Devolution

...as in De-Evolution.  This concept was brought to at least a few willing listeners starting in the seventies as the band DEVO became known in the music world.  Those that saw beyond the satirical production of the live show that later became mostly spectacle by the time of MTV and "Whip It" could begin to understand that at the foundation of what came off as abrasive, communist, and down right ridiculous was the fact that, yeah, it was meant to.  Their view was that mankind, particularly in 1960s/1970s America had ceased to evolve and had instead begun to backtrack, to be herded by whatever they were told, hence the name.  People were sheep and had increasingly begun to lack the ability to think freely.  Most of the band's music played off this premise one way or another, and eventually the band went away citing that the world was just not ready for DEVO.  Maybe their disappearance in the late '80s after some less than well received albums gave the world time to process their message before their return to the production in 2010.  The world was deemed ready. 

Really this isn't meant to be a history of my favorite band, but more to serve as a background to a parallel I would like to try and illustrate:  the sort of thing I think about when I'm doing this bike building.

This thought can best be summed up by a conversation I had with a friend this week asking the specifics of what is this bike he saw in my shop.....you know....what wheel size is it?  

"Its a 26," I said

Response:   "Whoa they still make those!?!" 

Note the placement of the ambiguous "THEY" and what connotations it may have.  Trek, Giant, others have all but abandoned 26" wheels entirely for 2014 and I'm sure its not hard to trace these decisions back to some notion or premise based in marketing or sales or capitalism that this is in essense "BICYCLE EVOLUTION".  Even Yeti has abandoned on what was as of 2013, their best selling bike of all time - the 26 inch wheeled SB-66.

The unfortunate thing here is that these discontinuations are not based in offering a better bike to the consumer, they are based on selling more bikes based on fads and perceptions (or misconceptions) through marketing and through keeping up/competition.  And the backlash of this "evolution of the bicycle" will inevitably see certain parts options and standards becoming harder to find, just like that suspension fork with canti bosses. 

However, the one who really loses here is the rider.  26" bikes fit smaller riders great.  They allow an active ride that is somewhat more advanced....and some people want to make the moves themselves instead of having a bike able to compensate.  They make a more playful bike than their big or even their mid wheeled brethren, and its how we got to be better riders in the first place.  AND, they're easy to accelerate as they have less rotational mass and carry less inertia.

Now I understand that someone wanting to get into mountain bikes may not want to deal with this learning curve of making the moves, and that's fine.  YOU have options (bikes with brains, i-Bikes, e-bikes), and YOU are probably finding my rant redundant by now anyway, but old riders need new bikes too and why should we have to be victims of "evolution."

Sheep follow Sheep.  

Fortunately the people of Flagstaff tend to identify more with the Goat.

This project started from the concept of Shawna saying she wanted the DEVO bike.  And in that, I thought a Tyvek color scheme would likely be in order, but it really did fall into place.  A 120 mm Fox Float showed up following the early discussions that Shawna wanted an updated geometry similar to her Redline cruiser singlespeed.  I do love making Flagstaff bikes.  

Making the DEVO bike to me meant keeping lines simple and angular, while meeting all the riders demands (2.5" tires, geared or single speed, rack mounts).  The rear mono stay runs the cables through the stay to keep it looking clean...simple on the surface, complexity through depth.  The tubes are a custom blend of NOS '90s Tange Prestige acquired from the devolved, 4130 aircraft, and True Temper stays mated to Paragon Sliders and the big head tube.  That head tube will make another argument for 26" wheels...its only 90 mm long and will not get much in the way of headset stack either....and I absolutely refuse to ever make a bike that looks like a Cannondale with the stem pointed down (yes, that's where "bicycle evolution" has you headed). The tubes fell into place based on what would fit to that head tube and provide the strength in application.  While not the biggest rider, its still a big-ish fork on the front that'll be slammed and levered down the rocky trails of Arizona at speeds yet unknown to its rider.  That old Prestige downtube is ovalized and tapered to provide a big external "butt" at the head, and represents the pinnacle of Japanese bicycle tubing.  Think Samurai.  I am fortunate to have been gifted some of it.  It is very clean on the inside, cuts nicely, and takes well to brass. 

When I realized this is bike #029 out of my shop I had to stamp this into the other side of the BB.  Of course number 29 has 26" wheels.  Light and stiff.  Old and new.  We Are DEVO.

So in response to the statement above about 26" bikes:

I don't know what anybody else is doing these days, but...

I STILL MAKE THOSE!

....just like Gerald describes in the only video ever likely to make this blog.

Head South

....Like a goose in flight. I didn't mean for this disc tab to turn out looking like airborne fowl.  Funny thing is its the second one this week.  The first one being at the carpentry job and presenting itself as woodgrains on some tongue & groove siding.  Unfortunately that one would not likely see it into production as the one above, since when you turn the siding vertically it looked more phallic than avian.  Anyway I'm following the goose this week with the bars below in tow to fix up my mom's bike.  She's been asking me to do this for all too long.  Given that she's 67 and still wanting to get out I thought I'd take a bit back on the original remake that it was given ten years ago that essentially turned my old '94 GT Tequesta into a flat bar road bike.  I fabbed up some uber comfy bull moose risers for this new incarnation.  I hope she likes them.  I had no measurements to go on and only a ten year old educated guess.  

