Orange and gray…

Colors.  I’ve spent a lot of time in meetings trying to decide colors for an entire production year of frames.  Production runs of 10,000, 20,000 of an individual model.  It’s the same process choosing colors for runs of 50 frames:  who’s the customer, what colors are in style, what colors will be in style in […]

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Winterize…

Now that the winter rains have started, I decided it was time to winterize my road bike.  Winterize – what does that mean?  On my car, I like to make sure the tires have plenty of tread and that my windshield wipers actually wipe instead of smear.  On my bike, I like to re-install my […]

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Rock ‘n Road Ride Beats the Rain…

When you read a weather forecast and it says “90% chance of precipitation” on any given day, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to rain (there are other types of precipitation, but I’ll use rain for this case) 90% of that day.  It just means that there is a 90% chance it will rain at […]

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Rain or shine…

Actually, it’s very likely not going to shine according to the forecast.  So, Bruce and I will not cancel the “Short Notice Rock ‘n Road Tire Shameless Self-Promotion Ride.”  If folks show up and want to ride, we’ll ride.  If folks show up and don’t want to ride, we’ll sit around and drink beer and […]

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Wednesday WITS…

Catching up on “what’s in the stand” on a hump day.  Well, by now, Wednesday is almost over.  After finishing the Potts below, another Ritchey Timber Comp that came in for a tune up and a front wheel rebuild, a Blur pivot bearing replacement, and a radio show, I can now finish this post that […]

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Grease…

Grease, grease, grease, grease, grease, grease, grease, grease, grease.  Grease is one of those words that when you say it enough becomes unfamiliar, like it just became a new word that you now need to look up.  Semantic satiation – look it up.  Semantic satiation is actually a pretty nifty phrase. Grease is also something […]

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Short Notice Rock ‘n Road Tire Ride…

Bruce Gordon came out today for a pedal and to soak up this amazing weather we’ve been having out here.  He rode this bike which is about 10 steps beyond the coolest bike you could imagine.  As I was pedaling back into town, he was heading out.  Later, while we were both recovering from our […]

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It doesn’t taste like a peach…

Saying you don’t like apples because they don’t taste like a peach is pretty silly sounding. You hear that and you immediately know “well, duh because it’s an apple.”  Neither an apple or a peach is bad.  They’re just different.  They both do the same thing by providing you with nutrition and are on the […]

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What the hell was I thinking…

I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite some time.  Every so often, I check in to the Blogger stats for this site.  Sometimes, there will be a bunch of visits from various bike forums.  I gave up on bike forums several years ago.  Too much time involved and the whole anonymity of the […]

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A frame for the working folks…

The Tradesman is the new “production” frame from Sean over at Soulcraft.  Production only in that it is made in three stock frame sizes, but with all the touches that make a Soulcraft a Soulcraft.  Things like no nonsense design, no nonsense marketing, no nonsense features – simply a bike frame designed for getting out […]

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NorCal bred bike…

(Update:  about a week after this post, this particular bike was sold.  However, within a few weeks, I’ll have all sizes so you can get a duplicate built in your size.) I built this bike up for the recent Ruota Libera show at Una Pizza Napoletana.  My goal was to represent the parts makers from […]

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More tension…

After writing that last piece on the various ways to tension cables after they stretch, I noticed something peculiar.  Everyone knows that disc brakes are coming to road, right?  And when I say road, I mean drop bar bikes with integrated shift/brake levers.  And lumped in “road” are cyclocross bikes which will be, by far, […]

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