So Close April 11 2012, 0 Comments
Heading off for powder tomorrow...
Thank you all at Zen for making my ideas into a reality, looking forward to a good year.
I am sure many of you, but maybe not all, who are readers here are likely familiar with
Bicycle Quarterly, and the strong bias towards traditional French bicycles that they profess. BQ is one of the few sources of well thought information on bicycles outside of mainstream modern racing. If you have not yet heard of them, it is a worthwhile read. The Spring 2012 issue hit my mailbox yesterday. Every time I promise myself to read at a decent pace, and stretch it out for a couple of weeks. As usual I ended up reading about 90% of it last night.
This issue had some decent coverage and insights on the issues surrounding bike design for taller and shorter riders. This has always been an issue for me in trying to interpolate Jan's reviews and comments into something that applies for the bikes in our household. Jan is around 6 foot tall and 160 lbs, and represents the average rider/part-time racer's slim build. I am 6'3" and my wife is 5'4", both of average build and are at the opposite ends of the size range. Over years of riding and research I have been able to take the data from the averages and work out bicycles that perform quite well for her and I. This led to helping friends outside the averages get on bikes that suited their every day needs as well. This bank of experience led to my design of the Rambler line. There are many ways to get things to work on the smaller and larger sizes of bikes, some better than others.
The smaller bikes, sizes 56 and below, are designed to use the 650B wheel size. This wheel has a diameter between that of the common MTB tires and 700c road bikes. This leaves room to maintain a decent reach to the bars without making horrible compromises in the frame geometry. The front end maintains the desired handling characteristics without having toe-clip overlap. Toe-clip overlap is an occurrence at low-speed where the foot on the pedal and the front wheel can collide at the extreme turning points. These extremes do not often occur, but when they do, it can take the rider and bike to the ground. This possibility has been designed out of the bike. Another aspect of the design is Seat tube angle. I have kept it such that the seat will easily be set far enough back with commonly available components to keep the rider comfortable. Balancing all three of these parameters results in a bike that will comfortably fit the riders on the smaller side of average, allowing for the use of normal components to build a bike with either drop or upright handle bars. I think those familiar with the challenges of fitting smaller bikes will appreciate this design.
The larger sizes do not have the same space constraints with wheel size that the smaller bikes do. They have plenty of room for large 700c tires. These will offer the space for larger (up to 42mm) tires and fenders, that with a bit more rotating weight, will offer the gyroscopic stability that a larger rider may seek. This will be balanced with the front end geometry and long rear stays to flesh out a comfortable and stable bike. The challenge in taking the design above the averages is managing the flexibility of the frame, striking a balance between stability and the optimum resilience of the tubes. This is managed through steel tubing specification itself, and I have struck what I feel is a good balance for a rider and load total weight between 180 and 230 lbs.
The whole line is biased towards carrying a modest load on the front of the bike. This is so your every day necessities can be at hand without having to dismount and search around in a bag behind the saddle. Likewise you can keep an eye on your stuff. This style of loading requires subtle changes in the design of the bike that move away from the commonly available racing geometries of today's mass market offerings. Ironically these changes, while accommodating the loading, result in a well-mannered bike with or without a load aside from the rider.
My designs throughout the size spectrum are confirmed by the reports in the issue of Bicycle Quarterly. Both the historical accounts well as reviews of recent interpretations covered in this issue, confirm my design philosophy and decisions. While I have complete confidence in my designs it was reassuring to have many of the aspects of my design affirmed in print. A big thank you to Jan Hine for his pas, current and future efforts with this publication.
Pictures hit my inbox this morning of the forks in progress, thank you David.
Things are starting to build speed and momentum as we move through the prototyping. The braze-ons and main frame fabrication should be through tack up this week. I will be in Portland towards the end of the week for inspection, and to help work out any bugs so that we can hit this with one pass on the samples.
I am looking forward to the trip in many ways. I will be meting many of the people face to face who have only been email and phone calls, I get to see "my" designs in progress and it will be my first of many trips to Portland in the coming years.
You may have also noted the not so subtle shift in the name from Masu to Rambler, there is a bit of final work on the issue, but it looks to be the way things are heading as we close in on the final product.
While signing up for the Philly Bike Expo earlier this week the question came up if I was a "Builder"? My first answer was no, "Designer" with an OEM contractor. Then I filled in the description a bit more with "Bag Maker". The thing is, it is hard to describe this in one simple phrase. Would I make the upcoming bikes if I had the means? I am pretty sure the answer is yes, but the tooling and equipment are out of reach and not feasible in our current space. For now I am a Designer with respect to the bikes.
On the bags I am designer, and maker at the moment. Maybe that makes me a bag and wallet builder? That is an issue of semantics. For now I wear all three hats.
The bottom line is that I know what I like, the way I want particular things to be and perform. This may sound selfish, but I love to make things. I get an idea in my head, work it out on paper, and often take it into the workshop to bring it into reality. Today's example is a couple of revisions to the Makr style touring wallet. Based on feedback from the first round, the design was revised into a wallet with more pockets and a version that can hold a boat load of cards for a trade show (NAHBS is this weekend). Two completely different wallets, and what was an item is becoming a line.