On that note....don't build yourselves into a hole out there folks.  I had to cut up my home made jig to get these bars free.  Went too fast in coming up with the clamping and forgot that you have to get these things out of the jig.  Guess it'll be time for a new one.

Kramp-Stache Complete...

....So here comes another rant!  Mr. Walker and I started scheming this ride on an overnight bike trip to the verde hot springs last spring and made his intentions official last June so I have the better part of 6 months in this one....not of actual labor just thought investment and the delays that come with having to pick up a project and set it down between jobs, trips, backorders whatever.  Not to mention its a lot of bike with a lot going on in the design and parts integration, so that alone is a lot to wrap your brain around.  All in all I think it comes out to just about everything you ever wanted in the '90s (some of it you didn't even know you wanted.

I spent some rides on Mr. Walker's Krampus (he was an early adopter) and walked away unimpressed, feeling that they missed the sweet spot of that ride by forgetting that it is a rigid bike.  It felt more like a downhill bike relying on a basketball for suspension.  First step...design the front end around its use.  Mountain bike first, touring bike second, snow bike.....maybe sometimes.  Dedicated rigid...yes.  The fork is something I'm quite proud of as its been in the works for going on two years, maybe more.  I've been wanting to do a raked unicrown for a while as the straight blade units (Salsa/Surly) have what is to me an unacceptable amount of brake chatter when paired with the necessarily long blades of big wheelers.  The curvature of this fork greatly reduces brake chatter as well as provides a little damping if the rack is removed.  Building the bender for these blades (the bars are also bent on this bender) took at least three efforts of picking the project back up after giving it the corner box which amounted to the majority of that two years.  I don't know if its reached its final stage yet, but it is easily adaptable to new parts or modifications and if you want to see it you can....in person.  A standard butted steerer tube didn't seem like enough for this application so I made an externally butted steerer tube using two lengths of .058" tubing.  The steerer is straight 1.125" so the first length, with a shorter piece of 1.25" that extends to just above the crown race sleeved on to where the 1.25 blades join at the bottom of the steerer forming the butt.  A third piece of 1.375" x .058" is sleeved to this assembly at the same time the legs are brazed to form the crown race seat....So not a tapered steerer per se, but an externally butted one.  The rack mounts are made from drilled out seat binders to take an M6 or .25" bolt with a backing nut so if you ever have to replace one, you can find it anywhere.  The added girth of the seat binder (5/8" tubing?) allows enough space for the backing nut to sit over the hooded dropout without interfering with the hub or disc rotor (see the picture in the previous post).

 All this mates up nicely with a Cane Creek zero stack 110 headset (very nice unit) and a monstrous Paragon head tube to position the bars to seat height with some room for adjustment.  Think comfort cruiser.  This bike goes slow!  The rack uses only the fork drops for bolt on attachment and is otherwise slip fit onto the steerer for the third and very stable attachment point giving the whole package that truss fork look without fixing it in place.  The upper stays will serve as more than adequate anchor points for strapping on a dry bag (and your backpack when you get to that extended dirt road section).  It'll also fit panniers if so desired.  Front loads are great, y'all.  They stick your front wheel to the ground in whatever situation you encounter, just keep yer load tight to the rack so you don't get steering lag.  I'm not talking about low riders either....they barely have a place on a road bike.  While it does not have an official load rating I sat on it when we finished it up and Mr. Walker said he could see it flex.  I figure that's a good sign.

The rider position and fit is not overlooked either.  The bars are 20 deg sweep 735mm wide and should offer a number of hand positions.  Paragon supplies the steerer clamp and the jigging for the pipes changes every time I do one of these things.  Moving rearward, the seat positions the rider more rearward than the Surly, though the stays remain about the same length.  The bottom bracket drop is about the same as with any regular 29er as low pressure tires only add size to the areas not taking up the load.  I used a plate yoke to accomplish the balance of mud and chainring clearance.  Yes, that's a granny gear.  Why would the bike with the biggest heaviest wheels not have one of these?  You got me!?.  To make this happen we went back a couple decades and mated an old XTR crank to a Phil Wood BB spindle of appropriate size to allow for the granny ring chain line to not interfere with the tire.  The rear wheel is then dished to an offset of about 6.5mm to the drive side to equalize spoke length/tension and compensate for the wider chain line and asymmetric chain stays hold it in place.  A direct mount front derailleur minimizes clearance issues with the big tire and will shift a 2x or 3x setup....yes you can run a big ring just fine on this bike.

Some facts:

7 benders were used in the production of this bicycle (two of which I don't even own)

Phil Wood and Cane Creek make very nice products

9 speed is still readily available

Square Taper XTR cranks are still the best cranks ever made

Ice Tech Brakes are the best brakes ever made

WTB Original Trail Grips rock!

Mr. Walker's former favorite mountain bike was a 1992 Stump Jumper

Surly rims do not even approach the best parts ever made list

The obliged happy customer photo!

