If you’re in the neighborhood of 6′4″ this might be a great deal for you. I’m selling this very lightly used titanium geared 29er. It’s been ridden a handful of times but still in perfect condition and and my lifetime warranty will convey to the purchaser. It’s has a general XC MTB geometry around a Rock Shox Reba 100 fork.  I’ve priced it to move fast so first come first served. If it does not sell in a week or two I will be posting it on eBay. If you have any questions feel free to call or email.

Regular Price $3000

Sale Price $1500

I haven’t been posting much on the blog lately but have tried to at least once a week. My rhythm here at the shop has been a bit off lately because of all sorts of special projects. Loretta has spent the last couple days taking pictures for an upcoming add, I screwed up a customer frame by putting on the wrong dropouts and had to rebuild (watch “Proshop” for killer deal on steel a 29er and few other frames soon). I’ve also had some general shop maintenance, guests and a litany of other things that have broken my routine. I am one of the builders that Enve Composites asked to provide a bike for their Eurobike booth. Being a massive Enve fan of course I was glad to oblige so I’ll be spending this weekend building that frame so that I can stay on schedule with customer frames. Last but not least was Spectrum Powderworks unusually long turn around time. Historically Spectrum turns around is about two  or three weeks but lately it’s been more like six weeks or more. Fortunately Paul Taylor has taken up the slack and has been turning frames around in a couple weeks and they are absolutely beautiful. Keep an eye on “Back From Paint” , most of the new stuff you’ll see  was done by him. But as busy and crazy as it’s been around here I’m still on schedule and starting Monday I expect to be back to my good ol’ routine.

So to let those of you who have frames on order know what going on here is a quick rundown of the next couple of weeks. Currently I’m working on Nick J’s Custom Blend steel road frame. It’s pictured below. I should have it finished up today. Then on to Dom’s Custom Blend titanium road frame, Angelo’s Custom Blend steel road frame. After that Marcos is up so we need to get to work on your design Marcos.  Then Hal’s titanium cyclocross and Thad’s if we can get to his designs although he’s busy fighting forest fires right now. After that Sean in HI and Ben’s titanium cyclocross frame. That’s as far as I’ll go for now but the list goes on and on. I’m glad to be so busy, thank you everyone for your orders.

I promised a second part so here it is but first let me thank everyone for the supportive coffee…I mean comments. There are a lot of you out there that I have helped over the years and have been very grateful and fun to work with. I will gladly continue to help anyone that appreciates it.

In part I of my rant I referred to carbon construction and the fact that I wasn’t going to share some of the processes. In metal framebuilding the convention is to share what you’ve learned from others. There are very few secrets if any in metal framebuilding. We all learn from the guy who learned from the guy who leaned from the guy and so on.  When I started building carbon frames about 3 years ago I was amazed to find that there is little information out there and most are very secretive and do what they can to keep their process’s to themselves. There is a lot more now, but it’s still not nearly as available as building with metal and there are a lot of glaring holes in everything that I’ve seen. If you talk to other builders they will tell you a lot but there are some things you just don’t ask. The best example of something I’d never ask would be laminate patterns and schedules.

Which brings me to Nick Crumpton. Remember in my first rant when I said give credit where due and put a link in your blog. Well that is what I’m doing now. Along with Jared Nelson of JD Engineering who was the engineer whom I lucky to have locally and who has been a massive help, Nick Crumpton has contributed an amazing amount of assistance and information. And he’s done so despite the fact that he’s paid for it all with money, sweat, blood and tears. It’s one thing to pass on info that was given to you at no cost, it’s entirely different to give it away when it represents the single biggest investment you’ve made in your business.

Until recently you didn’t see custom carbon frame aside from Calfee and later on Parlee. Nick Crumpton in my opinion is the man that developed the process’s used today for the finest custom carbon frames. He’s taken custom carbon beyond the lashed together wet layup frames of just a couple years ago. Unlike metal building in order to develop his process’s he’s had to spend countless hours experimenting, testing, destroying and so on. It costs a lot of time and money to do this. It would almost be akin to engineering a metal alloy and the tubes it’s drawn from and inventing a way to join them together.

