Last week while in Santa Cruz for the Caletti Open House, I got to take a quick ride at UCSC before heading over to John’s shop. At the top of U-Con by the kiosk before entering Rock and Roll, I got to talking with a bunch of guys. They took interest in the bike that … Read more
In the last few years I’ve been needing real microscopy in my home shop. Fiber laser engraving, electronics projects, and analyzing 3D printing failures prompts this. There’s seeing and then there is really seeing. I feel foolish that it took this long. Had I known how much of a difference 90x magnification would make in … Read more
Yesterday, I went to the Caletti Cycles open house in Santa Cruz. My wife and I had a nice little day trip. A few east bay stops on the way down and a sunset drive back up the coast to San Francisco and Marin. We enjoyed a quick ride in the trail network by UCSC … Read more
A few months ago, for fun I bought a crumby hobby grade CNC router from one of my favorite low cost online suppliers. I was working with some development 3D printed skate trucks and I needed to cut some wheel wells in a skate deck in a more precise way than I had in the past. … Read more
Handlebar upsweep isn’t a thing. It never has been. Notice that this will be the last paragraph where that term will be written in this article. Don’t say it. Don’t repeat it. It’s an old punchline to a joke nobody remembers. It’s been a few years since I’ve discussed handlebars in general. It’s time again. … Read more
A friend of mine was on a ride with us on Saturday. He had purchased a used bike a few months ago, a Santa Cruz Megatower XXL. He’s a big guy, 6’5″, and this bike is small for him. Not much tuning has been done. The rear end was giving him some issue. There is … Read more
I’ve been tuning the fork on my 2022 MiG-31 Firefox. It’s a RockShox Pike Ultimate RC2 150/42 B4. Nothing fancy in terms of tune at this point but sorting the spring side for now. It’s such a nice little fork. I’m 218 pounds and riding on gnar Marin singletrack with this hardtail. I’ve been tuning … Read more
I got lucky. Really lucky. Less than a second later and I would have been tumbling head first down a 15 foot chute of chunk. It would have been very bad, possibly deadly. The 3D printed stem on my 2022 PVD MiG-31 Firefox broke catastrophically on my third ride. This is the second catastrophic failure … Read more
Just about two years ago, the world changed. I got my hands on the (then) new OneUp 210mm dropper post. It was exactly what we had been waiting for and I put it right to use. Prior to that, we were on 185mm dropper posts, a 25mm increase. In the time since, all of my … Read more
It goes MACH 6 and is ‘invisible’. This insane interceptor fighter is thought-guided and controlled. The Firefox MiG-31. You need to ‘think in Russian’ to get this jet to do it’s job. In the past year and a half, I’ve invested a huge amount of time and resources developing an update to my state of … Read more
I’ve mentioned using a manual mill with a DRO (digital read-out) as a ghetto CMM (coordinate measuring machine) in the past. Here’s a twisted example of what I’m talking about. Generally, when I’m talking about the ghetto CMM I’m talking about using the DRO to measure some points on a part so that we can … Read more
The initial prototype of the new skate truck had seen enough riding and evaluation to go to the second round. The trucks were working out pretty well but were still not really where I wanted them to be. I’m looking for a real premium experience with these and the work has to go on until … Read more
I hadn’t been to the Philadelphia Bicycle Exposition until this year. It was long overdue for me to attend as it is a very east coast event and I’m an east coast (originally) guy. Plus, folks have always said great things about the event. Unlike NAHBS (North American Handmade Bicycle Show) which moves from one … Read more
BikeCAD Pro is the ‘go to’ program used by bicycle framebuilders, bike fitters, and riders around the world for designing and drafting bike setups and designs. It really is an indispensable tool that almost everyone agrees is crucial for working in this space. Few things can be agreed on by framebuilders and this is one … Read more
I was forced to give up riding skatepark back in 2008. The years of punishment needed to come to an end. At this point, 11 foot falls to concrete were really starting to ruin my month. Skateboarding is a young man’s sport. Still, the pure joy of cruising down a hill or across town on … Read more
Skateboard steering is a very challenging thing to model. I’m used to doing some incredibly complex calculations for my bicycle projects but producing this calculator pushed me to my limit. It took me three days of full time work to finally get the math correct. I had done a calculator like this 20 years ago. … Read more
When putting a skateboard together or designing a truck, we need to understand the inherent stability of the system. Control is everything and we can influence that with our choices. Often, we will talk about trail when looking into this. The trail is simply, the length of the lever that is influenced by the ground … Read more
One of the most important characteristics of a skate truck, but almost totally ignored, is the roll center. I was one of the first people to discuss this back in 2000 (20 years ago!) and I’ve seen a few people replicate my explanation but not many. As I’m wrapping up the design of the new … Read more
This made my day and was very nice to see. Owen at Donard Custom Bikes in Northern Ireland posted this image to his Instagram. Three tires contact patch. Each at 70psi. The top three are with a road tire labeled 25mm (26mm actual) loaded 0kg, 35kg and 70kg. The middle three are with a road … Read more
I know a few things. After 51 years on earth I’d have to. Two of things that I know more than almost anyone I know is bicycle design and skateboard design. I’m pretty good with a couple other things. This is about skateboards. Sadly, while I’ve been making some serious progress with producing some important … Read more
This was a nice gift that showed up last week. I was talking with Josh Ogle on the phone last week, I can’t remember what started this, I think that I called him about center lock threading. I was talking to him about some nerdy detail for modeling and engineering threads using equation driven formula … Read more
Red rubber baby buggy bumpers bounce. Red rubber baby buggy bumpers bounce. Red rubber baby buggy bumpers bounce. In the past 5 years, I’ve been doing a lot of work with rigid forks on bikes. From klunkers to hybrids, there has been so many layers of the onion that have been pulled back within the … Read more
The last pieces to the TIE Advanced puzzle have come into place. Largely, the use of a much larger front tire. Just as moving the front tire of the klunker to 29×3.0 was completely transformative, it has been on the TIE. Of course, I knew this to be the case. This is how bikes work. … Read more
Construction of the TIE Advanced X1 (Released early July) was turning a bit frantic and wild near the end. Every build that I do seems to have new features and complexities that involve even more new tools and solutions that compound production and suck up much more time than a simple redesign shown on paper. … Read more
Our buddy Ben Land is back with some intel. Ben was working with me to get the Skynet Frame Fixture sorted out and proven. Since, he’s done a few more bikes and his work has improved significantly. Still, like me, Ben actually rides bikes. This means that shit breaks. In this case, he blew up … Read more
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