I’m going to the desert. This is the time of year that makes Bozeman people crazy. What we do to deal with it is go to the desert. IE Fruita/Moab/Gooseberry/Hurricane etc. Southern Utah and the surrounding area has outstanding MTB riding and right now it’s in the mid to upper 70’s. Since it’s about 10 hours away it’s a pretty easy one day drive to get there and for years large groups of us have met there once in the Spring and once in the Fall to do some riding.

Next week I’ll be out of the shop from Mon-Fri and will not be answering the phone or returning email. I’ll will get back after it the minute I return Mon 5/11/09. I’ll be meeting my old business partner Tony and some of his family as well as a bunch of friends that either live here in Bozeman now or have in the past. I haven’t made the trip in several years and I’m really excited to get back down there with the gang and have some fun.

On another note, I’m making sure I get my current work competed and shipped before I leave. Here are a couple pictures of Trevor’s bike right before we shipped it. The saddle is a stunt double (I know it’s ugly) we used because we were shipping without a saddle and that’s all we had laying around. The other pictures are of Tom’s frame which is just about done and will be assembled and shipped tomorrow.

Tomorrow is the  last day of the Road bike build kit sale. If you are planning on  taking advantage of this sale please get your deposit in by 3:00 pm tomorrow 4/30/09. See details here.

Below are images of this weeks work. Earl’s frame which is done and off to paint and Tom R’s titanium frame with couplers which should ship Friday. Both frames will be complete builds.

Any of you following my blog may be starting to see some repetition in my posts. I’ll try to throw in some more editorial when I think of something worth saying. The truth of it is that this is what I do day in and day out and it can start to look routine after a while.  While it can look routine it’s actually far from it. I think what’s making it’s way to the posts has been focused more on individuals frame rather then all the stuff that got me to the point of building them. Every frame is different and even if they start to look the same from the outside they are a product of their owner and no two are alike. So each build it taken with a completely fresh outlook and is a new job. The jobs come one after another but there is actually nothing routine about them.

Framebuilding as a job  is about 50% or less building. The  rest of my time is spent working with customers, designing, ordering parts and materials, managing information, marketing, sales, accounting, book keeping, etc. It’s hard to blog about all that stuff but I’ve tried and will continue to throw in anything you might find interesting. I also recently purchased a helmet cam and will be sharing rides and other things in the near future. I might even wear it while I build and see what that looks like. If it comes out  good I’ll post it.

Here are some more images of Earl’s frame in process.

Last Tuesday  it was 80 degree’s, on Wednesday we got 12″ of snow. Gets a little frustrating. This Saturday it was about 50 and sunny so a perfect day for riding. Rode all day. Sunday it was snowing again. Spring in the Rockies, so all you can do is wait and catch every window of opportunity you can. If it’s nice enough to ride, ride, because is you wait it may change in the blink of an eye. You also don’t want to get to high up this time of year without lots of extras because if something comes in unexpectedly you could be in big trouble. I always ride with every pocket full and lots of  plastic for emergencies.

Back to work. I finished Trevor’s frame on Friday and it’s ready for media blasting which will be done today or tomorrow. His parts will be here tomorrow and I’ll get it assembled and ready to ship. Loretta will probably hold it for a day to get some really good images of it for our site because it’s going to be very nice. Next on the list is Earl P from Oregon. He’s getting a Custom Blend steel frame with an Alpha Q GS10 fork and Sram Force build kit. He’s also got a really nice paint scheme that I think is going to really look good. I’m excited to see how it turns out.

Mountain Flyer magazine in my opinion is the best MTB magazine on the market. Unlike most of the others, Mountain Flyer focus on lifestyle and riding rather than the latest big company, hyped-out, market driven, pseudo techno advancement one of their major advertisers has just introduced.  Mountain Flyer makes me want to get on my bike and ride. It is also a beautiful perfect bound publication with fantastic photography. Other than hyping the magazine the reason I bring this up is because the latest  issue has a review of one of my bikes. Thought I’d share it with you and of course encourage you to go out and buy a copy. A PDF of the article can be found here.

Below are images of the article along with a couple shots of Trevor’s frame which is coming along nicely. Hopefully I’ll have pictures of it built into a bike mid next week.

Have a great weekend!