Hadley Singlespeed hub

There are a few legends in the cycling world. For geeks like me and for the shredders, Hadley is up near the top of the list. Mike Hadley has been making hubs for a long time. You could make an argument that they are the best hubs ever made. You could also make an argument … Read more

The ‘guide’ ring.

I hate calling these things bash rings. The only bike of mine that really has a bash ring is my full on DH bike. That lands ring first on rocks. For the rest of my bikes I like to think of them as guide rings. They keep the chain from falling off the big ring … Read more

Old Caz 2014

The San Francisco Bay Area is an incredible place to be a bicycle rider. There are so many incredible places to ride road and dirt in pretty much any direction coming out of San Francicso. You can do some sweet  road rides directly out of the city or ride killer singeltrack in Marin. Some rides … Read more

Skinny cranks

Here’s one of my favorite new bike setups. Skinny multi-speed mountain bike cranks. XX1 cranks with two chainrings and a guide ring. This setup is  going on my Firefly 29er Hardtail and I just did it on my Anthem 27.5. I’ll have just 7mm of clearance from the fat Ti chainstays. Sick! Enough, I hope. I’ve been a Shimano guy … Read more

Hipster pants…or something like them.

I’ve got a real problem with hipsters. They completely lack authenticity but they are also compelled to blaze this into everyone’s faces and with such arrogance hidden beneath faux irony. Everything they do seems to be for show and they suck the life out of anything that was once cool. Then, when the corpse of the … Read more

2014 Giant Anthem 27.5 hype bike

***This bike was updated: See here*** I broke. I needed a faster bike. I got my ass handed to me at Annadel State Park a few weeks ago by a couple guys on tight FS 29ers. I was on my heavy Butcher. Proabably the worst tool for the job of XC dash and run. 26″ wheels … Read more

Bean Can Top Tube Armor

Ever have a buddy destroy a fancy carbon frame in a crash for something as silly as the handlebars smashing the top tube. It’s an epidemic. Fuck that. For the past few years I’ve been struggling with fit on my mountain bikes. Even with my own designed bikes, I know where I want the grips to … Read more

Firefly Fe Road Dropouts

These went live today. So cool. It’s been interesting watching all of this unfold. A year or so ago, I designed a pair of titanium road dropouts for Firefly Bicycles. They turned out pretty good. Everyone was really stoked on how they looked and worked within the bike. Recently, Jamie contacted me about a pair … Read more

The Butcher revisited

The long term update. Three years ago, I put together a new Santa Cruz Butcher APP bike. I was looking for a super tough, cheap, simple play bike that I could do anything with. That turned out to be quite the learning curve for setting up longer travel trail bikes. The way that I initially put … Read more

Finishing the job right

There are right ways of doing a job and wrong. People talk about this a lot but somehow few really stick to it. Recently, while trying to solve some gearing issues, I ordered a custom chainring from Warhawk Industries. I wanted to get a 32t and 34t ring in 80BCD. I ordered the part with 2.5 … Read more

Spider attack!

I’m a Shimano fan. Some things about Shimano just can’t be argued; they make the best brakes, pedals, and cranks….PERIOD. I’m also a big fan of RockShox forks, Truvativ stems, posts, and bars. My big problem is that lately I’ve been buying SRAM cranks. Sorry, I do love Shimano cranks. Many years ago, Shimano introduced … Read more

The krunk of the klunk

This Saturday was the annual Biketoberfest party in Fairfax. Typically everything you see is as expected. This year was a bit different as there were some serious klunkers and folk surrounding the Koski tent. Pretty insane stuff. Many things I hadn’t seen.

Drilling holes in perfectly good bike frames

Things have been changing a lot with modern mountain bike specifications. Dropper posts, long front centers, cable routing, and 142mm rear spacing to name just a few things. When it comes to dropper posts, it’s settled that internal or ‘stealth’ routing is the standard and preferred way of doing things. Bike frames that are just a year or two … Read more

Little brother and the family

I’m not easily impressed when it comes to seeing bikes out in the wild. I’m not saying that there aren’t a lot of people doing great things, but when you’ve been looking closely at the finer points of cycle design and fabrication for close to 25 years it takes something special to stand out. This … Read more

PVD TRON Light Cycle

The Light Cycles in the movie TRON have always been an inspiration to me as a cyclist, motorcyclist, and a skateboarder. Who among us hasn’t dreamed of hammering out a few fast laps on one of those things? Such a connection, so ripping! Cycle after cycle. Around and around… just like in a cyclocross race.   Here’s the … Read more

