Project 787

....No this isn't the introduction of carbon into the materials list as the commercial jet manufacturer did with their similarly titled project.  It is however in reference to the size of the project, namely the BSD.  While the aforementioned jet manufacturer likely felt similar about their project in size and scale, they are a large corporation with substantial public holding and an infrastructure that occupies the better part of a major world city; I am a guy with an impoverished affinity for tools, access to a 300 square foot shop, and the desire to make awesome bikes for people.  So to talk about the scale of this project being let's say... similar to that of the jet company... is likely the greatest understatement of the day.

Now, I'm not really one for novelty bikes or fad, I hope my work to date speaks to that, I generally try to talk folks out of ideas that I would think to be less than good.  There have been plenty of over the top requests that I have flat out declined before even considering the time involved or final price.  More often though people's ideas are really just based in that of a good riding bicycle, but muddled with the latest hype.  With a little direction and specificity their dream is easy enough to achieve.

My ongoing email conversation with the Professor is as of typing this: 70 emails long.  70 emails with little more than a wheelset to show for it.  The conversation started clear back in September with the subject line "Big Bike,"  to which the Professor briefly introduced himself (as a sizeable figure that, well, let's just say Lebron James would look up to), his well worn bike collection (that included a couple other customs), and his desire (Big Bike).  He concluded by asking if I would be interested in meeting up for further conversation.  I obliged.  I had never really considered making a 36er before, nor what would go into doing so, but this proposal was 100% necessity.  The rest is me nit-picking the details of every imaginable element that could possibly be conjured into, onto, or beside a two-wheeled structure.  For the Professor, this is an object of necessity, he dwarfs his current 29er.

A good bike build starts with the hubs in hand, and with a BSD of 787 mm, and a rider weight of 285 lbs, nothing can be overlooked.  I turned to Phil Wood for the hubset... err... most of the parts of what would ultimately become the hubset.  The snow bike front hub 135 mm OLD and tandem rear hub 145 mm OLD were the last ones sitting on the shelf in 36 hole drilling.  These will work.  The reason for these hubs is the wider flange spacing allowing a similar spoke angle (flange to rim) to that of a 29er, even though the radius is nearly 3.5 inches larger:  stability.   With the hubs in hand I began to realize that the quick release configuration these were sent with just wouldn't do, so I went about turning new stainless axle ends for an in-house bolt on conversion since PW didn't have the parts.  The cool thing about these hubs is the axle is the same regardless of configuration and is internally threaded M8 x 1.25mm.  Spacers threaded onto the axle O.D. handle the interface with the frame and the location between the dropouts.  I took this opportunity to align the snow bike front hub to rear disc spacing.  This better centers the flanges and gives better disc rotor to fork blade clearance.  Onto wheel building.

Being that this is a bike built on unicycle parts there are some things to keep in mind... namely limited parts selection.  There are these rims, maybe another choice, that lace to a choice of two or three hubs (crank attached via ISIS interface), with your choice of three lengths of 14 gauge spokes in 5 mm increments*.  Hardly a wheel builder's dream world.  With my hubs already in hand I had failed to consider the option most closely resembling the dimensions of the unicycle hubs.  Hub choice for my criteria above was already quite limited.  What came next was a wheel builder's dilemma, how to resolve making up the differences in spoke length not covered by the sizes available.  I'll let those of you still reading stew your options here.

*if anyone reading has a source for blank spokes in the 380mm range I'm all ears*

Alongside all this is the now emerging problem that none of this bike will fit my existing tooling.  From wheels and beyond, this bike is the tool-maker's project.  The goal for the rest of it is to keep things as simple as possible, but a compiled tool's built photo for this project is definitely in order.  First off, the truing stand got a 5 inch lift kit....

...As did the dishing tool get an extension.

The project is now moving into the metalwork phase with a tensioned wheelset.  The front is based on a rear MTB hub spacing and 10mm axle for strength and future compatibility; the tandem spaced rear is laced offset 4.5 mm to the drive side equalizing spoke tension between hub flanges and favorably bumping the chainline; the frame will be built to accommodate.  Gear inch calculations are amplified through the large diameter wheel so a 11-36t ten speed cassette will be used along with a 28t BMX sprocket.  Everything parts wise will be chosen from the "tried and true."  To be continued...

