Friday, September 18, 2009

XS :: Angus

Another fully built bike! This gives us the opportunity to show it off. There is nothing like a completed bike, fresh from the work stand.

It's always nice to see that the bike is not viewed as just a vehicle to hang random parts on, but is approached as an entire package.

Each part is selected, not just for its performance value, but also its aesthetics. Dashes of color here and there add small interesting focal points that draw the eye around the canvas of the completed bike.
The subtle attention to details are what make the builds so exquisite. From the wrapping of the handlebars to the final positioning and tuning of each of the parts, each moment of the build is approached in an almost formal way, blending traditional build etiquette with new high tech parts.
To go into all of the subtleties of what makes Justin's builds so pro would take forever, so I decided to focus on one aspect: cable routing.

Starting at the lever, each cable is cut to the right length and routed in a way to minimize cable drag.
Following the derailleur cables you will notice that the placement of the logos, in this case Dura Ace, is visible just above the adjustment barrel. This is the proper way to do it, recognized through the ages as one of the signatures of a pro build.

The adjustment barrels are also set so that there is room to adjust for future cable stretch.

In some cases crossing cables makes for more efficient routing between the handlebars and the adjustment barrels.



Double crimping on all of the cable ends, it's sort of like officially signing off on the routing of each cable.








When the build is completed the customer recieves a bike that is race ready, with no immediate adjustments nessasary.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

J O I N , o r D I E

Interbike, the largest bicycle trade show in the USA, is coming up next week.
Although we won't have a booth there, we will have a few bikes on display in some of our friends booths.
Keep an eye out for some special projects in the Whipperman booth, the EDGE booth and Cane Creek's booth.

Just wait 'till you see what we come up with this time!
Oh yeah.... there is gonna be a little shin-dig after Cross Vegas....

Friday, September 11, 2009

Corvid: Dura Ace Build

Yesterday we built up a Corvid for one of our customers.

A fantastic build consisting of a full Dura Ace gruppo and some handbuilt wheels.

As shown the bike came in at 16lbs, including water bottles, cages and pedals.

This frame has unidirectional tubing paired with lugs featuring a carbon fiber weave.

The headset is the all new Cane Creek Inset headset.


Above is the all new Corvid seat collar in black anodized aluminum.


The customer chose a pmp seatpost to pimp out the saddle.


The Corvid comes ready to accept the new bottom bracket standard, the BB30. Shimano has not made a specific BB30 bottom bracket yet but does make adapters, pictured above.

Also, a little bling with the Parlee all carbon front derailleur clamp.

The rear derailleur mounts to the two-piece titanium dropouts with ease.

The hand built wheels round out this high performance machine.

Look for more complete builds coming soon.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

A Murder of Corvids: Three-Way Crush

One for each day of the long weekend.
Fully custom geometry, tubeset and lugs. Those are two part titanium dropouts as well...
Sterling silver headbadge.
Factory installed inset headset.
BB30 type bottom bracket...
Ka-blammo! See you next week!

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Prototype Seat Collar

Our prototype seat collar arrived today from DKG. This is an all new design specifically for our Corvid all carbon frame. Dave over at DKG also sent us a video of him machining it:





Pretty sweet! We are going to make a couple of small changes but it is looking really good. We can't wait to see the final ones. They will be black anodized.