Aluminum track frame with steel fork going to Japan

 This one is going to the Blue Lug shop. The satin clear coat makes this one look like it was anodized rather than painted. The frame is very light but it should be really stiff and good for either the velodrome or urban fixed gear riding. The steel fork will accept a brake and it has NOS track ends out of my dwindling collection. The frame is capped off with a Jen Green headbadge.

SSCX in steel goint to Iowa

 There's a new set of Paragon sliding dropouts that are a first for me.  They were a bit more labor intensive than the ones I usually use and they are a bit lighter. Time will tell how they hod up to the rigors of racing as that's what this frame will do. I hope that the owner really likes the ride and fit. The dropouts were a request from this customer and I would not have known they exist without him requesting them . Another unique thing is the custom head tube decal supplied by the customer himself -an actual water-slide decal. I had the painter apply it as it has been decades since I have installed a decal like that. The image is that of a grim-reaper-lobster....sort of. Very original and I didn't really catch onto it until I had seen it a few times.

Gravel frame in steel going to Alaska

That's right- this one is going way north. It can take pretty large tires and has dropper post routing as well. Th customer ordered a specially painted Jen Green badge with a white background- I like the look and think that tow-color badges would compliment the original style two-color decals well.
 

Steel all-road gravel-go most places frame off to Bellingham, Wa.

 British racing green is truly one of the classic colors and this frame has the fork painted to match. The bike will be set up with newer Shimano Di II. My aluminum list is nearly empty but my steel list is filled with frames similar to this one- very popular this year. The head tube is 44 mm ID for a King Inset-7 headset.

WCCX SS going to NYC

This one will be hitting the east coast CX races this fall. The rider has the geared version and decided to have his 'B' bike a single speed that could also be run with wireless for gears. He didn't want his fork painted and the frame is pure race. I hope that he likes it and has lots of great racing with it.
 

WCCX frame for team mate in Fairfax, Calif.

This one is the dual purpose EBB version that can be used for single speed as well as geared. This might be the final frame in the summer batch which now numbers 9 frames. The bike will be set up with Di II wireless but I did put the larger port in the BB shell if an older set with the junction box will be used- I call this "past-proofing" ........I don't think that too many people think of this but I might as well make the frame as versatile as I can . 
 

The sight bend in the seat stays is to make room for the brake caliper and to aid in the bleed process by creating more room where the bleed port is. Another thing that most people might not think about.  It is kind of amazing how complicated bicycles have gotten since I started building frames in 1978. 

Something really different -

When someone comes to me with an idea well out of my comfort zone I usually say no to taking it on. This project , however was so totally off the wall that I thought that it would be a shame if I just dismissed it. The project is for an old friend who has a very eclectic collection of mountain bikes- think Slingshot and Ibis -and of course a couple that I built as well. I really don't know why he wanted to graft an old Nishiki Alien rear triangle onto a more modern front triangle but with the directions he gave me, it sounded doable. This did not keep me from ignoring the project for a couple of years but a month or two ago I decided that it was time- I built the front triangle along with all the anchor points for the rear steel Nishiki portion of the frame. The rear wheel will be 26" - the front 27.5. The head angle is around 68 degrees so it won't really steer like the original Nishiki but I'll bet that it is a lot more stable at speed. The graphics and paint were done by Joe's bicycle painting and specified by the owner. There's a bit of humor contained in the logos and in the whole notion of something like this being built. I have built sillier stuff than this but I'll save those stories for another time- this story is more than enough for today.