Framebuilding Wrap-Up

March 2, 2010 in By Bike | 3 comments

To avoid an overdose of esoteric information, I’ll wrap up the framebuilding review by posting two pictures:

1. Finished frame! Here you see a very tired me mustering up a smile to celebrate the completion of the frame & fork. This was the end of working over 13 hours straight (OK, I probably took 10 minutes for lunch). In any case it was exhausting!

2. Three frames! This shot is really interesting because it shows the affect of body measurements on frame geometry. We designed each frame to blend three elements: fitting the the person building it, accommodating the kind of riding they planned to do, and adding stylistic elements to reflect aesthetic preferences.

The result is three very different frame/fork combos. I built a lugged sport-touring frame, Josh built a fillet-brazed “go-fast” bike, and Daniel built a lugged frame designed for a unique wheel size (650b) and low-riding front panniers.

I really enjoyed learning this craft, and am committed to doing more building now that I’m back on my own turf. I think that the absence of available classic, beautifully designed city bikes and touring bikes isn’t a sign that there is no public desire. Instead, I think mass manufacturing has basically inverted the signal-to-noise ratio of cycling aesthetics. We get bling, unnecessary obsessions over lightness on bikes in every category, excessive and crass branding, and a glut of racing and mountain bikes instead of comfortable, useful and attractive bikes for regular folks. Hopefully I can contribute to shifting this.

In other news, Green-Up assembled a small team to run in the YMCA’s 5k fundraiser race. I jumped in on the fun and somehow came first in my age category!

  1. Tony Hicks on April 6, 2010 at 2:18 am

    You’re killin’ me with your frame building antics! I just finished looking at the gorgeous lug work on your new frame and am now dying of envy. I’m sort of reading your blog all out of order and so may have missed this — but I don’t see a link to the frame building course anywhere. And did you have any welding experience prior to this?

    Reply

    1. Clifford on April 6, 2010 at 9:26 am

      Hey, Tony. Thanks for the enthusiasm!
      I’m going to continue blogging about framebuilding on readbutnotsaid.com so it doesn’t overwhelm this blog. I’ll also update this post with a list of the posts I made while taking the course so you can read it in order.
      Going into the course, I had a bit of MIG experience + lots of hands-on labour experience + a decent understanding of bike design and mechanics. To go and do this course, the most important skill, in my opinion, is having had hands-on experience building with raw materials – knowing intuitively how things react to force, how to cut things, how to measure, etc. After that, knowledge about bikes and bike design is pretty important. Welding is probably the least important skill to have on entry because – in my work with Doug, at least – you are learning from a master & it’s good to start with a blank canvas!

      Reply

      1. Clifford on April 6, 2010 at 9:36 am

        Re: no link to the course,
        Doug doesn’t have a website – he says he gets enough inquiries & is backlogged enough already that adding a website would make his administrative life untenable.