RAID Rockingham :: Race or Ride?

It's probably not much of a stretch to say that most of you here love and ride bicycles, or else you wouldn't be reading this.

So my question for the day is how do you ride your bicycles?  There's a wide range of sanctioned races in just about any locale if you're inclined to pin on a number and fire your pedals competitively, and the last several decades have seen a wave of charity rides sprout up to benefit just about anything.  But what about the person that just wants to go out and ride harder than the costumed enthusiasts riding to save/prevent/find-a-cure for whatever, but doesn't want to bump elbows and bars (and jeopardize their ability to be at work on Monday) at the local town center crit for bragging rights and a chance for the coveted gift certificate to Big Bill's Bowlarama?

Queue the rise of Grand Fondos, Cycle Sportives, unsanctioned races like the Rapha Gentlemen's Races, or as some like to call them, organized challenge rides. Grand Fondos and Cycle Sportives have been popular in Europe for some time now, and like most Euro cycling things, have belatedly made their way to our shores with events like next weekend's Grand Fondo New York, and Levi Leipheimer's Grand Fondo.

In our neck of the woods we've had the Deerfield to Deerfield Dirt Road Randonnee, which splits the difference between being an organized challenge ride and a charity ride (e.g., it's really frickin hard, and it benefits the Franklin County Land Trust, a group that works to protect much of the land that the ride traverses). D2R2 as it is called, is a can't miss event on our calendars, but it is not until August, so what do we do?

Well, our good friends down the hallway at Loco Sports organize and promote just about every road running event in the general area that is worth attending, so we partnered with them to create a local challenge ride, the RAID Rockingham on June 17th.  Is it a race? If you want it to be, then you can feel free to ride against the clock. Will it be fun? Well, there's beer, bikes, and bike swag involved, so... yeah, kind of hard for it not to be.

The route is short enough at approximately 45 miles, but challenging enough for you to leave plenty on the course. We roll out in the morning, so you'll still have the balance of the day to spend on other activities, or better yet, join us for the after party featuring Smuttynose Beer, good food, and lots of swag to give away.

The course is a mix of our favorite packed gravel and paved roads, so a cyclocross bike or a road bike fitted with larger tires is the perfect ride. Don't have a CX bike or a road bike that can take 28's? No worries, we're offering 10% off any Ridley CX bike at our shop, The Bike Factory NH, with your Raid Rockingham registration.

So... sign up, ride hard, drink some beer, tour our shop, and generally have a great time. We'd be honored to show you our local roads and secret stash of packed gravel.

Cheers,

G

Get Your Shiny On :: SSR's

We've been doing stainless steel road bikes for over 5 years now, and they just keep getting better. At NAHBS we introduced a new tube-set option for our SSR utilizing Columbus' bi-ovalized MAX tooling. All of our available MAX tube sets were quickly sold, but if you didn't get yours, worry not, we've got more on order.

On Friday we saw a couple of SSR's go out the door that looked fantastic, and thus worthy of sharing. I posted them on our Facebook page, and Tweeted them, but just in case you don't go there, here are a few photo montages. Feel free to weave the word montage into some cocktail chatter this weekend, it will lend an air of international sophistication to the conversation. However, if the company doesn't lend itself to such displays, just say mash-up instead to lend yourself an air of hipsterish casual indifference.

First up is a red with white panel beauty. This is an SSR MAX. Look closely and you'll see the ovalized top and down tubes.

The other unique thing about this frame is the naked stainless showing through the logos. This is not an easy effect to affect, but Chris and Phil managed to perfect it after our man in Japan, Daisuke Yano, requested it for one of his customers a few months back (see below).

The other SSR that left us on Friday was this Dove Gray and Omaha Orange beauty. I'm going out on a limb and saying that gray and orange is the new hot bike combo, or color-way if you really want that air of international sophistication (spell colour with a "u" and you'll be all the way to bright).

PF30 BB shell, and an Enve fork custom painted to match help to make this frame-set a light and stiff machine while retaining the intrinsic sweet ride of steel.

All of the shiny made me pull out my SSR yesterday, and I'm going out on it again today. Here's to getting your shiny on.

Cheers,

G

Spring :: Sprung Saddles

Spring must officially be here. We've been busy, and folks are anxious to get out on their bikes.  A couple of recent builds stand out, and we've got some exciting events on the calendar

First up is a red and black steel Club Racer. The client wanted a classic steel ride, and the ability to run larger tires. The interest in running larger tires has increased a lot lately. The growth in dirt road riding seems to be driving demand, but also the realization that a bigger tire not only increases comfort, but the larger contact patch actually leads to lower rolling resistance (I know, it's counter intuitive, but look it up).

