I got these photos back from Jared Souney the other day.  These are great photos, and highlight how the new dropouts operate.

Scott Leonard’s road bike shipped out yesterday and I think he’s going to be really pleased. The chrome plating on the fork turned out beautifully, and I really like how the Wright style front dropouts match the style of my new rear dropouts. This is my first time using the powder color Anthracite grey, and I really like it. There’s a steel blue pearlescent in the clear-coat, which adds a lot of depth to what the color would have looked like by itself. The inspiration for the yellow was a Lotus color called Isotope Green.

Scott’s bike won’t be ridden exactly as pictured. He’s providing the wheels and tires, so I put my own EDGE wheels and white saddle on the bike for photos. I like how these EDGE wheels look on the bike, but I’m looking forward to seeing it with the mored classic aluminum DT Swiss wheels Scott is planning on using. I think they’ll be a little more in line with the style of the bike.

It’s cool to see the new dropouts painted and assembled on the bike.  I used Torx drive bolts, which you’ll be able to put more torque on than a similar sized Allen head bolt. Scott is getting the matching single speed dropouts as well.

Enjoy, Scott, and send me some photos when you get it on the road!

Richard Sachs has started a section on his forum called “Smoked Out,” which is a thread dedicated to an individual builder for about a week.  I’m currently up, so check it out and fire away!

Who came up “Switcheroo”?  Man, that’s bad.  It sounded good at 1am for some reason.  Component names are sort of like personalized licence plates or names of boats, very few are anything but really lame.  I’ll keep working on it, but it will probably end up just being the Argonaut dropout.

Anyway, I finally have some studio pictures of Joshua’s MAX fixed gear!

I just finished up Scott’s fillet brazed road bike, and I couldn’t be more excited about it particularly because it was my first opportunity to use my new dropouts.

First, Scott’s frame turned out beautifully.  This is a full Columbus Life tubeset using a 35mm downtube and an S-bend rear triangle.  The chainstays are a little longer to give some extra tire clearance, as Scott will mostly ride 25’s or 28’s and occasionally some 32c cross tires.  The fork is still at the plater getting the bottom half chromed and should be done early next week.  This bad boy will be built up with full Dura-Ace, DT Swiss wheels, and Paul Racer M brakes, which require the cantilever bosses to be brazed on in a very specific position.  A very cool build indeed.

On to the new dropouts; my intention in redesigning my dropouts was to come up with a way to braze the dropouts to the frame with brass while still being able to keep the axle slot bare.  My current stainless drops allow this, but as you might have read in some of my previous posts, they create some unique challenges when it comes to brazing them into the frame.  Stainless steel can only be brazed with silver, and from my experience and from talking to other builders, slotting the stays and brazing the dropouts with silver just isn’t strong enough.  To unsure the viability of that joint I machine plugs that go inside the stays and braze to the interior and exterior faces of the dropouts.  This is a bulletproof solution, but it’s fairly combersome and adds a lot of steps to my build process.  Plus, polishing the dropouts after they’ve been brazed into the frame is a fairly arduous process.  The plugs also add unnecessary weight to the frame.

I haven’t abandoned my old dropouts at all.  They work really well and provide a very clean, more classically styled bicycle. I think they’re beautiful, but from a functionality standpoint, they don’t add much.  I decided that a two part dropout was really the way to go, as this would allow me to braze a steel connector piece to the frame with a nice brass fillet, and allow the removal of the dropout altogether during painting.  No more inconsistent masking details or scratches in the polish, and a removable dropout would also save the painter the hassle of masking off the dropout, thus saving me money.  Additionally, a two part dropout yields the ability to have an interchangeable single speed dropout!  I probably would have gone with a two part design regardless, but being able to swap out a geared dropout with a single speed dropout is a huge bonus.

