Show us your bicycle.

last few and then I'd better go do something productive.

can you tell that I like the bikes more for the people behind them than the bikes themselves?

Steve Potts. Nicest guy on the planet. Wicked smart. Good at everything. I've owned two of his bikes in the past and wish I still had them.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/46195580@N03/6283409126/" title="moo-otts 001 by Black Mountain Cycles, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6046/6283409126_44c406caaa_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="moo-otts 001"></a>

Rody of Groovy. Formerly with Grove Innovations. Also crazy smart, creative and extremely capable. He works harder than anyone I've ever met. Full time fire fighter, race organizer and frame builder.

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrellparks/4399799855/" title="NAHBS Groovy 1_s by Darrell Parks, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4020/4399799855_c021c819f9_z.jpg?zz=1" width="640" height="453" alt="NAHBS Groovy 1_s"></a>

NOT like i will ever have the money to buy one, but i will only buy steel from him, I rode one of the Orange ones (don't remember the name) the one with the internally reinforce (connect it) down tube and I like it very much (6.2" 235pounds)

you sir, would have an empty bottle of scotch in no time at all.

Yeah I meet Steve a few times he is so chill, but you can tell his brain is going a million miles a hour..

I also like Joe Breeze very much, such a cool nice warm guy

I have never seeing one in person but I have seeing a few over the net, no idea he work so much..

I really enjoy old school hand painted bikes, well new school to I guess..

I love them. Built in my home town of Geelong in Victoria. My dad did a factory tour about 2 months ago and loved it.

I've always been curious...I've always had the impression that much of this stuff is craft-oriented. Is it pretty much left up to the fabricator to figure out by experience/experiment the specifics about weld strength, rigidity, ride quality, etc, based on what their collective skills/techniques can accomplish? How much effort is made to try to estimate/engineer it first? Or even afterwards?

It's pretty much "let's try it and have someone put it through its paces," right?

agreed. i'm still hoping to find that exception.
i don't mind the fact that i might chew through them faster than what i'm used to with what i'd been using, i just don't like the places they leave me when they fail.

yeah, but the last one i had is long gone, after a good long hard service.

dang, Andrew; almost your size, too.

possibly too tall, even for you?

i liked Pegorettis paint (almost as much as Land Sharks), but got kinda' turned off by them in general when i saw one in a local builders shop without paint on it; some of the things that were done to make the lugs "pretty" just seemed cheesy to me.

Jones!



I was just measuring out cables last week.

It is and it isn't. Most people who build with steel usually use a variety of existing butted tubes for the main triangle and existing tapered, swaged and formed tubes for the back end. The options in wall thickness, diameter, length, butt profiles and alloys is staggering BUT not much has changed for many years so there's a decent record of what works and what doesn't in many circumstances.

Occasionally there's a game changing technological advancement (disc brakes, suspension and then 29ers with suspension) that makes everyone have to recalibrate tube diameters and wall thicknesses in certain applications but generally there's not much being done from an engineering standpoint in the small shops because they're really not building anything all that unique.

There's not really much failure analysis amongst small builders either, partly because we generally can't afford it, partly because it's usually obvious why a failure occurred by the mode of failure. In seven years of business, I've had two and was able to figure them both out within minutes. Had I not, I have a good friend and customer who designs parts for scanning electron microscopes and other similar equipment who has volunteered to do testing if I need it.

It's not quite the wild west out there.

All these awesome Ti frames and bars. Here's mine from my ride up to the dam this morning. A mass-produced LeMond, but then beggars can't afford to be choosers.

My new ML-7 almost complete..


I don't really like the mate black anodizing, so I may painted in the near future.


Pretty aluminum bolts just for bling.

Pretty cool Ricardo. Can you still get seal kits for that fork?

Salsa Mukluk by a sad pier.


--Donnie

Oh yeah Enduro makes the wipers or you can still get the OEM and the inside orings and seals can be purchase from industrial suppyers or Ethan the guy that still tunes the Mavericks..

So far the 3 forks I have are trouble free, I really like the design and riding quality, specially from the dual triple crown like the one on the new bike..

Who will dear to blast such a pretty paintjob...??

What is sad the hear, from looking at them, they appear to be really well made

hi Ricky!

i wasn't putting down Darios paint; i think it looks like he has a lot of fun with his paint, and i really like some of it.

what i didn't like was seeing how some of what looked like long-point lugs on a frame i was looking at were really just much more standard lugs with long lug tips added for purely cosmetic purposes; seemed like cheating to me.

i hope things are going well for you there; we miss you here!


cheers!

I would say it's close to the same vintage, too. Although I bet mine preceades it by a couple years. Ahead of it's time?