metallic silver/bronze color that really shines in the industrial floru lights :)

Kalen has been growing like the proverbial weed this year and is already feeling a bit tight on his current single speed. With a coy "Dad...I think I need a bigger bike, do you think I can try one with a shock and some gears?" I guess the desire to go faster out weighs the purity of riding single and fully rigid ;)

As I've been maxed out for time, I started to look up in the rafters for a solution. I built the Rasta colored frame a couple of years ago and it was sold but then returned when a medical emergency forced a tight budget in the new home. I've not been real motivated to move it on, don't know why, maybe just because I kinda liked it and hoped I'd build it up for myself someday. It originally was designed around a YO Eddy geometry but with an EBB and modular dropouts to facilitate greater flexibility, internal cable routing, and suspension adjusted geometry for the front end.

Kalten however, wanted to run 650's, being sold on them with his single speed, and that presented a bit of an issue...would the larger wheel size work? I did some quick calculations and found that "wow, this could work really well!" The larger wheels would raise the front end a bit, but the greater contact patch and fork offset would do nicely to bring everything back into line. What the heck, let's go for it.

We started to spec out the bike, using a lot of parts in the shop and getting a few new ones. The final product came out pretty spiffy...wish I'd had a bike like this at 14.

With the new wheel size, the final geometry was measured out; 70.5 Head angle, 71.5 Seat tube, and 12.125 bottom bracket height. I built the stays extra wide on this frame, so the larger rubber slid in nicely with a good .5" on either side of the Pacenti Quasis.

After riding it around the downtown for about 10 minutes, I decided the frame will not be going back to the tiny wheels, so the canti bosses will be coming off the seat stays.

Gonna be a fun ride that "hopefully" will take Kalten through high school at least...fingers crossed.

As far as shop work, I finished the balance of the steel Luvs that were added on to this batch, finished up a few more rigid forks, and prepped to complete the last 5 Ti bars on Friday. I'll also be knocking out some bar ends for Roy Friday that will be used on his Bigwheel with Luv handles...it'll be interesting to see how those mesh. I've had a number of folks ask for them, we'll let Roy test them out and see what needs modified.

cheers,

rody