Frosty Winters

Frosty Winters are the Flagstaff way, not always accompanied by snow but sometimes, and between winter storms are periods of nagging cold and freeze thaw glaciation that render most outside activity next to impossible save for morning ice running.  It reminds me of the opening scenes of The Empire Strikes Back when the Rebel Alliance has fled to the Hoth system.  Even our savior to the south, Sedona, has been plagued with red mud and for the most part un-rideable.  Like winters of old so I'm told.  Maybe I should look into acquiring a tan-tan.  And so it hit me the other night while staring off at the stickers on my guitar case waiting for show-time at the Monte Vista Lounge.  10 years.  10 years in Flagstaff.  10 years of Frosty Winters being bailed out by world-class mountain biking one town over. 10 years ago to the night Friday night I rolled into a town on a Frosty Winter night to make a new home and start a new job at the Arizona Conservation Corps.  When I first arrived I grabbed a forest map and a burrito before heading to the first beer joint I could find and catching a local act, Gravy, before nestling down in the back of the Space Cruiser on an open forest road that shown no signs of winter, no place to go but the forest.  I was a true HOBO in every regard.  The burrito was sub-par, the beer down-right terrible, and the music left plenty to be desired...not my thing to say the least.  A few days later work had begun and I had resolved that I could probably spend the year in Flagstaff before moving on to the next great spot.  Well ten years later....

I can imagine no better way of spending the ten year anniversary of my residence in Flagstaff than playing a show at the Monte V.  Many Friday nights of my earlier years were spent wrecking my eardrums at the V.  To be on the stage this night was remarkable.  The crowd: amazing.  A lot has changed in this fair town in the last ten years.  The beer is good these days, at least some of it is, the music scene rivals any other small western town, and the mexican food is, well, incredible.  If I knew ten years ago that we would be riding the bikes we now ride the ways we now ride them, I'd have been in awe.  I distinctly remember resenting half of the trails I now LOVE.  Living here has brought me to a new understanding of bikes and what they can and should do, so I say to the people of my adopted home:  THANK YOU!  Thanks, for having me, teaching me, and showing me your ways, for embracing the eccentrics and keeping us all in such good company.

Frosty Winters (the bike) is as much of an contradiction as winter in Arizona.  Its owner, whose namesake the bike takes, is not frosty at all, quite friendly really, and the bike will no doubt see more long summer days than anything else.  This frame features the latest blend of machined metal turned into performance ride traits aimed at taking its pilot closer to the edge more comfortably than ever before.  Its dressed up in a two coat powder job of Chameleon Teal over Ink Black marvelously executed by Mountain Shine Coatings.  Really the photos do the paint no justice at all, as it shifts shade quite a bit in varying light.  Reminds me of my old Klein Q-pro...better perhaps.  The paint looks straight black, but the sparkles shift from green to blue to purple and given the right low angle light, the bike just radiates violet.

Basics specs for this ride are for 130mm travel MRP fork, 29x2.4" tires, chainstays in the 425mm ball park, 142x12 thru axle, dedicated 1x drivetrain, 30.9 dropper post with external top tube routing....the preferred way in these parts.

Some details of the in-house yoke that make this bike possible.  I'd say its the favorite method I've used to date.  It uses thicker plate than before but the relief keeps the weight identical and the hollow brace reduces weight further while stiffening the whole assembly.  

Legend has it that within the first fifteen minutes of riding, this bike had already saved its owner when a low light A-line was unexpectedly piled with debris in the ongoing user group land battle leaving the only one option:  PULL UP.  The impending crash was thwarted.  Its tales like this and plenty of others that make me psyched to keep this effort going!  Moustache RIDES!  Thanks for the project Frosty.  Enjoy the ride!

Cruiser Bars, Riser Bars, and Compound Bends

I've been mulling this one over for a while now.  Several years.  I've made various efforts towards compound bends with chainstays over the past couple years, mostly rotating by eye or with an angle finder and producing a fair bit of scrap metal in the effort.  Handlebars really put your bending skills to the test.  And the came to step up and pass the test.  Commercial handlebar offerings don't meet the needs of the next two works in progress, and the one guy that makes such an appropriate product I guess isn't much for email.  So my hand was forced,  Lemmy died, and I'm throwing All the Aces.  I'm taking cruiser bars and riser bars on at the custom level.  Custom rise, custom sweep, custom width, custom comfort, 7/8" clamp cause its the BMX standard, unchanged.

