Week Recap

Hey folks!

As I am sitting here drinking beer with Ben Withey and the Gnome I
thought I would recap this week and let everyone know we are going to
the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show on April 4 & 5. We will be there
with several bikes and some custom racks as well. Keep checking back
and I will post some photos of our progress.

Hasta!

jb

Sent from my iPhone

Bottle cage!

Just got the first Ti bottle cage for my 40oz. Kleen Kanteen today
from King Cage. Three mount tabs and weighs 60g!! ~ jb

Tuesday commute

Rode the Phogsley in to the shop today with a 29'er back wheel rather than the Surly tire and 26" rim.  It seems to roll a little faster even though it is heavier.  Think I will drop the drop bars at least for awhile... rock a flat bar and see how that goes.  Just don't like where the drop bar position is with this stem...  jb

Tucson weekend

Spent the weekend in Tucson with my ol' buddy Jake Rubelt and did a couple MTB rides down there.  Saturday Adam and I drove out to the 24hours of the Old Pueblo and rode the course while the race was on.  The course was in great shape and we had a blast!  SO MANY cactus out there!  The course was fast so everytime you swerved to dodge one cactus you had to juke the other direction to avoid another.  We were riding and laughing, yelling "Zing! Zah! Whoa!" the whole time.  What a crack up.

Sunday Jake took us out to the Star Pass trails out by his house and had a very similar experience.  Geez I can't believe how many sharp, pointy, stingy things there are out there!  We rode big gears trying to keep up with the Snake and it felt like we were riding in a NORBA rae at times. Man that guy can turn a pedal!  Much of the trails there are pretty technical too with sharp turns and hard climbs with decent size rock pick ups and plenty of cactus lining the sides. There were definitely times when I surprised myself by not falling into a cactus or sharp rock!  

Still it was a great time.  Traction was good and there was virtually no dust.  Temperature was perfect too with some light clouds.  It really was bitchin!

After that ride we strolled over to El Guero Canello for some fantastic Carne Asada and horchata.  Followed that up with a trip to the Tap Room at Hotel Congress for some $1.50 Schlitz cans.

Yeah.  It was a good weekend. ~jb

650b is fast!

Went for a damn fun ride at South Mountain in Phoenix last Saturday.  Decided to do it on a Ti VooDoo that I have with 650b wheels on it.  I am pretty much a die hard 29'er guy so it took me a few miles to get used to the smaller wheels.  Once I did it was pretty fun shreddin'!  

I really don't know all the trails my friend Ben Withey took us on but some of the names I remember are National, Heli pad, and Mormon.  That area is full of short power climbs and several long steep grinds.  The descents are loose with tight switchbacks and rock drops.  SO FUN!  We missed the rain by hours and after burritos and beer by the pool we headed off to watch the AZFixed.com Gold Sprints. Some 300m single speed road bike race on rollers held at a bar in Tempe. They were great to watch and my buddy Kale won the whole enchilada with a sub 15 second time and our boy Handlebar Sandwich got a smokin third place! Man those guys have fast legs!  I drank about 10 $1.25 PBR's while I yelled and screamed at the races.  The next day my throat hurt so bad!

Meanwhile back in Flag we got crazy amounts of snow and cold temps again.  Time to head out on skis a while longer...  ~jb

Mornings at the shop

Here is a pretty typical morning menu at our shop. For me and Stu at
least. Joe prefers tea and Kashi.

Monday

Just received two tube sets for Pete Miers 29'er and Jay Miers
29'ers... Those may be the biggest steel chainstays I have seen. ~jb

The bender is here!

Stu's new tubing bender is here and this is the first thing he made
with it. The man is so stoked to have this!

With it we will be making custom commuter and touring racks, handle
bars, and even parts for bike trailers!

It all happening now ~ jb

As real as it gets

We are off an running!  With one finished (Phogsley), one being finished (Bellar's single speed), and two (JP Running and Pete Miers) in the que  we are stoked!  JP's bike should be interesting.  He says "I want a cruiser with loops for foot pegs and long chainstays.  I want it to be able to carry 14 chickens and a pig."  Not sure about the livestock but it will have the loops and some sweet curved tubes.

We decided to make plans to attend the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show on April 4th & 5th so look for us there.  We should have three bikes on display including the 'Phogsley' - a fat-touring bike built for myself.  See the photo below.  This is one monster truck of a bike.  It uses the Surly Endomorph tires for awesome flotation.  For this we used a 100mm bb shell and 150mm rear spacing.  Joe picked out some HUGE oversized butted tubing to keep it stiff but not too heavy.  So far the bike is everything I dreamed it would be.  I'm not totally sold on the dirt drops, but now that Stu has his tubing bender I may opt for some sick custom Ti bars of my own design....  the only word for that is - Bitchin.  ~jb

More photos available on our website and our Picasa Gallery