On a side note I think we should start calling these things what they really are....Monster Trucks.  What about a bike like this isn't reminiscent of a monster truck?  Just imagine how many regular bikes you could stomp crush on one of these.  This one is more of the swamp buggy edition.  Taller, skinnier, geared down.  I went down to the (supposed) phat (fat?) bike demo that was said to be going on a couple weeks ago just as a nice fresh first layer of snow was falling and you know what I saw....myself and my two friends riding our bikes in the freshly falling snow.  I looked around and saw a 26,  a 29, and a 24er.  It was phat.  I guess you have to drive those bikes around in a phat van.  Well, when you have a monster truck you have no excuse.  I was kind of thinking that doing one in a BigFoot theme would be pretty cool....any takers?

Slow Roll Out

I know, I know, everyone is asking me where the Kramp-Stache is...I know its taking a long time.  But thinking about it this past week while picking up a chain at the shop, of course its a slow roll out....its a SLOW BIKE.  It would be completely confused if its creation was anything but slow.  Not all aspects of this wore nicely on my patience however.  I'm not a fan of the Rabbit hole rims for instance.  They were nothing but a pain to build and I pretty much scrapped all visual readout on the truing stand and "tuned" these wheels like any self respecting bass player:  to themselves by plucking the spokes and adjusting tension according to sound.  The only measurement holding any meaning to me otherwise was the dish of the wheel, as the traditional methods of adjusting the wheel to true and round only seemed to cause greater problems elsewhere once the nipples were turned.  I even busted out the guitar tuner to see if it would pick up the frequencies of the spokes resonating trough my stand and dining room table (yeah, we're classy around here).  It seemed promising at first, but I later came to find that it was reading that frequency its showing in the picture regardless of whether I was plucking the spokes.  I guess that's what you get from some POS you found at a hobo camp in the woods.  Maybe it was picking up on my frustrations with the wheel build that lasted longer than any other.  Progress was made.....slowly.

Spy Shots

Well life certainly hasn't ceased over here at Moustache Cycles, though the production time of the most recent project did take some months.  There have been a number of other projects and journeys going on in my world from carpentry to solar arrangements along with two trips back east with another one on the horizon....I just downloaded the camera and the pictures of this project that's wrapping up date back to July when parts were being amassed.  Kramp-Stache.  This one takes advantage of all my offerings, though the complete package is not pictured here.  It was so demanding of my brain power and energy that I skipped out on taking pictures of all but the new processes and products....so here's a sneak peak of what's coming.  I'm pretty excited about it....no, I'm really excited about it as it exhibits a number of ideas I've wanted to bring about for....well...since I started doing this.

rigging, jigging, digging

bonus points if you can tell me what you're seeing above

(yes its a crown race seat, but why isn't it normal)

Brazage

Thrift

Steel rests on Steel rests on Steel

Kool-Aid

With all the influx of over-hyped, over-marketed bikes coming to the magazines and shop floors these days, I started to think about what ol' Jim Jones would do.  He'd brew up some of his own Kool-Aid for y'all to drink.  So here you go, a swift whipping backlash to everything cool in the market right now, brewed up by all your favorite Flagstaff retro-fanatics to look like a cooler full of your favorite corn-syrup infused flavors.  Its the Cosmic Coc-Stache 24er.  And its Kooler than you could imagine.

What's hiding under that thick layer of Iron Horse candy are NOS Tange Prestige Ultimate ribbed top and down tubes circa ~1993, a pair of genuine Coconino seat stays fabbed by Mr. Garro himself, hand ground (by me) drop-outs and seat tube sleeve, and chainstays formed in house.  The powder coat is quite heavy and mostly hides the ribbing of the tubes until you get real close; even then it leaves you wondering what's going on.

The brakes are fully machined Hope Hydraulic breast cancer edition brakes that were once anodized pink and still feature flower etchings throughout...the rotors are just the beginning of their finish work.

Hand ground dropouts and disc tabs front and rear hold the polished Paul 36 hole hubs, laced to Velocity Aeroheats by Mr. Heinchez of Cosmic Cycles.  Schwalbe Table Tops provide the traction, and a Profile three piece crank (nobody does retro-backlash like Profile) links power to the wheels.

Those are no-file fillets on all the main tube and stay junctions while the fork, bars and dropouts got the full polish. 

 

Moustache Angry Mantis bars with 4.5" of rise mated to an extra tall head tube locate the hands somewhere between sprint and comfortable cruise position.  They are gripped with a Thomson BMX (alien) stem.  The seatpost is a Thomson as well and WTB (of course) provides the contact points.

 

Shred Bear approves of his drink flavors as he launches down the underpass artwork and across the drainage ditch en-route to the thirty-onesy birthday luau.  You can see and maybe even ride the Kool-Aid 24er at Cosmic Cycles as it will mostly live there for the enjoyment of the masses. 

Sorry for the blog-tastic absence of late, more to come soon, I promise!

Secret Projects

These gems showed up in the mail yesterday thanks to Martin over at Second Spin Cycles.  They will be used in an upcoming build that will shirley make your mouths water as heavily as the rain we have been getting here this July.

We'll speak more of this in the future!