It was time to test the state of tariffs and overseas machining. I had some parts that I wanted to improve the Samantha fixture so I’d use them to see how things are going. If this went well, I could resume some bigger projects. The changes improve many functional things about the fixture but also … Read more

This is something that I’d been doing in my head for years. I was always guessing. An educate guess, but still a guess. Now, I have it solved. Designing dirt going bicycles is difficult. There are many crucial details that need to be figured out and understood to produce a design. If a few hundred … Read more

Cable management is important on a well designed bike. There is an art to placing them in precisely the right location. It’s even better if that can be done with a tidy and clean appearance. One solution to this that many arrive at is to get the cables inside the bike as soon as possible … Read more

Yesterday was an interesting day. It started very early for me. An hour and a half drive to an 8am tour of the huge Tesla factory in Fremont, CA. We spent the morning looking at state of the art automation and the first steps toward humanoid robots in the workplace. In the shell of an … Read more

This was a fun little project. Something to discover new things. I was interested in working with a crossed roller bearing in a future design. I ordered one and found a project that would introduce me to working with the element and add some value in the shop. It’s a simple rotisserie but it mounts … Read more

Let’s talk about the front of the bike. This has been the part of the bike getting renewed attention in the past few years. New stem products and 32″ wheels have gained some traction in the mountain bike marketplace. As these encroach on what I’ve been doing for so long and do the most advanced … Read more

Back in mid-2023 I produced a run of FM160/30.5 to PM180/60 adapters. These turned out pretty awesome and are still the coolest thing to this day. This was a bittersweet thing to do. I was impressed with how well they worked out but the fact that I had to was insane. Wildly, to this day, … Read more

I’ve been discussing disc brake fitment for at least a decade. Past blog posts are evidence of this. I’ve also been designing parts for myself and other companies that interface with disc brake systems since designing the Independent Fabrications IS dropout back in 1998(?). I’ve even been wildcatting the specifications since my beginning. Over that … Read more

I’ve long acknowledged  a problem with my method of geometry development. I wasn’t prepared to deal with or thought that I could run the clock. The day has come to get it resolved. Looking back in time, being forced to build my special handlebar systems in 2018, and even before that when I started working … Read more

I was so excited when Wolf Tooth released their clipless pedals a few months ago. There’s a lot of nice things about these pedals and, like many of the Wolf Tooth product, they do a classy job delving real value. Yay! The problem, I had been running flat pedals exclusively for the past five years. … Read more

It’s come to this, winter and the 32″ wheel. We knew it was going to happen. Once the rains start showing up in late October and early November it’s time to mount up our front fenders for NorCal mountain biking. I’ve discussed fenders several times in the past. Very few riders around here use a(n) … Read more

I was driving to work after stopping by Paragon Machine Works in Richmond. This was September 26th. I had gone there on my way to work to grab a few 110x12mm skewers and 2mm headset spacers. The folks at PMW were in the ‘warehouse’ having a meeting about product while I was dealing with Coco … Read more

Updated some parts 04/2026: https://www.peterverdone.com/basic-upgrades-for-samantha/ It’s time for a full update on the Samantha frame fixture. It’s wise to capture the state of the art periodically. Some of this will be a repeat of past posts but this is a single page, with all of the updates included, ready for sharing. The Samantha bicycle frame … Read more

The F4U Corsair! Whistling death has bent wings! I knew that this would be the namesake for this bike when designs began. The infamous Vought F4U Corsair fighter/bomber took a signature stance and design to allow for a super powerful 2,000 HP engine (the largest available engine at the time) and an insane 13-foot, 4-inch … Read more

God. This has been so long in the making. For some reason, it’s always been a PITA to mount MiNewt and Lumina lamps to handlebars. It always feels like a Gerry rig operation. It’s rarely solid. Now that I have a extruder printer and with the Headless Horseless ride coming up at the end of … Read more

Back in early March of 2020, Windy and I had begun to plan a bike tour in Europe. We were excited as, after several years together, we were finally going to do something that had been the focus of a bit of our talk. Windy has a bit of experience with bicycle touring. She’d ridden … Read more

I’ve discussed my issue determining chain length for use with SRAM Transmission on my bikes in the past. Missing Links TLDR; my bikes have rear centers well below what SRAM allows so I can’t use the calculators online or otherwise. That study was entirely theoretical based on published information that wasn’t entirely understood. Was the … Read more

I figured that I would lead this post with an image of my old 2005 CBR600RR after I busted it up against a car on BoFax. Play rough, pay the cost. The forks needed to be swapped. Few people get to break a set of sport bike forks between triples and live to talk about … Read more

Welcome to a new golden age of the donk bike. Big wheels are just so much bigger! Donk the donk to the donk donk. In the mountain bike world, for years we used 26″ (559mm BSD) tires. At the latter stages of this, 2.35″ (60mm) tires were the norm placing the theoretical tire diameter around … Read more

It’s been about 7 years or so since attending my last Sea Otter. I’ve been to the event for many years, primarily to race. I’ve done the downhill, super-d and XC. Years of them. This was just a check-in. What is going on with mainstream bicycles and who was representing them. What’s new. What’s cool. … Read more

In the world that I live in, bikes start accumulating and in the SF Bay Area space is a premium. That starts creating problems. How can bikes be stored more compactly but also be made easier to access? There are a number of solutions out there but this one is for those interested in a … Read more

The second anniversary of the 2023 Millennium Falcon MTB is fast approaching.  That’s an odd thing for me. I don’t like when one of my MTB bikes is used for more than a year and a half, let alone two years. I don’t want to be riding antiquated machinery built on lost ideas. I want … Read more