We were given a bit of creative license on this one, as long as we made it black with red accents.

We get to do lots of exotic builds with top of the line parts, but there is just something satisfying about doing a versatile steel machine with solid components. SRAM's Rival group is great value for money, and their WiFLi system allows you to run up to a 32 tooth cog, which when combined with a compact front crank gets you pretty close to a 1:1 gear ratio... perfect for long and steep gravel climbs.

A classic Brooks B17 provides the perfect perch to grind out the miles.

Another recent build is a bit more challenging to describe since it falls into the "adventure by bike" category. The client is an intrepid world traveler, often finding herself in less developed parts of the globe, so she wanted something extremely robust and very discreet in terms of branding and aesthetic.

If there was a HUMVEE of bicycles, this is it. Rohloff 14 speed internal hub for a virtually maintenance free drivetrain, heavy duty racks for loaded panniers, three bottle mounts, ergonomic grips, pedals and saddle for all day, day-after-day, comfort. The saddle even incorporates vents to provide air in strategic places.

Look closely and you'll notice that there is no paint on this frame-set. The client asked for naked steel, which is a real challenge because you can't simply spray clear coat over bare steel and expect it to hold up. Our normal paint process is a minimum of three stages; 1) a primer that chemically etches into the bare metal, 2) a base coat that carries the color, and 3) a top coat of clear to protect and shine. 

In order to have the bare steel show through, we had to find a clear epoxy primer that would chemically bond with the base metal, and then spray standard clear coat on top of that.

A White Industries crank transfers power to the Rohloff hub, mated to Velocity rims built by Cycle Monkey.

A bulletproof Phil Wood hub handles the duty up front.

The Selle Italia Respiro saddle features a ram air intake under the nose which vents through the center of the saddle, keeping everything cool.  The air suspension bladders look like something you'd find in a high tech running shoe.

Ergon grips and bar ends provide lots of flexibility for hand positions over varied terrain and long days in the saddle.

I'm sure that this bike will see it's owner through many miles of epic adventure.

If you are up for an epic adventure of your own, or at least a mini epic, mark June 17th in your calendar to join us for the inaugural edition of RAID Rockingham. Put on by Loco Sports, RAID Rockingham is a challenging ride that begins and ends at our HQ and takes you through some of our most scenic paved and packed gravel local roads. At just under 50 miles, it is challenging enough, but will leave you with enough in the tank, or at least enough taken out of it, to enjoy Smuttynose beer, tasty food, and lots of great bike swag at the after party.

Online registration is open until June 13th, and we hope to see you then.

Lastly, Rapha's new mobile cycle club, Hennie, will be joining us for a visit on June 21st.  Come on out and grab an espresso and check out their latest cycling apparel and gear.

Cheers,

G

NAHBS 2012 :: Follow-up

NAHBS 2012 is in the books.  Spring is teasing us with nice weather, and it seems like everyone in our corner of the world is waking up from hibernation and starting to think about getting back on their bikes.

Sacramento was a great host city, and the crowds were big and enthusiastic throughout the three day weekend.  For those of you who could not make it to the show, here are some shots of each of the bikes that we presented.

First up is the SSR MAX Special Edition.  This is a limited version of our race proven Stainless Steel Road (SSR) frame set, built with a Columbus XCR tube set drawn on their legendary MAX tooling.

The main difference is the bi-ovalized top and down tubes which increase the frames overall stiffness.

The shapes of the tubes are subtle, but if you look carefully, you can see it at the tube junctions. 

In a nod to the frames Italian tubing and racing purpose, we modified the paint scheme from the new Fiat 500 Abarth series.

Nick Legan from VeloNews called the SSR MAX one of his "Best of Show" here.  He rightfully points out that with all of the ornate bikes on display it was easy to walk by pure race bikes like this one.  That's OK by us.

Next up is something a little different; a single speed steel townie.

I like to show something each year that is not a designated model in our line up, and this one started out as an homage to early 20th century board track racers and morphed into a more practical run-about for around town errands.  Starting from this 1914 Indian board track racer you can see where our aesthetic inspiration came from.

Special thanks to Matt at Pass and Stow for the awesome rack.  We got this one naked and painted it to match.  You can't hide your quality when you ship something unfinished, and Matt's work is stellar.