Of course after investing all that time and money the last thing you want to do is give that information away for free to a person that intends to compete against you. So when Nick was gracious enough to give me a lot (but not all) of what he knew the last thing I can do is share it with others. It’s not my info to give away. I’m just lucky enough to be able to use it.

So to wrap it all up, here is my effort to repay Nick is some small way. To stand behind the words in my previous rant and also explain why I’m going to be a little more selfish with carbon info than I would be with metal info.

Here are a couple more pictures of Bill’s carbon frame. I showed some build shots last week but skipped the wrapping, compacting and curing process because I prefer to keep them to myself. When I post the second part of my “rant” I’ll go into more detail about why.

In these pictures the frame is fresh out of the oven and no finish work has been done. The next thing I’ll do is knock the flashing off with a 3M belt on a Dynabrade with a bow, then it will be ready for paint. Ideally when a frame is built well it should need little to no finishing. In carbon, many builders will over-build with carbon and then sand it down until it’s smooth. I prefer to put on only the carbon that is needed and not sand at all. That requires producing a paint ready finish straight out of the cure oven. If I was to sand this finish it would cause the weave to look blurry and inconsistent. Once this is clear coated it will have a high gloss and very consistent weave pattern.

OK so I’m going to rant a little. This has come to the surface because I’ve been posting a carbon build and will leave a lot of the more proprietary processes out. I’m going to break this into two parts. The first is why I’m ranting in general and the second is how it ties to carbon fiber building and the precedence of sharing in the Framebuilding trade.

The reason takes some explanation so here’s a little background. Let me start by saying, I’m a big advocate of sharing. I love the Framebuilding craft and do all that I can to help others become productive professional Framebuilders that will serve our market and strengthen our trade. I give free advice to most that ask. I have taken on fledgling Framebuilders in all forms from email and telephone assistance to free workshops and actual in-house apprentices. I’ve done this all because I believe what is good for Framebuilders is good for the custom frame buyer and ultimately my goal is to support the custom frame buyer.

So here is the rub, I get used and abused a lot. I get emails asking for detailed info with no introduction or even a please. When I give info in many cases I don’t get so much as thanks. I rarely even hear back from people I’ve helped and in a few instances when a person has had an opportunity to return the favor they failed to do so. I’m not referring to anyone in particular or aiming this at anyone. If you said thanks or returned the favor when you had the opportunity we’re cool. This is more about a pattern of entitlement. In very few trades do professionals readily offer free info, advice and guidance to those who intend to go into direct competition.

Free sharing of information has always been something that I’ve considered an appealing aspect of my trade and points to our love of the craft. But with the growing popularity of Framebuilding and the large number of people attempting to learn the craft and enter the profession I’ve been overwhelmed with constant requests for help. Requests come from a range of builders covering those that have hardly done their homework to those the really deserve assistance. I’m not against helping those that I feel deserve it, but I do feel if a builder asks for help there is an obligation that comes along with it.

In a nutshell I guess what I’m saying is that if you are an aspiring Framebuilder there are a few things to keep in mind. No other Framebuilder owes you a thing. As professionals, most builders struggle and most need every sale they can get. So don’t expect that we are here to teach you how to take those precious sales from us. Most of us will do so, but in return there are some things you should know. First is before you start using our time, use your own time. Exhaust every resource that exists before you contact a builder to use their time to get free information. Almost all of it is out there already and usually we can be a lot more help once you’ve consumed it all. Second, say thanks, send them something like a card, coffee or at least an email. I recommend you always say thanks when someone gives you something, including change at the cash register. Finally, return the favor, promote the Framebuilder that helped you. Give them credit for what they taught you and put a link on your site, in your blog or Facebook page or wherever you can.

While many of you asking for help have been very gracious, given credit where due and returned the favor in anyway you could, there is a growing number who don’t. Let’s make this gig a reciprocal deal. We can all benefit from sharing if both sides do the right thing.

Thanks for listening and check back for the rest in a couple days.