Of course tooling updates were in order.  But I wanted to try things out a bit first before fully committing to a new bender.  I have a design fairly worked out in my head, but that's still a far cry from having a working unit in hand, so I figured the prudent thing to do here for time sake was update the ol' Handy 7/8" bender once again.  The ol' Handy has been $100 well spent.  It came from ebay in 2010 and since this picutre has been through several updates to improve its performance.  Its design flaws show a bit in thin wall tubing, but it has facilitated nearly all my learning of bending mechanics.  It is shown below with the first clamp mod.  For this project the clamp was scrapped in favor of a new one...imagine!

With the new parts in hand several bars were drawn out, raw lengths calculated, and the bends made sequentially.  As for the rest of the details, well, I've got to leave you something to think about.  I will say that by far the hardest problem that I'm still trying to wrap my head around is the vector math involved in creating a three dimensional part.  I got stumped several times on paper before taking the try and see approach to prototyping.  I'll continue to pursue the magic formula, but for now the bars are straight (left and right grip area are parallel on the surface plate, and the clamp surface is flat when the ends are touching), and the bends are even and symmetrical.  This hand felt like a big win, but the game rolls on.

Rotary Table in Service

So the expense of tooling up with machinery never ceases.  At this point the wish list for machine tooling out spends the vehicular wish list ten fold at least.  Not that I'm shopping for used Jaguars or anything.  Just a new bike or two and a....well never mind.  The last bit of The Trade with Joe mentioned a few posts ago was this rotary table.  Its a six inch Phase 2 horizontal/vertical import table, but it came with the Sendero Cycles main tube mitering block to be setup vertically on the Bridgeport.  Given that I already have a mitering system in place I decided to remove the attachments and start with the table ground zero as a horizontal unit.  I hope to use this table to produce some bending dies to further facilitate some frame building methods already in practice at Moustache Cycles.

As with any piece of machinery, you have to somewhere, and when an opportunity to put this little table into rotation came about it seemed time to remove the dust.  A six inch table is a bit small for my ideas, but the spatial concepts are the same so I thought I'd better start learning with what I have and build from there.  I little internet research suggested to build the table out to job so with some scrap metal in hand I took to this.  First project:  34.9mm seat collar with integrated upper rack boss.  Apparently QBP is out of stock of the Salsa units for some time to come, and a current project requires a piece such as this.

Step 1:  Centering the table with the spindle of the mill.  For this I turned a #2 morse taper out of a piece of 3/4" Stainless.  This is a much harder piece to make than it looks.  I used the 4 jaw chuck to keep the  work piece as true to itself as I can.  This is aligned with a dial indicator not shown.  The taper comes to .050" for every inch along the x, but in degrees the precise measurement is finer than I can measure or calibrate on my 1986 import lathe.  A real machinist would precision grind this piece, but neither having this equipment nor the knowledge of the process I went with the lathe, turning it down as close as I could, and checking it along the way with a MT2 drill bit adapter I have.  The slop in the piece was discouraging, but I found that once I was close with turning the taper, and as long as I had a length of the original diameter to work with, I could reduce high spots with a file/emery and hone in on my "precision fit."

With the taper pin fit and tapped into place I needed a way to remove it so it got drilled and tapped for an extractor bolt (think square taper cranks).  The taper pin will catch a 3/4" collet from the mill quill, and if I really cared from there I could use an indicator to get a more exact center.  For this I figured the pin to collet closure would do, but I checked it several times by chucking the pin and finding the point where the taper "stuck".  Table centered.  Now its time to build in some work holding.

