Now that the TIE Advanced X1 is out in the wild, it needed a proper test and in a way that I prefer to not, a long long suffer fest where it could be measured for performance. This bike is designed to be pedaled very hard and cover a lot of ground. Philip Norman is … Read more
It’s been 2 1/2 years since the PVD T-47 Airspeeder shifted my understanding of what a narrow gauge bike could do. That bike is still well ahead of what anyone else is doing but I’d found it’s limitations and ways to improve it. During COVID, most of my riding has been on my all-road bike … Read more
“Skynet IS the virus.” – John Connor Just over a month ago, the SKYNET chassis fixture project was announced. An open source bicycle chassis fixture that exceeds in capability over anything that can be purchased. It would be based on the PVD Cyberdyne System fixture but significantly more accessible and affordable. Since then the design … Read more
I have a feeling that there’s going to be some discussion about math on the internets very soon so I’m going to start with something fun and maybe useful for a lot of people in the current era. I was on a ride yesterday where so many of my ideas come from. I was thinking … Read more
Most steel tubing sold by the major brands is truly terrible for modern bicycles. The tubes were largely specified back in the 1970s for hobby builders to replicate road racing bikes. I’ve been asking tube suppliers for years for better tubes to select from. I’ve generally been ignored. Years have gone by like this. Back … Read more
I’ve been so busy over the past year and a half. I’ve done and incredible amount of work on my designs and tooling but still don’t have a finished bike to show for it. New fixtures, new designs, new everything. The new normal is ‘new’. In the background recently are projects that are large in … Read more
Last March, early in the COVID-19 lockdown, I set out to design and build a new frame fixture for myself. This was need-based on many levels. I wanted something amazing. Something better than anything I could buy. A fixture for a new way of doing things. The result was the PVD Cyberdyne System. I still … Read more
I was doing a quick spin on the bike today. The mind clears when you’re trying to ride down narrow singletrack as fast as you can. I was bopping through Hobo Trail and I was thinking about Richard Feynman and his learning technique. Pretend to teach a concept you want to learn about to a … Read more
Bicycle framebuilding is a particular simple craft. Connect a few bits of material together and strap some wheels to it. What makes good framebuilding difficult is everything that happens around the build. One of the harder issues to get up to speed on when making bicycle frames on a small scale is the lack of … Read more
I live in a world divided into small fractions of a millimeter. Often, I spend a great deal of time freeing up just 1/2 of one and feel like a conquering hero. It is my struggle. I was recently sourcing some forks for the all-road bikes that we are about to do. It had been … Read more
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…. (FS rocker shot 1/2 second late. Porter Square, Cambridge MA. 1986) A child of the 1970s, I grew up playing on cheap plastic skateboards. In the early eighties, the new boom in skateboarding and my young teenage years were a perfect storm setting me on … Read more
Hang around any mountain bikers that don’t understand bike geometry for very long and you’ll be sure to hear about the magic of mullets. A 29″ (622mm, business) wheel in the front and a 27.5″ (584mm, party) in the back. It’s amazing how this silver bullet has caught the eye of the retail market. The … Read more
Klunkers. Dayum. These things keep teaching me some big lessons in bike design and engineering. I have been forced to look at details in entirely new and unexpected ways to solve this riddle and that learning carries to all facets of bike design. In addition to design challenges and growth in tooling and CAD, there … Read more
Here’s a cool modification to the Cyberdyne frame fixture. While I worked to make the fixture as best I could in the initial round, I wasn’t going to be able to do everything I wanted as the project would never end. Now, when I can focus on just finer aspects of the use and refinement, … Read more
This is an interesting bit. A week ago, PinkBike posted a video and article, Field Test: 10 Trail and Enduro Bikes Hucked To Flat at 1,000 FPS. This is cheap and easy content for them to produce and makes the little boys and girls happy. I don’t know what it really does other than that. … Read more
I’ve been working on my suspension bike design for about five months now. There’s no rush and I’m trying to do it right. I can prototype as much as I like in the computer and it doesn’t cost me a thing. What’s expensive is wasting money or time once I start cutting metal. I’m nearing … Read more
This is a question that has been on my mind for the last decade, how much stroke do we need in a dropper seatpost? It’s not a new question but a good one to ask now and then. It’s a moving target. As we speculate on what we need, then eventually use that, our position … Read more
I finally lost my wedding band. As a machinist type person, it comes off all of the time for safety. At the end a day last week it wasn’t in my pocket where I put it. Sucks. It’s a pretty good design. Stainless is the ultimate ring material. Super slim and strong with a … Read more
I’ve been trying to learn to draw in metric for the last few years. It’s not as easy as you’d think, certainly not for an American. I’m now old. 50 years old so I have been thinking in a mix of old ways and new in the United States. I am able to change my … Read more
Toolmaking has been a theme lately. After putting time into my frame fixture tooling and my press tooling and a lingering mandrel bending project. I’m hoping to get back to some go fast shit soon. I finished the leveling base plates for my Enerpac press a while ago. They have been an awesome improvement to … Read more
Here’s another from the message vault. The other day, a guy posts to the bicycle Framebuilder’s group on Facebook. His claims were that he understood the cause of Chloé Dygert’s recent crash during the women’s individual time trial at the 2020 UCI Road World Championships in Imola, Italy. It was a very gnarly crash as … Read more
I recently wrote about obtaining a cool little “Lego” plate for setting up parts on my fiber laser. I talked a little about problems with the design and how it should have been produced. I made drawings to show my work. I had shared that information with Randy Lint but it seems to have fallen … Read more
The other day, I came upon a Facebook post from GMBN to a video: “10 Easy Ways To Get Faster On Your Mountain Bike”. The video gives some perfectly good technical advice but ignores the single biggest problem slow riders have. For almost every one of them, they simply don’t have a good reason for … Read more
I swapped out the pedals on the Spitfire the other day. The bearings of the Spank Spike pedals needed to be serviced and I wanted to just get going on a ride. I had made a big modification to the Spike pedals four years ago, Nice long sharp pins. It was a really nice upgrade. … Read more
History is rarely made by reasonable men…. – Terry Goodkind We don’t get gifts in life. The golden ticket or silver bullet are things of fantasy. You’re not going to get ‘discovered’ while walking down the street. You’re not going to ‘invent’ a world changing thing casually after dinner on a Thursday. Success in life … Read more
The other day, I was chasing down the problem on a slow leaking tire. In the era of tubeless tires with Cushcore, flat fixing, while rare, isn’t trivial. It’s nice when a puncture is obvious but often now, it isn’t. So we need to go to the dunk tank. Until recently this was my kitchen … Read more
I just finished a small project that is a pretty cool improvement for the shop. During COVID-19, I was forced to move a bunch of personal tools that I keep in the university shop home. I was locked out but I still needed to be productive. Obviously, I was able to produce the Cyberdyne Chassis … Read more
Using a fiber laser to mark the outside of a cylinder is relatively common. The EZcad software breaks a graphic into a polygonal cylinder and marks the part while indexing a stepper motor axis. It’s crude but works well enough for most work. The precision and expertise of the user will produce differing results, better … Read more
When I was a kid, one toy ruled them all, Lego. Then in the late 70s and very early 80s, when I was in the prime age for using these, we didn’t have a lot of money in the family and Lego were very expensive. Still, Lego is a toy that provide a huge dollar … Read more
I like to do an update on my bikes from time to time. Sometimes, I’m just repurposing them. Other times I’m cleaning them up and I decide it’s time to talk about them. It’s not often a designer talks about how well something is working long after it is released. Doing this gives me some … Read more