Friday Night Lights #94 Comments

[Sean in CA]

Happy new year to all, first and foremost, best of luck to Eric with the move and question goes to bellman, how are you liking the access 65?

[Eric Estlund]

Thanks- it's just a cross town deal, but involves some shop renovation on the new end. I'm running the clock out on the old shop wrapping up this last bike!

For 2011 Winter Bicycles will be located in Springfield, OR.

[bellman]

Happy new year to all, first and foremost, best of luck to Eric with the move and question goes to bellman, how are you liking the access 65?

Hey Sean, I like it. I've made a couple of mods to it, you can actually see them both in this weeks pictures. The first one was a sorta copy of the quick release axle block that Creighton made for Garros rig. I built it to take anvil dummies.
The second you can see in the first picture, its to allow a bike with a much lower headtube than normal to fit into the jig. Stabiltiy wise it works better than the original set up and I may make one more version thats taller yet to work on every bike.
So in conclusion, I like it and it works well for me but I spend a lot of time looking at and fondling my friends Anvil when I'm visiting :)

[whale_spout]

Bellman, I'd say you Nailed the look of that front triangle. Curved TT, Curved ST....HAWT!

[bellman]

Bellman, I'd say you Nailed the look of that front triangle. Curved TT, Curved ST....HAWT!

Thanks! I'll keep you posted.

[Bob Ross]

Whoa, Carl, who's the hot babe getting that red bike?

:)

[Carl S]

Whoa, Carl, who's the hot babe getting that red bike?

:)

I can't say for confidentiality reasons but I wouldn't be surprised if you bump into her riding it in the near future :)

[nahtnoj]

Tom Kellogg - that steel bike has an ISP. I think you were opposed to the ISP on ti frames for weight reasons. Is it a different story with steel? Frame looks awesome, either way.

[Curt Goodrich]

TK-

That is an awesome final clear on that frame. Black shows any imperfection in the final clear. More so than any other color. It looks totally wet and perfect. Well done. I know that's not easy.

[myers]

bellman - the font you used on "huckleberry" is outstanding.

[Tom Kellogg]

Tom Kellogg - that steel bike has an ISP. I think you were opposed to the ISP on ti frames for weight reasons. Is it a different story with steel? Frame looks awesome, either way.

Boy, you are right on the ball with that question. Let's take it one piece at a time.

Titanium; In order to make a Ti ISP strong enough to warranty for life, I would only feel comfortable using a seat tube of at least .038 wall. Although that is just fine, is is quite heavy for a Ti seat tube. Our Ti seat tubes are more typically .026 - .028 wall above the front derailleur. I also don't like the idea of ISPs in general since they limit adjustability more than seat posts do.

Steel; So after that first part of the answer, you should ask; "well if it isn't a good idea for Ti, why would it be for steel?" And you'd be right. First the reason we did it. Bob (I'll call him Bob) asked us to. Bob is a previous client who has been cooking up thoughts for this frame for a long time and he has been using the planning and the actual progress as an incentive to help him through some significant medical issues. You'll notice that we made some other "differences" with this frame as well. Even though I don't see any particular value to an ISP, Jeff and I were game to give one a go simply for the challenge. We wanted it to be dimensionally correct, attractive, strong and reasonably light.

- Dimensionally correct- here, we just had to be very careful getting exact dimensions for Bob, factoring in the dimensions of the Ritchey seat tube topper and future saddle choices.

- Attractive- many steel ISPs are either straight through TIG welded tubes (not our style) or straight through seat tubes with a seat lug. To us, that just looks incomplete, and in any case, it is likely to be prone to failure unless the seat tube is heavy. We opted for a third way; an ISP lugged seat cluster. If we do another one of these, we hope to refine the look a little more, but for the most part, we like the way it looks.

- Strong / light- As all builders know, a soldered lugged structure is stronger than the lugs and tubes used in the structure. This is the trick we used here. Because the thin walled seat tube is soldered within the lug, it ends up being WAY stronger than it really needs to be. It is of course not as light as it would be if we had not lugged it at all, but it won't break either. Pretty much the best we could do.

Thanks for the compliment as well.

[Tom Kellogg]

TK-

That is an awesome final clear on that frame. Black shows any imperfection in the final clear. More so than any other color. It looks totally wet and perfect. Well done. I know that's not easy.

Curt:

Thanks. Practice, practice, practice. And a hit of EPO. All it takes.