Two Wheel Blogs

It is official! I am now building a new frame and fork to ride. Well...I am not building it, someone is building it for me. I am not ready to share the name of the builder just yet, but I will give a hint here and there. This company is one of the first that I created a link for on this blog...many months ago. There is your first hint...it is one of those on the list at the bottom of this page.

This entry will mark the first installment of the creation process. I hope to post up often with updates anytime new information is shared between me and the builder. I am very excited about this process, and have heard from others who have gone through a similar process of building a frame...but I never had the FULL story, and that is what I hope to share here.

The builder called back today and discussed some more preliminary details...nuts and bolts to get started with. Like many builders there is a deal on parts...basically you can purchase parts at a very reasonable price to complete your new frame as a complete bike. I may take a portion of this deal and get a few basic parts, but I intend to reuse most of what I already have. The parts I have are all really good and have passes my performance test...they are the result of the iterative process that is my philosophy..."ride hard and replace what breaks with something better".

I am learning a bunch already. This guy really seems like a good fit. Our backgrounds in the world of bikes seem very similar...it even sounds like we still share a similar riding style that stems from our respective beginnings as BMX racers.

We discussed some basic fit and construction requirements. Suspension corrected or not, EBB vs. Sliders, tube thicknesses, butt lengths, and even a prediction of frame weight.

This discussion proved to be very enlightening to me. Some decisions are very easy and I really did not expect this to be the case.

EBB vs Sliding dropouts (I am not going with fork ends again):
Basically, the riders rear tire preference is key here...If you like fatties, sliders are a great choice. I guess I have to admit, I like the idea of having the crank spindle anchored in place relative to the controls, and the set screws in the sliders basically mean that nothing will slip...and you will only have to adjust for chain stretch...done...its going to have sliders.

Suspension corrected?:
I was all hot and heavy to go with a short fork and stay uncorrected. I mean I like rigid, so why have all that extra fork hanging out of the head tube? Well...there are a lot of reasons. First, if you shorten the fork legs, you just have to increase the head tube length (and steerer), or have a big ole' stack of shims under your stem with a really long steerer. That does not look all that cool (I think). Secondly, the question was asked, "for the rest of your life, are you sure you will never want a suspension fork?"...The rest of my life? WOW, obviously this builder is confident that I will like this bike, and will never need to replace it!...that is inspiring. Guess I will keep the possibility alive that I may actually ride suspension some day. The idea that a wrist or hand injury prior to an endurance race can quickly make a rider decide to try out suspension....hummm.

Tube diameter, and butt lengths:
Man, I don't care! I ride bikes...that is about it. I dunno jack about these subjects other than what I learned during this call (other than I think big tubes look cool). The butt is the thicker walled portion of a tube near its ends....by thinning the walls in the middle the tube becomes lighter, and more resilient and yields a better ride without compromising strength. The plan is to use longer butts on my bike. This makes it stronger so I can jump it and rail through rock gardens with less concern. I know nothing about tube thickness other than larger diameter tubes tend to be stronger and stiffer...I leave all of these considerations (butt length and tube diameter) to the builder. (again, what the heck do I know?)

We discussed some other basics including the height of my bars...I was happy to learn that the builder also does not put a lot of stock in the idea that MTB bars should be below the saddle like on a road race bike. It just doesn't make much sense for the type of riding I do. This new bike might even result in my bars being even higher to make it easier to loft the front end, and open my midsection for better air intake in the humid woods.

Weight?
I did not ask, but the builder predicted a weight that will be less than my KM. It was made clear early on that I am not hung up on weight, but this builder sees no point in making it heavier than necessary so long as it is strong enough for my needs. That seems pretty basic. A definite degree of certainty was expressed to me that this new bike will feel radically different in terms of its agility and zip...that sounds fun!

I mailed the deposit after hanging up.

I anticipate receiving a fit sheet and questionnaire by dinner time to fill out tonight. There will be a lot of consideration given to the measurements of the set up of my KM...for a couple reasons:

First, I love the feel of this bike (even though I am assured that I will greatly prefer the feel of this new bike shortly after riding it), and

Secondly I have done enough riding to make small adjustments to my bike that perhaps bridge a gap between static measurements and the dynamics of handling obstacles on the trail...We did not discuss this explicitly, but I have always believed that a fit based on measurements of a persons body is a great place to start, but only fine tuning done dynamically (as the bike moves through its range of motion) can really get the rider in the ideal position. Take it a step further to technical riding on a tight trail and it is easy to see how a person might perform better on a bike slightly smaller than the static data might result in...just a thought....

Stay tuned....I really get the feeling that this project is going to move along quickly...

Why am I building a new bike? I cracked my old one...

Click here for the next post on this build.