I'm a bit of a parts pack rat, always acquiring and saving things for the right build.  A few years back Cane Creek did a limited run of titanium head sets with walnut inlays.  This bike seemed like the perfect place to use one.

I've also had this Rolls saddle in my stash for a few years now, and it was perfect for this project.

Another nice little accessory that I picked up at Frostbike from my pal Michael at Knog are these gem-like lights.  They are part of Knog's new Blinder series and they come in a range of anodized colors.  They are rechargeable through a pop out USB stick and use ultra bright LED's.

Rather than simply use gold paint for the logos, we had been experimenting with DIY gold leaf kits purchased from the craft store, with mixed results.  About a week before the show, I was chatting with a BaileyWorks customer at the bar while he was waiting for his bag to be customized and he mentioned that his studio was in the same building as the carpenter that built our bar, so I asked him what he did.

He said that he was a master gilder and did lots of work restoring old picture frames along with architectural gilding.  I think I surprised him when my eyes lit up and I asked him if he would take a walk out back to our bike factory and look at something.

We showed him the test piece that we had done with the home hobby kit, and he offered to come back the next day with the proper materials and tools to give us a seminar.  Talk about serendipity.

Ron Tuveson is a true master craftsman in the old school manner, and he was incredibly generous with his time and knowledge.

That's real 24 carat gold leaf.  Nothing shines on your coffee tumbler quite the same.

Keep your eyes out for this bike featured in an upcoming issue of Monocle Magazine.

Next up is another pure race machine, a disc brake equipped Ti Factory Lightweight cyclocross bike.  This was the only bike that we brought that wasn't built for a customer, so if you are a medium sized rider, give us a shout...

This bike is all business, featuring Shimano's new cross specific mini group, which includes a cross specific crank set, a top pull front der (eliminates the pulley on the back of the seat tube), and a set of canti's which we obviously did not use, instead going with Hayes new cross specific CX5 mechanical disc brakes.

Our Ti FLW series all feature an integrated carbon seat tube which passes through the seat tube cluster and forms the basis of our integrated seat post.  The ti topper that we fabricate allows for 2.5 centimeters of upward adjustment, and has proven to be very robust and features details like single bolt saddle adjustment and our crown machined into the clamp.

PRO's Vibe Series bar and stem keeps a firm grip on everything. Cyclocross Magazine's Andrew Yee did a video interview about this bike from the show floor.

Another off-road machine that we brought with us was the "fishing bike".  So named because the customer wanted an all-terrain machine that could take him to the deepest, most secret fishing holes.

This steel 29'r defies categorization.  All throughout the weekend folks kept asking what it was, so I just simply call it an adventure bike.

The drop bars and bar end shifters seem to throw most folks, not sure whether it is some sort of "monster cross" bike.  I like the notion of adventure bike.  A bike that takes you where you want to go with some measure of comfort.

A custom BaileyWorks front rack bag with a built in window for the customer's fishing license.  He'll add a rear rack and a possible cooler and fish creel, so we'll try to get photos and share them later.

The logos are ghosted into the frame, and are very subtle when not in direct sunlight. Given the amount of flake and the bass boat finish on the bottom half of the frame, this thing just explodes with color and brilliance in bright natural sun.

Shades of blue, green, and purple shift in and out of the bottom fade, not unlike the belly of a freshly caught trout.

Last but not least is a ti Deluxe 29'r built for a special lady friend.  The inspiration for this paint scheme came from a freshly cut cantaloup. I just love the way the bright green of the rind gives way to orange yellows and then that sort of pink color that is really hard to describe.

Everything on this bike, from the fork, to the wheels, to the bar, stem and post, was painstakingly finished to match the theme of moving through a garden of vines.

I can remember when mountain bikes were bright and bold colors. I still have a late 80's Marin with a purple to hot lime fade. It's so much fun just looking at them...you have to smile.  It was a blast to watch people's faces when they saw this bike on the floor. Everyone just smiled, and that's what it should be about.

So if you're on the trail and this pinkish/orangish blur passes you, don't be bummed, just smile!

We did have one other bike in our booth, and that was the ti Duluxe single speed of our local Grassroots Racing Team member Ron Shevock.  Unfortunately I don't have pictures to share, but it was draped with a number of medals that Ron has won this past season, and it showed what an IF looks like when subjected to its true calling.

A big shout out to Ron for taking so much of his weekend to help us out and speak to so many show goers.

We will be displaying a number of these bikes in our showroom, The Bike Factory NH, so swing by 55 Main Street in Newmarket for our own little mini NAHBS.

Cheers,

G