Warp Drive Engin

The PVD Warp Drive Engin. Named for the source of the speed and advantage of the NCC-1701 Starship Enterprise. Literally, built for speed. Faster than light speed. Drew at Engin Cycles is making me a couple of bikes. This is the first. It’s a hardtail Enduro style bike. 27.5″ wheels, a stealth dropper, low, slack, and … Read more

Charlie’s War

This is a brand new (one week old) Cunningham road bike (#E5GH). Utterly amazing. While Charlie Cunningham had done a small run (5-10) of road bikes back in ancient times, this is just one of two road bikes build since, the other being Charlie’s personal road bike. Cunningham’s are a probably one of the most … Read more

MCBC Locust #2 Loma Alta, Big Rock, 680 and White Hill

This Sunday I rode the MCBC Locust ride. A fully legal and friendly ride done at a quick pace. It’s not a race but folks like to see where they stack up. This was the second in a series of three rides. This route was Loma Alta, Big Rock, 680, and  White Hill. The first … Read more

Shadow+ short cage issues

…. or non-consensual product testing. (Note: I am currently in communication with Shimano regarding this issue.) The new Shadow+ clutch system is an incredible addition to an already incredible 10-speed drivetrain (Dyna-Sys). Originally, the 10-speed offroad shifting was better than any other off road system they’d produced to date. Light, precise shifts with the most rare of … Read more

2013 Boxxer Team damping fluid

In the last post, I updated the spring and bottoming function in the Boxxer on my DH bike. I rode it after and it was very much improved. Now, I’ve be swapped out the damping fluid and lubing the seals. OEM production rarely provides very good seal lubrication. Lubing the seals with the right lube … Read more

2013 Boxxer Team and Glory Tuning

After my first real weekend riding the new Glory at Northstar, I obviously had some tuning to do. The 2013 Boxxer Team/R2C2 fork was the main focus. I was only getting about 165mm of 200mm of travel out of it and only sagging the fork about 25%. Rockshox does provide a tuning guide and a service manual, … Read more

Crazy stuff on the street

I live in a fantastic part of the country. We get a lot of passionate people using a lot of cool hardware in front of everyone. Here are three that I’ve come across in the past week. I saw this Morgan 3 on Bryant St. in SF while picking up some parts from SMP Machine. … Read more

2013 Giant Glory

2013 Giant Glory. A real DH bike. 8″ of rear wheel travel front and rear. Perfect for complete trail annihilation. Every mountain biker should get out chairlifting on a real DH bike at least once a season. More if possible. Downhill riding is one of the best ways of improving your trail riding/Enduro skills. I’m … Read more

Fox Racing Shox tour

I went down to Fox Racing Shox for Dealer Day. It was pretty cool. We were able to see the new museum, R&D, and HQ in Scotts Valley and tour the manufacturing and service in Watsonville. Defiantly worth doing if you never have. I was impressed. I wish that we were able to see the machine … Read more

The stopwatch doesn’t lie

“The stopwatch doesn’t lie. The tape measure doesn’t lie.” Daley Thompson Long before Strava came on the scene, a few people and myself in Fairfax were trying to devise good ways of having ‘non-sanctioned’ races in the hills around us. Doing runs at different times would take attention away from the crime we were looking to commit. Compact GPS … Read more

74-Z Flowmaster

A lot of work was done this past winter let primarily by Davey Simon, Jim Jacobson and a few other main players and a ton of volunteers. The result is the Endor Flow Trail in Camp Tamarancho, BSA. So much work was done on this trail by so many volunteers that I’d have a hard … Read more

Praxis PF30 BB Conversion

I hate the BB30/PF30 bottom bracket interface. It’s pretty much common knowledge that I do. I’ve shown why its lame in theory. I also pull out my hair when I have to work with them in practice. Wtf happened with the drinking water in the bicycle industry that allowed this garbage to be widely adopted? I’m in … Read more

Sea Otter 2013

Sea Otter Classic 2013. Fun I used Sea Otter this year as an excuse to get in shape and down on weight. It worked. I started in January and by race day I was down a legit 15 pounds and feeling strong. I’ve eaten so many raw vegetables in the past few months I don’t … Read more

SRAM Spider

A while back, I took the time to design a very elegant spider for SRAM cranks. I loved the result but it was buried inside a digital world. I wasn’t going to make it out so it lived there. This happens often enough. A nice idea, some time put into it, and a completed design … Read more

Green washing

I tend to use a bit of oil in my shop. I do a bit of suspension tuning and bleeding of hydraulic brakes. As the brakes on my bikes use mineral oil, I end up with a fair amount of high quality waste oil. As we all know with the “Four R’s” or Waste Hierarchy, reusing suspension and … Read more