Sometimes, you just have to pull a rabbit out of the hat and write a post. Sometimes. But not all the time. I had planned to write something about 29″ers and then just today saw a post that pretty much summed up what I was going to write. Also today, my copy of “Bicycle Retailer […]
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So many 29″ wheeled bikes look a bit awkward because trying to fit big wheels in smaller frames give the bike an unbalanced look. The wheel size overpowers the frame size and trying to keep the bars low enough is challenging. Well, this bike had no problems with that. It’s a huge frame that perfectly […]
Filed under: What's in the stand
I was just treated to a June 1 burst of rain for the past couple hours. The rain pattern has been disturbingly random the past week. Then there’s also the matter of the wind when it’s not raining. It’s hard enough to get out on the bike in the rain (so I haven’t), but when […]
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I’m trying to get various sizes of cross and road bikes built for folks to check out. Here’s a cross bike I put together. It represents a lower cost version of the #1 cross build kit with a few things changed like the seat, hubs, rims, brakes, cassette, tires… Still a very nice build, but […]
Filed under: Black Mountain Cycles frames
Put together two really nice mountain bikes this past week. Black and white. One old. One new. Both California. One SoCal. One NorCal. Both named after an animal. One sea living. One land living. The Yeti is a mid/late 80s F.R.O. I’ve never really got into Yeti during their early years when the Mountain Bike […]
Filed under: What's in the stand
Or whatever that phrase is supposed to mean. Black is the new black. It does seem that anti-freeze green is the new black this year. Whatever. It’s still ugly. What’s not ever ugly is a pink bike. Started in 1985 by Specialized with their Stumpjumper Team model, pink has always been a bike color that […]
Filed under: What's in the stand
What’s ahead of you? Mirrors and bicycles. Some folks can’t ride without a rear view mirror. I can’t drive a car without a rear view mirror. Probably spend as much time looking back as looking forward. Not because I’m worried about being caught speeding, because I keep my speed within that range that doesn’t get […]
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“Don’t ask me what I think of you I might not give you the answer that you want me to.” Oh wait, that’s a song lyric. What I meant to say is don’t ask me how much my bike weighs because I don’t know. I think I weighed it once, but promptly forgot. So it […]
Filed under: Black Mountain Cycles frames
There’s a nice review of the Black Mountain Cycles road (and cross) frameset available in the spring issue of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition’s “Pedal Press.” Check out the pdf of the issue at the following link. The review is located on page 22. Black Mountain Cycles review. Here’s a picture of James’ road bike […]
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Granted, I’m far off Nick’s radar, but it’s really not so difficult to find road frames with clearances for fatter tires. I’ve got a stack of them. And they can take up to a 33 tire, easily. I enjoy Nick Legan’s column in Velo News, although some of the questions are becoming a little mundane. […]
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The owner of the cross bike I built several weeks ago has been by several times. Each time he tells me how much fun he’s having riding the bike and how great it rides. Really nice to hear stuff like that. A few more have gone out since then. And I’m trying to get a […]
Filed under: Black Mountain Cycles frames
Being out of the bike industry insider club for several years, I missed the regular technical updates from Shimano and SRAM. The pages that make up these manuals are a bike designer’s bible. When I designed the chainstays of the cross frame, I used what I had and thought I had all my bases covers […]
Filed under: Black Mountain Cycles frames