The wallet is going to a friend who will run it through the paces. The card holder is for me. The exercise helped fuel my creative energy to complete more complex designs, like the handlebar bag I have in the works. Likewise it is a release so that I can better focus on the business side of things the rest of the day without the distraction of pent up designs floating around in my head.
I know how to design things so that they can be made over and over, in the hopes that more people than myself agree with my line of thinking and want one of my designs for themselves. My qualifications stem from a 35 or so years of making things the way I want them, an engineering education, another 15 years of working in the post college world and a deep understanding of what I want things to be. It is my hope that as Ocean Air Cycles grows, you will have faith in the ability of my designs, and through use transform the faith into understanding and appreciation.
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Enough lofty thoughts, it is Leap Day, get out and ride. I can not imagine missing the unique opportunity, and having to admit that one did not ride a bike on Leap Day.
If you like the wallets, let me know. I can get you a custom soon, or in a bit will be producing them in small batches.
As mentioned above, NAHBS (Hand Built Bike Show), is this weekend in Sacramento. I am planning on being up there to walk the floor on Saturday. If you see me and feel inclined, it is always nice to meet readers in the wild, stop me and say Hi.
Commitment February 27 2012, 0 Comments
There is nothing like a monetary commitment, skin in the game, to keep you focused on the target. Aside from the myriad of bureaucratic and general business expenses there are the specific costs, engineering, prototypes, testing etc. Each new cost is another step to the center of the ring. Today I signed up for my first Expo,
Philly Bike Expo October 27 & 28 to be exact. The check is in the envelope and on the way, locked in, I need to get busy so I have something to show.
My post office rides seem to always fall on stormy days. Today is supposed to be a rain day according to the weather man, but it looks like a miss. I am not sure there is going to be any rain this year, the hills never turned green and things are all brown and crispy before spring has even shown up. It is going to be an interesting year in the coastal desert, where easy access to fresh water is often taken for granted.
It was good to get outside for a break though, and a quick trip to roll past the ocean.
As a side note, I am loving the new/old pedals. I need to get a deeper set of half clips fabbed up, but outside of that, they are sublime for riding around town, even in Birkenstocks.
Just for fun. Today was too nice outside not to go for a ride, not errands, just a ride for the sake of riding. A recent saddle acquisition motivates me to take out the Eisentraut. What a fun riding bike. The tire clearance is the only limitation that bike imposes, the rest is up to the motor. I have a set of vintage NOS Specialized Touring tires on it at the moment, labeled 32mm, but measure at 23mm. Not sure if it is the overstated tire size trend of the era, or dyslexia. For super skinny tires they ride pretty well.
I was out for a few hours, and about 30 miles before the wind came up too bad. I shot more video than pictures on this ride. Something else I will be teaching myself as part of the Ocean Air Cycles project. Some of it actually came out OK. I learned that video takes a different level of planning than pictures. Lots of scouting and thinking about timing and angles of view, and how to get it done solo. Next up is post production, I will see what is usable and hopefully have a short movie by next week.
I have spent over two-thirds of my life as a surfer, and never thought that life would get to busy to make time to get into the water. The last few years have proven that wrong in a big way. Looking back it is hard to figure out exactly what changed. The biggest thing with surfing is the need to be completely flexible in timing so that when the swell, wind, tide and free time all converge it becomes the obvious choice. It seems that finding that convergence, or making it happen, is harder than it used to be for some reason, even living about two blocks from the beach. At least there has been a bit of a replacement with the bike. I get the glide, and the benefit of transportation, and the convenience of the bike being there when I want. I still miss getting in the water.
Today the swell was good, really good, but the wind was howling, and the choice of getting out for a bit at lunch fell back to the bike, not a bad thing at all in the big picture.
Winter weather is coming soon. The roller coaster weather continues, it was hot and sunny all weekend, and the rain and snow are on their way back
Dark and gloomy for now, but at least it is dry.
It has been a long 10 days or so in the household. One of the widely known fringe benefits of childcare, the germs, hit hard. We have been adapting to the low level persisting cold bug over the last couple of months, but this one wiped us all out. Fevers all around, like dominoes we all had are turn, I even got my chance twice. We are all on the upswing now and finally am catching up on last week, getting this week going and working in a few surprise developments. I wrapped up the day with a trip to the post office,
Then it was off to get the munchikin, who brought the party home and was first to feel better.
We headed off to meet mommy at the beach before heading home.
Really a fantastic way to cap off the day. We are all looking forward to a more productive week.
Regular posting and bike news to follow.
Wiring port for internal routing of lighting wires. Crown mounted rack bosses. Tons of room around the Jack Brown 33mm tires. The Paul Racer brakes are so freaking awesome.
On a side note, I went with the SRAM brake levers on this build. After years of wrestling with Shimano and Tektro levers, these things practically set up themselves. The cables just floated through the routing ports without even having to twist, fiddle and hold a flashlight in your teeth to find the little hole. I really like these.
I am really stoked after a couple of quick rides. It is everything I expected. There will be a bit of refinement on things like bridge and boss locations, but only a few mm, nothing that makes you scratch you head and go back to the drawing board. The colors are fantastic. Today number 3 and 4 are on their way. Next build is No.3, then number 2. It is going to be a crazy weekend.
Stay tuned, way more pictures to come.