On top of that, a two part design allows the use of materials beyond steel.  This first batch was done in 6/4 Titanium.  They’re stiffer than my old dropouts and 55 grams lighter per pair!  I’m so excited about this new design because it is far superior to any other dropout available, and on so many different levels.  They’re faster and easier to build a frame with, they’re lighter, they’re stiffer, they don’t have to be masked off during paint saving time and cost, and they’re interchangeable with single speed dropouts!  I feel a little like the Shamwow guy right now.

Kevin MacKay (mackay.kpm@gmail.com) here in Portland helped me with the 3D CAD design.  He’s a really talented designer and was even able to do some Finite Element Analysis on the part.  I gave Kevin a 2D sketch and he turned it into a full 3D model in about three hours.  He has a degree in engineering from CU Boulder and is interested in doing more bike related design if any other builders have the need.

Speedymoto here in Portland did the machining.  I really can’t say enough about the guys at Speedymoto.  It’s difficult to find a machine shop that has the slightest interest in making low quantity bike parts, but Speedymoto was super excited about this project and really made me feel like a priority.  They were super professional to deal with and fast!  I gave them the CAD files the beginning of May and had the first working prototypes in about two weeks.  They also have the ability to make 3D ABS plastic prototype prints, which allowed me to actually hold and play with a piece before it went into production.  I can’t tell you how valuable this was.  After seeing the 3D print I made a couple of major changes, and was really glad I had the opportunity before they started actually cutting material.

Long story short, Scott’s frame turned out beautifully and I couldn’t be happier with these new dropouts.  I see them as being great for any style of bicycle even if the customer never uses the interchangeable feature.

I’ve started working on Scott’s road bike, which will be able to accommodate bigger tires when he wants to do some gravel or hard pack riding.

I built the fork over the last few days and am very pleased with how it turned out.  Unicrown forks present a lot of unique challanges.  It’s a whole different animal than your standard lugged crown fork, but it’s quite a bit lighter and I really like the minimal style aesthetic.

Evan’s bike, from conception to delivery, really exemplifies what buying a custom bike is all about.

He came by the shop and we talked about what tubing to use and how he was going to ride the bike.  He had a professional fitting done by Michael Sylvester at Bicycle Fitting Services.  Evan was really involved in the design process and gave me great direction as to an overall aesthetic, but let me hash out all the little details.  I was able to deliver his bike in person and we took the first ride together.  We had a bite of lunch at Porque No, a great little Mexican place here in Portland, then went back to Michael for his final fitting.

Obviously all of these things aren’t absolutely necessary for a successful custom bike purchase, but they really make the whole thing that much more meaningful.  I feel the big difference between a custom bike bought directly from the builder and one, custom or not, bought in the store is the relationship and interaction between builder and client.  Sort of along the lines of buying food from a farmer at a farmer’s market or wine directly from the vintner; a transaction where the person selling a product gets to say, “I made this, I’m responsible for its quality, and I’m proud of it,” is really meaningful.

Some component highlights: Sram force with Deda bars and seatpost, Brooks Swallow saddle, and the new Chris King R45 hubs with Velocity Aearohead 24 hole rims.  That wheel build is killer!  It’s pretty reasonable for a ~ 1400 gram wheelset, and something that’s going to be pretty durable long term.

I really enjoy the fabrication/machining side of framebuilding, but completing a bike and delivering it directly to a customer is really satisfying.  Evan’s bike turned out beautifully, and he was really fun to work with. Enjoy, Evan, and send me some ride shots!

Joshua’s fixed gear MAX turned out beautifully, but unfortunately I can’t take much credit.  Joshua made pretty much all of the build kit decisions, and man does he have good taste.  It’s one of those bikes that looks simple and elegant at first glance, but once you get close all the cool little details start coming out.  I already described most of the frame details in a previous post, so I won’t go into them again.  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Evan’s road bike is on its way to the painter. For his tube set I used a Columbus S-bend Life rear end, Columbus externally butted seat tube, Columbus TT, and True Temper S3 downtube. This will be built up with SRAM Force and custom wheels built around Chris King hubs.

Evan’s bike is getting a pretty unique paint job, so check back in a couple weeks to see how it turns out.