One of the more useful pieces of reading I did before attempting this read something to the effect of "with your table centered, you can use it to build itself out."  That said in my mind this was the most complicated step.  I had roughed out the work piece into a rectangle with the holes drilled and the shoulder bored through the center, but mounting even a small piece such as a seat collar was going to test the space confines of this table.  The work piece would need to be centered to the table through its bore so I turned a nicely toleranced adapter sleeve to slip the centering pin.  No clamping pressure here though as the pin is not secured from the underside of the table.  The clamps would need to attach the work piece squarely to the table, keep the graduations of the table in phase with the desired cuts, and allow the mill cutters to extend beyond the work piece to make a full cut.  The table has 3/8" tee slots for use with 5/16" hardware, a size that was seriously lacking in my collection....(add hardware store to the wish list).  I decided to make some 8mm tee-nuts out of some aluminum scrap...aluminum nuts, I know.  I found a semi suitable mounting plate in the scrap collection and nicely the color helps show the work a little better.  I clamped it to the table on some parallels and drilled a bolt circle with countersunk holes to not interfere with later work holding.  We'll call this the clamping plate.  I left that cool fin in tact to scare swimmers, only to find out that it prevents full 360 degree rotation.  The plate was re-centered on the table, this time with its own hardware, but still on parallels.  I should note that it has a low tolerance 3/4" hole drilled through its center, allowing my taper pin to pass through.

At this point my roughed out work piece is centered on the clamping plate, but not attached.  A couple small adjustable clamps were devised and corresponding bolt holes drilled on the clamping plate.  Now the clamping plate is squared and bolted directly to the table surface and the work piece is squared and bolted to the clamping plate.  Six cuts later and I'm nearly finished.  The angle cuts were made with a single flute countersink bit, but results with this were less than pretty.  An angled end mill would be more desirable, but I have none.  I could have angled the mill head, but I've found that one of the absolute worst tasks in the machine arena is squaring the mill head of the Bridgeport.  So at all possible effort now that its square I try to leave it that way.  I'll take an ugly cut on a sample work piece by a long shot.  It cleaned up decently enough with files and abrasives. 

So there you go.  I think this whole walk can be summed up by saying that there's lots of steps and even more brain power, meaning a huge time sink and learning curve.  But with all that its pretty fun.  I'll be looking to complete a few more tooling projects with this table setup as is before switching it to vertical and attempting those dies I mentioned above.  

Plate Crown Fork

This was a fun beginning to a much bigger project that came about when the man behind Dapper Dre Enterprises mentioned that he liked the look of bikes that were more classic and angular.  He mentioned  liking a bike I made some years ago, so after our conversation I revisited that bike and the blog entry I posted about it, HERE.  It was a traditional level top tube touring bike, but the plate crown fork stood out, so why not revisit that.  I re-read that post and at the time had concluded not to make one of those for a good long while, or until I have a mill.  Yeah, I remember now why, drilling out matching holes in plates with a drill press and then filing them to round sounds like a terrible idea.  At least I raked the blades to achieve offset rather than angling the holes at the crown...you can probably see where this is going.  Anyway, fork now complete, my favorite comment about it so far came in the form of "How the f^@k did you make that."  Well it took a while but here are the basic steps.

Lots of time went into the working drawing and pre-planning and angles were calculated rather than measured.  I periodically have to recall those high school trig classes out there in the shop and this fork required several of those old formulas...really practical math, folks.  As well I cut a new die for the crush bender to form the lower plate; the upper is the railroad track die used to bend the yoke on Joe's Murray in the last post. 

This thing came in handy for once.  The Palmgren 400 lathe milling attachment.  I picked it up at my local machine supply, Quality Tool, about a year ago in serviceable condition for $100 and haven't touched it other than to clean up and oil.  I bought it initially thinking it would be the tube mitering station, but quickly thought better of it, things just didn't quite compute.  And yes, Flagstaff has a machine tool store even though it doesn't really have too many machines, and I won't bother linking you to it because the guy that runs it is even more of a techno-luddite than I am, so you can find him in the yellow pages, or just drop by, he is there, tucked into the corner by the beauty college with barely even a sign.  Yesterday I picked up a Kennedy tool box loaded up to the gills for not too bad either.

Steerer hole cut into plates and tacked against the crown race seat.  The top plate will actually serve as the crown race seat the sleeve is just to give the proper O.D for the race's press fit.  This whole sub assembly is then sweated with brass and cleaned up. 

