One great thing about this job is the fringe benefits. While I’m pretty modest in what I choose to ride I can justify and ride just about anything I want. Currently I ride a steel road frame with a mix of old Dura Ace and other parts that somehow or another ended up in my hands because they came off another bike. My bike has low end wheels and it it’s pretty heavy by today’s standards, my guess is 20 pounds with a frame pump. I’m currently building a new bike for myself as I can fit it in and I think I may update the parts a little, maybe Sram Red with some nice wheels. I’m not a weight weenie but I should be able to keep the weight around 16-17 pounds or less without much trouble. The weather is warming up and riding season is in full swing so I’m pretty excited about a new bike. I’ll post it here when it’s done.

Yesterday I started on Ed’s bike. It’s a titanium adventure/cross style bike with couplers. It will also have disc brakes and he’s running a Wound Up cross fork with a disc brake mount. So far I’ve QC’d the material and started to machine the couplers and headtube.

I have one show bike left for sale. I’ve lowered the price because I want to get it sold as quickly as I can. I don’t have any room for it in the shop and would like to convert it back into cash.  Also for anyone that is interested I will sell the frame/fork/headset separately for $1500.

This is “Mouse Grey” Extralite Blend Stage Race frame. The design schematic is below in the image gallery. See Sram Red build kit detail here:

http://www.strongframes.com/frames_&_pricing/road/build_kits/

Cranks are 172.5, Stem is 120mm, Bars are 44cm and cassette is 11/25

Regular Price:

Frame $1850

Paint $100 (custom decals)

Fork $480

Fork Paint $170

Build Kit $3224

Saddle Upgrade $35

Total Regular Price $5859

Sale Price $4000

Please contact me by phone or email with questions or to purchase: strong@strongframes.com or 800-586-1105

I think I may have been a little too optimistic about what I would get done in the weeks following the show. Tim, Andy and Ed, I am moving along but about a week back. So Tim, your frame is done, Andy’s frame will be done tomorrow and I’ll start Ed’s frame Thursday.  Marco, I should be on to your frame next week rather than this week and by that time Jeremy’s material will be in house and I’ll start yours and should be back on  schedule. I don’t ever rush work so it gets done when it gets done but  I try not to goof around either. I’ve also been receiving material that’s returning from the show and have to get one bike assembled and shipped and another shipped. So needless to say there aren’t enough hours in the day but I think a nice long weekend in the shop will get me back on top of the game and I can get back to my regular schedule.

One thing about this job is that if you get busy you can’t just hurry and get more done. The product is based on a quality standard that cannot be rushed. So if I get behind I either work more hours or stay behind. Fortunately, other than NAHBS I  don’t have a lot of interruption in my routine so this doesn’t happen often.

Below are images of Andy’s titanium belt drive single speed 29er. The weld shop is dropping off a new cylinder of argon at 7:00 and I’ll spend the rest of the day welding it together. Wait until you see this thing complete, it’s got a build kit that includes custom belt gears and Edge Carbon wheels built on to custom hubs. The owners son is a wheel builder and has a business called zencyclery.com, he went all out on the wheels and parts and they are going to make an incredible bike of this frame.

I’m going to try a new feature, video of the week. I like to cruise the net and check out videos so I thought is would be fun to post the vids that I thought were really cool once a week. They may be road or MTB, race cars, motorcycles or anything else I think is fun. I may even post some of my own stuff if I go somewhere really cool or see something interesting.  I’ll try to post once a week on no particular day. I’ll probably post when I have nothing to say. Today’s vid is a really cool MTB run at Whistler called “Detroit Rock City”. The guy with the camera rides really well and although the camera flattens the terrain you’ll see there are some serious rocks and roots. Pretty cool.

Finally back at the bench. I’ve been calling, emailing, packing, unpacking, flying, talking, assembling, selling, and just about anything but building the last three weeks. Yesterday I fired up the TIG machine and started working on Tim A’s adventure bike. Man did it feel good to start building a frame again. This frame is a titanium 700c with large tire capacity on it’s way to New Zealand. It will be mated with a steel fork that was built and sent to Spectrum before I left for the show. The owner is part of a company that has designed a very cleaver rack system which can be seen here.  Picture of the frame below.