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
The rise of the machines… TL;DR: This isn’t just another Arctos frame fixture clone. It’s a better solution and one you’ve never seen. The rules of the game have been re-written. If I were to say where this began, it would probably be back at the 2016 NAHBS show in Sacramento. I had spent the … Read more
There’s a special power in saying what you’ll do and doing what you’ve said. Action is everything and words just connect actions. That became clearer than ever for me today. After Greg White stole the balance due on my frame fixture, $1901 due on the $4000 sale, I was in a pickle. After three weeks, … Read more
POST NOTE, 10:35AM: Since going live with this post late last night, I have received about a dozen emails and phone calls from people that have been victims of Gregory White. People whose lives have been truly damaged. Suppliers who are owed thousands of dollars in a tight market. Even people who almost became his … Read more
A while back, I wrote a piece on recognizing expertise in those around us. It’s pretty good, you should check it out. In that essay, I talk about how an expert can recognize systems around them and build those systems into other systems, better, that they can explain all this. I’ve been doing just that … Read more
“I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.” -Blaise Pascal COVID-19 is a bad thing but many of us keep trying to find and see the good things. One thing that I have enjoyed about the COVIDs is the time I can spend really savoring the design process. As … Read more
Now that I’ve got my laser marking system up and running, it’s time to fit up a rotary attachment for doing radial marking. This is exciting as so many parts that I produce and encounter have some sort of cylindrical profile. This is an easy expenditure to make this far into the investment. Some marking … Read more
More on the new frame fixture details… I started on this path when the employer of a friend took delivery of a fiber laser for marking parts. I would have been able to get some limited access to this but, sadly, COVID-19 ate the company up and that opportunity disappeared along with my friends job. … Read more
SRAM Guide and Level brakes work pretty well. I use them. In general, they do what is needed. Not perfect, but nothing seems to be right now. For flat bar all-road conversions that have flat mount calipers, we use the Level levers, not the Guide. This keeps the leverages correct. Level levers can also be … Read more
This is the time of the all-road bike. It’s been the bike to have for the past 3 months as COVID-19 has brought a whole new mode for my bike rides with my wife, Windy. Many mountain biking areas near us have been closed for a long while. At the same time, Bolinas/Fairfax Road and … Read more
Advice for the aspiring designer; Have lots of patience, keep working hard, don’t ever stop! I’m currently working on producing a new fixture for making my bicycle frames (a mandrel bender also but that is another story). I need a tool that will work better than what I have been using for modern geometries, mopeds … Read more
Back in November 2019, I posted a stream of consciousness, ending in an enlightening concept: PVD/RAD. It looked promising even in that primordial state. The problem with that post is that it was confusing and left folks with more questions about the process than the answers it could have. Six months later, I’m still excited … Read more