Time to make the holes for the legs.  Calculations for rake and crown to hub widening are programmed on the Palmgren and the compound slide respectively.  Then marks are centered before cutting.

 

Holes cut....I almost lost it here.  The expansive angle to the hub was set for the other side so my cut went the wrong way.  Luckily, the metal to the inside (steerer tube side) of the hole was all still there and the 1.625 degree angle of cut was not enough to drastically affect my canvas.  At this point I still didn't have much of an idea of how the fork was going to look in the end, but with the mis-cut I started getting the idea.  I would have to close that gap in at the outside, just like any old lug point.

The rounding cuts were added while in the lathe followed by much manual sculpting.  The closed holes were carved into lug points and made for some fun tight quarters brazing.  

Looking forward to seeing this with a layer of paint and then all done up on the bike which is in process as I type this.  Lots of work into this one!  

The Trade

Steel for Steel.  A nicely equipped, tough as nails, American made touring mountain bike frame built for long travel forks and plus sized tires....and in exchange....a nicely equipped, tough as nails, American made metal munching machine.  

I got wind last fall that in the garage of a notable Flagstaff mountain bike personality sat a Bridgeport mill, collecting dust, taking up space, no longer needed in shop operations, not even five miles from here.  I was immediately interested, but with winter approaching and side jobs waning for the season, had little money to afford such a hunk of metal.  I tracked down the owner of said machinery and arranged to head over for an inspection anyway thinking maybe an arrangement could be made.  Save for a little dust it seemed quite clean, minimally used, included a fair assemblage of attachments, an adjustable boring bar, a swivel vise, and perhaps most importantly a phase converter for the variable frequency drive.  You mean I don't have to climb a ladder to change speeds on the belt and pulley drive?!?....OK, I want!, but how?  Then out of the man's mouth whose name is worn on more bicycle frames than I can imagine...."I'd be willing to trade you the value of one of your frames toward it."  Joe Murray, you sir have a deal.  

I mentioned that I would like to make the bike on the machine and arranged to pull it out of there as soon as possible.  The Viking crew was wrangled on a slushy Saturday last December.  One Kubota tractor with fork attachment, two three quarter ton Chevys, two two-axle trailers, the standard arrangement of carpentry tools and rigging, one hour of time at each shop, lunch at Satchmo's.  Done.  What would a guy do without the Neffs?  

I rounded up all the scrap metal I could and spent few months learning this machine.  Old metal was repurposed; fixtures made from scrap, bolt patterns, Tee-slots, Tee-nuts, tapped holes, boring!!!   So many possibilities.  I do love me some recycling!  Joe stopped by on a ride with a sweaty folded computer print out in hand.  A scale CAD drawing of the bike he wanted me to build.  It was time to pay the debt.

The bike to be wanted 29+ wheels and 150mm of Fox 36 fork.  We discussed some specifics which included a dropper post, a granny gear (YESSS!), thru axle rear with offset for good chain line, and rack mounts (YESSS!).  A properly sturdy bike with timeless accommodations.  I must say that of all the production bikes I ever owned, my favorite, and the only one that ever really fit me was the one of Joe's design.  I took the dimensions from his print out to full scale on my drawing board to double check clearances and setup the jig.  The seat tube would need to be bent and some serious tire/chainring clearances would need to be resolved as always.  It was time to make my own plate bender (see back a few posts: Yoked).  Commence mill work. Working with a 30.9 seat post and a bent seat tube required a call to Solid bikes for one of their seat tube plugs, a real nice piece of turned and internally relieved 4130.  This piece comes as a press fit to be stitch welded, but would be reduced to accommodate brass flow into the joint.  The seat tube is the pre-bent True Temper Chromag downtube with the lower (actually in this case the upper) butt cut completely off.

Now building offset rear end bikes for large tires presents a new set of problems to solve, especially when considering it is not likely a bike I will ever own myself.  Finding the center line on the jig is no problem but confirming the accuracy of your work without actually having a 142 thru axle wheel dished so the hub sits 6.5 mm to the drive side is a little bit more complicated.  I did however have a freshly laced 29er wheel with a 135mm XT threaded axle hub at my disposal, so I devised some concentric end caps and spacers to make up the offset dish.  

