Bicycle

Daniel came by the shop today with a nice little job. He’s starting to build up the fixxie freestyle frame he built in the shop. He needed a left side drive 135mm spaced fixed hub with 14mm axle for pegs. Not the easiest thing to find. It would be even nicer if it had a … Read more

This month, I’ve broken two Shimano XT cassettes (11-32, CS-M771-10-bL). The smaller cog carrier, #Y1YR98040 (18,20,22), has failed in exactly the same way both times. This is something that is very rarely seen and even rarer to see it the same way so soon for one person. This is certain to be an engineering or manufacturing … Read more

Healing up from my wrist injury last September has been quite a journey. It’s been very discouraging but giving the situation I’m glad that I got out the way I did. Things could have been much worse and I am grateful. Still, I miss cycling well. The past month has seen a bit of improvement … Read more

The box. People talk about it. They talk about being outside it. It seems that they often fail to even understand the box or it’s bounds. Usually, those claiming to be outside of it are firmly planted deep in the darkest depths of the box. I try to always keep my work inside the box. … Read more

My friend Donald Reni has a problem. He owns a Bridgestone bicycle. Other than that, he’s got another problem. This is supposed to be a shit bike. A shit bike is what I call a bicycle that you can ride and lock up around the city worry free. It’s not fancy, it’s not worth much, … Read more

Thanks to Sean Walling at Soulcraft and Una Pizza Napoletana, San Francisco has it’s own custom bicycle show. For the second year, I figured that I would spend my time looking at the people. Those photos are posted on my Facebook page so folks can share more easily.   Two bikes stood out from the … Read more

Shimano has recently issued the new Zee line of parts. Essentially, Zee is just SLX for downhill and gravity bikes. Zee is a very nice line of parts and essentially makes up for the problems with the Saint line of parts – cost and weight. Don’t get me wrong. Saint is awesome. I use many … Read more

This post was inspired by a conversation that I had the other day when I bumped into my friend Cameron Falconer at Java Hut in Fairfax prior to the each of us leaving on a ride. I was on my neat Firefly 29″ bike and he was on his road bike. Somehow the discussion of gearing … Read more

Here’s a cool thing. I was having a discussion with Chris Ioakimedes this past Sunday. He had a tube in his pocket, still in the box. It turned out that we both usually leave them in the box so that they don’t get damaged. It seemed like such a bulky awkward way of dealing with this issue. … Read more

This is true for a number of reasons but here is one that you probably haven’t heard of. THEY LISTEN. I deal with lot’s of technology and meticulous setups on bicycles. I find problems and issues with bicycles and components often (but not in this case) long before others even know it is the case. … Read more

The Firefly/PVD Serenity. After designing the new titanium road and mountain bike dropouts for they guys at Firefly Bicycles in Boston, it was time for my payback. A nice titanium mountain bike. Of course, the design of the bike would be as specific as the dropout designs. I had a vision of exactly what I … Read more

My new bike is going together. More on that later… Working on PF30 for the first time is not going well. I’m a known BB92 guy. I know it’s the best way of doing things. The world, it seems, doesn’t agree with me. Thus, PF30 is taking over. Grrr… The new bike has a PF30 … Read more

This is an apology to Lorri Lee Lown. I was wrong about something and insisted that I was right. I argued that the increased friction caused by heavier riders and the increased drag due to their larger size overcame the increased downward forces generated from gravitational pull compared to smaller lighter riders making the heavier slower. Doubts … Read more

It’s happened again… I joined up with the guys at Firefly Bicycles to get another dropout done. This time it’s for road bikes. Firefly makes a lot of extremely elegent and fast road bikes. The craftsmanship put into them is borderline obscene. The pride the owners of these bikes take is about the same. Any … Read more

I was at the Fontana City Nationals this weekend. A great venue and a great event. Aaron Gwin was in the house during Saturday’s DH practice. I got to meet him and take some pictures. He’s a pretty low key guy. He didn’t race on Sunday. The bike was essentially stock other than the obvious … Read more

This showed up on the interwebs. I can’t possibly imagine what’s coming…

Chips are flying this week. Lot’s of stuff to do. Crazy computer cutting robots! 2012 PVD Chainguides for Santa Cruz V-10. More bomber. Stealth layout. 2X compatable (for TR, Butcher & Nomad).

The mountain biking season is entering it’s second phase, summer. The first rains in the late fall mark the first phase, the racing season marks the second. The Sea Otter Classic is just around the corner and the 1st National Series Race is even closer than that and the Pietermaritzburg UCI WC is this weekend. … Read more

You never know anything unless it’s been measured. That’s the rule any engineer lives by. Most people think of suspension systems and tuning them as some sort of voodoo or black art. The #1 problem with these folks is that they really never understood the role that springs play in the system or how springs work in a … Read more

When a spring in a shock is compressed two things happen; the spring twists and the spring cocks. When this happens, the spring needs the freedom to do this otherwise the restriction results in mechanical friction in the shock, slowing it down in an uncontrolled and unpredictable way. In motorsport, you would use a hydraulic … Read more

***THIS ISSUE HAS BEEN RESOLVED – SEE THIS POST*** I like my Santa Cruz Butcher. It’s a fun, solid, no-frills trailbike. I got it for that reason. I didn’t want to mess with it and I wanted solid.A creak had developed in the main pivot. I hate that. I hadn’t taken it apart when I … Read more

Today I stumbled on the proverbial pot of gold for bike folks, an early Wicked Fat Chance at a local pawn shop.  The bike apears to be a late 80’s or very early 90’s frame. It’s still got the pressed in BB bearings that were phased out in 1991. Honestly, I don’t need it but … Read more

Mary was re-gearing her Nomad this morning. Putting a 26 tooth ring up front to give here knees a break climbing on the, now heavy, bike. We were checking the ring spacing when we found something off. I really hope that this is the only one that slipped through QC. #Y1LR26000, Chainring 26T-AH, FC-M980 It’s as if … Read more

This is a pretty special bike. A juvenile DH race bike for my friend Bryan Harrell’s son Jake. Jake has been racing ABA BMX (ranked 4th district CA04) for the past two seasons and is absolutely killing it. As mountain bikers and living in the best place you can for riding trail, it is only natural … Read more

I’m getting a 29er type bike built for me this winter. All I needed to do was design it. I’m looking for it to be a nice tight fire roadie/crosser that can still ride real singletrack quickly with tires maxing out at 1.9″. Special attention is going to be put into getting the largest chainrings possible … Read more

A long, long time ago (1998?) I designed the disc brake dropouts for Independent Fabrications. I knew the whole crew there as we had all worked at Fat City Cycles together. The reason for the design was simple, I needed a new bike and I use Shimano parts. That was the moment that Shimano had … Read more