Friday Night Lights No. 158 Comments

[devlin]

Friday 5:38pm

Where is it? Did I miss it somewhere? I neeeeeeed my fix.

[Tony T]

Its still Friday Night Lights

[boots2000]

Tyler- love the new dropouts. Now you need a road bike brake bridge with your logo!

[Craig Ryan]

The Firefly aesthetic is super dialed in, and doesn't seem to be stopping.

[steve d]

I'm loving Firefly; so nice looking and I feel a special connection with one of my boys going to Tyler's alma mater, MassArt. Gorgeous dropouts.

[anomaly]

I saw the Firefly post and said "mother of God" out loud.

[EddieBirdsell]

Tyler- love the new dropouts. Now you need a road bike brake bridge with your logo!

Me too.

The Firefly aesthetic is super dialed in, and doesn't seem to be stopping.

Agree.

I'm loving Firefly; so nice looking and I feel a special connection with one of my boys going to Tyler's alma mater, MassArt. Gorgeous dropouts.

Awesome.

I saw the Firefly post and said "mother of God" out loud.

Ditto.

[drewgh2o]

I saw the Firefly post and thought "beautiful dropouts, but couldn't they be cut from of a bigger piece of material?"

[Tyler Evans]

The Firefly aesthetic is super dialed in, and doesn't seem to be stopping.

Thanks Craig, Like canti's... can't stop, won't stop.

I'm loving Firefly; so nice looking and I feel a special connection with one of my boys going to Tyler's alma mater, MassArt. Gorgeous dropouts.

MassArt was one of the greatest experiences. But like anything, you get out of it what you put into it.

I saw the Firefly post and thought "beautiful dropouts, but couldn't they be cut from of a bigger piece of material?"

Looks can be deceiving. They are the same thickness (7mm) as the thickest part of our previous ones yet weigh the same and are about 4 times stiffer. The Shimano spec has also changed, so we changed with it, making these dropouts compliant. The new design has a cleaner axle path for quicker wheel changes. Also, on the next round we are looking into first waterjet cutting slightly oversized blanks and then doing the final machining to those. The benefit being that the dropout profiles can be made into a tight pattern and nested in a way to minimize waste and bring down machining time (cost).

To answer your question: Yes, we could have cut them from a bigger piece of material. Not a smaller one though.

[boots2000]

Are you going to do your own logo'd brake bridge anytime soon?

[happycampyer]

Tyler,

Those droupots are outstanding! You should offer the partially cut blanks for sale to customers. I bet clients would buy them to use as a paperweight or simply as an objet d'art.

[TRuss]

What's the E.P.U.C. Tyler?

[Tyler Evans]

What's the E.P.U.C. Tyler?

It is an acronym for a bike we are working on. It's a titanium frame with Rohloff hub, belt drive, disc brake, all internally routed cables, integrated wiring for front and rear light powered by a front generator hub (wired internally through the fork and frame). Fork made by Engin.

... oh yeah... the titanium rack is welded to the frame and houses the wiring and mount for the rear light.

It is en-route back to us from the Rohloff testing facility. Rohloff requires that any bike that runs a Rohloff rear hub and a belt drive must pass their test in order to be approved and certified for the application. The importer of the Rohloff hubs is not allowed to sell the hubs to be used with belt drive unless the frame passes the test.... something about drive train flex messing with shifting. It passed.

It is an E.P.U.C. build.

[mraceebb]

So, I play the lottery every once in a while, and generally, I think about two things as I walk back to my apartment from the corner store. First, is that it would be rad to be able to afford a house in San Francisco, and the second is what kinda custom ti firefly I would get.

On a side note, I also appreciate the posts of equipment and machining tools. I think I've said it before, but there's something reassuring about seeing these giant metal beasts that have been machining metal for such a long time still running smoothly.

[drewgh2o]

I'm sorry Tyler but I wuz being a smart ass. Yeah, nesting the parts and jetting them yields the most parts per million. The drops are still beautiful and I especially like your fusion welded end cap transition to the drops. Much more elegant than hooded drops and more QR friendly too!

[clweed]

Zanc,

There are two or three frame builders that every bike looks perfect.....you are definately one of them!

[zank]

Wow! Thank you, Lee! That really means a lot.

[WFSTEKL]

Wow! Thank you, Lee! That really means a lot.

How much extra do you charge for a top tube braze-on belly holder?

[Kumo Cycles]

Wow Zank, just wow.

Do you find you have to remove a fair amount of material in the BB lug to get the chain stays to fit properly and at the right angle?

[j44ke]

That Zank. I think the race number braze-on is the coup de grace.