Monday Morning Crush: Titanium Planet Cross

Monday morning... As the coffee settles into my bloodstream and the bleary world comes into focus I have a vision. A vision of a bad-ass shotpeened titanium cyclocross bike!
Decked out with a SRAM Rival gruppo, Chris King headset and some handbuilt wheels with Chris King hubs and Mavic OpenPro hoops.
The stock hoods were replaced with some green Hudz.
Top tube cable routing is key for cyclocross bikes, it keeps all of the cables and cable stops out of the way when shouldering the bike.
A close look at the shotpeened surface reveals some sweet welds.

On this bike we used some dual-purpose dropouts called "High School Dropouts". They make it so you can run the bike as a singlespeed or with gears.
And, once again, it's topped off with some sterling silver up on the grill.

Weekend Crush: Contrasto XS

Shipping out today is an XS with painted titanium lugs (2008 special color Tokyo Pearl), clearcoated carbon fiber (made exclusively for us by EDGE Composites) and white script decals. The black and white motif is really timeless and sets off the lug design quite well.

The carbon fiber EDGE 2.0 fork has a black painted-in crown wrap on each blade.



Each titanium lug is laser cut by our pals at LaserServices. The carbon fiber tubing and rear monostay are both made to our specifications by EDGE Composites.

We take the lug parts and cut them, one at a time, to fit together. We then TIG weld them together, creating a completely custom lug. After welding all of the lugs together the parts are sent out to the Metal Improvement, our shotpeening facility. Upon receiving the lugs back from "The Peeners" (as we lovingly refer to them) we set up our frame jig and bond the lugs to the carbon fiber tubing and monostay. At this point they look like this:

The frame then goes to the paint department where the luscious paint gets sprayed...



The final touch.... 1.1oz of sterling silver.

Neon Williams: 03

Neon Williams finished our sign the other day!
It really looks fantastic, the attention to detail and overall quality of their work is outstanding.
There is a strong sense of pride that you get when you see your name in lights.


Thanks Neon Williams crew, you rock!

Harlan's Bike from Worlds

Harlan Price, Indy Fab's pro superhero endurance racer recently had his bike all juiced up for his race at the Marathon World Championships in Graz, Austria.
To read more about how he dialed in his ride check out his blog post.
Harlan (pictured with team mate Heather Holmes) made us proud, representing I.F. and the USA!

Harlan.... You're a shredder!

Tuesday Morning Vises

That's right.... vises. They are all the rage around here. We've got them all over the place. New ones, old ones, burly ones and meager ones.
Vices that can do the rough stuff...
...and vices that do precise stuff...







Jim heard that I was running around taking pictures of our vises and he said "Get a shot of mine!"... of course he thought I meant vices...

Jim is on the road right now on his way to a new life in Seattle. We will miss his humor and hard work around here. I think we may have to do a little retrospective on him now that he's gone...

Monday Morning Commute: Mass Ave Bridge

Riding over the Mass Ave bridge this morning on the way to Somerville from Boston I came upon a city on the edge of a fog bank. The skyscrapers of downtown were all shrouded in a thick fog.
A small break in the clouds revealed the golden dome of the statehouse. The surrounding Beacon Hill neighborhood was also catching some heavenly rays.
The Charles River was like glass, reflecting the stillness of the air.
Riding over the Mass Ave bridge in the morning and at on the way home at night is often really beautiful, sunrise on one side, sunset on the other. Riding a bike makes it that much more enjoyable, less like a witness and more like a participant.

Titanium Cyclocross: Binary Grid Duo

Weekend special crush(s): a pair of titanium cross frames that are shipping out today.

These frames have each received a full Gloss Black paint job featuring Sprout Green (2009 color) grid panels, a coded binary top tube and white script decals.

If you are at all familiar with the masking process used during painting then you can appreciate the intensity of these treatments....

The binary code on the top tube translates into words but is a secret.... We are not at liberty to divulge such things.

Look for these bikes this fall at the cross races... If you see one of them yell: "SHOW ME THE GRID!!!"

They weigh in at 3lbs 4oz each.

SHOW ME THE GRID!!!

Stainless Steel Hampsten: XCr

Some of you know that we build some fine frame sets for Hampsten Cycles. For those of you that didn't.... now you do. We build their TIG welded steel bikes. The bike featured here is a stainless steel road bike built using the Columbus XCr tubeset.
The frame includes an EDGE 2.0 all carbon fork, painted to match.
There is just something so luscious about a red paint job.
The clear coat is so smooth that the frame looks wet.

The exposed stainless banding around the seat tube panel looks awesome... expect to see more of this.
We are boxing it up and shipping it out to Steve Hampsten to complete the build for some lucky rider. This is going to one hot bike when it's completed.