The cones fit thru the dropout and thread to the 10mm axle.  The one on the right is longer since it has to accommodate the additional 7mm of spacers making up the difference in outer locknut dimension.  Now this regular old school 135mm center dished wheel sits on the centerline of this offset bike allowing me to visually confirm that this monster truck won't have an unwanted rear wheel steering issue.  Thank goodness.

Onto final frame prep.  I went with an 83 mm bottom bracket shell to accommodate a granny gear without having to use some oddball crank like a Mr. Whirley.  The shells come .5 mm over width to allow for facing after getting distorted in the heat cycle....and they do.  

So now she waits in a high gloss orange waiting for some unmarked parts to be slung on and abused.  

Thanks for the project and the trade, Joe!  I hope you like your bike.

Ponies

I've been balls deep into the wood pile this week trying to get the homestead ready for: 

El Niño.  

Then sometimes your old retro-grouch bike geek buddy rolls up to your wood pile with a van full of sweet new wonder bikes and offers you a private demo of the new Salsa Pony Rustler.  Pretty hard to pass that up.  There have been bike demos down the street all year, seemingly every weekend.  I didn't take out a single bike that wasn't my own all year, but after throwing a leg over the Bucksaw last November, I have been a good deal intrigued by Salsa's line-up.  They are one of very few (my opinion) companies really pushing the developmental envelope continually for the last five years, rising to the requests of some really top notch riders and characters, and in doing so have both opened up what were once nice markets to the masses, and outright creating others.   The Pony Rustler does just this: its a capable machine and I came away mostly impressed.  Being a nit picker and overly keen on my own steeds I had few complaints but most of them were fit related to a personal choice level.  

The B plus platform is here to stay and the potential here for cool fun bikes is off the charts.  I can't say I'm a big fan of spec'ing the boost though, or really why the industry decided to side step what people really want in these future bikes.  ("Boost" is what the industry is calling the widening of the drive line to accommodate the space required from 3" wide tires) From Salsa's point of view I get that its what's available in the form of OEM parts that work; its more that I don't understand the move from the industry.  The boost front hub gets a wider 110 mm OLD (outer locknut dimension) spacing.  Downhill bikes have run this since the original Boxxer fork I believe if not sooner, AND you get a 20mm thru axle that greatly improves performance.  Why make a silly and inferior hybrid axle system for a bike that's clearly meant to rip up downhills when better options have existed for years? And the same goes for the drive line.   The argument here is that going to the 83mm downhill spec bottom Bracket will move your pedals outboard, and it will....a whole 5 millimeters per shoe, I think cleats have more adjustment than that. 

But going here will allow you to run something really novel in the world of future bikes....a granny gear.  With more people heading out with loaded rigs for overnighters and more, all those gears we used to take for granted ten years ago are actually still quite useful.  Less so for big rings, but those 2x setups are pretty attractive.  Think Colorado Trail, y'all.  I believe we referred to it as the granny gear 500 back in 2012, and even in the world of carbon wonder bikes I just don't see the topographical facts of mountains changing.  Really though, its four days after Marty McFly and Doc Brown flew into 2015 in a retrofitted nuclear powered DeLorean.  And just where are those hover boards, anyway? Can't we have these new wonder bikes without the influence from the road bike weight weenie market?  Don't be a sissy.  Its just a couple grams.

Those guys back in 1985 were proud to be making cutting edge 30 pound rigid bikes and you would have been proud when it got you to the top of the mountain and bugs in your teeth the whole way down.   I propose we re-appropriate "boost" as a fitness term for the added effort of having to heave that extra 10mm of crank spindle and 5mm of thru axle to the top of the mountain.

Ok, rant over.  Back to the matter at hand.  I don't really pay much attention to the mainstream bike market, save for what parts and "standards" are doing.  I, for one, am not the type of person in the market for a new carbon squish.  The whole point of posting this tonight is to give nod to those pushing technology in our sport, and to those truly talented beings of our biking world, one who just rolled up in an orange van and will offer much in the push into the future.  But today the notes were taken, and one of the most compelling notes was just how stoked the rest of the public was to ride this bike at the official demo yesterday.  So I do say Mr. Spielburg: Here's your future.