Zanconato

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Originally Posted by Dave Kirk

Very cool. Have you announced pricing?

dave

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Thanks, Dave! We are getting closer on figuring out pricing. Kerry (the machinist) is buying some new tools that should reduce the machine time by reducing the number of paths and increasing speed due to internal cooling. Let's just say they're not going to be as expensive as a Dura Ace or Record ring, but they won't be as cheap as a Salsa or FSA Pro Road ring.

I'd love to be able to do 7900 and 6700 compatible rings that match the OE rings, but cost would be huge. I dunno. What say you internet? Is this a product you'd be interested in?

Zank--

The rings are going to be great for cx racers that like to shift the front drlr.

Can you share with the masses what handling characteristics you strive to achieve, and the geometry/design features that allow you to reach those goals?

As a zank cx owner, I can say that you nailed the geo on my bike. The bike has fine, neutral balance. If I ride it in a neutral manner, and don't unduly weight or throw the front or rear wheels into a corner, the tires maintains traction equally. Yet if I want to invoke oversteer, I can do it with little effort.

Mike,

How do we order those hats?

We're getting closer to having real rings! Just got some images of the rings after hard ano. This is a 42 tooth SRAM/Shimano outer before the shift pins and chain drop pin are added. We're on track to having real product for NAHBS.

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...42front001.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...z42back001.jpg

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Originally Posted by davids

Mike,

How do we order those hats?

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Hi David,
Which one would you like? We have some of the baseball hats coming. We're still trying to decide on a design for the cycling cap though. Those might be a little ways off.

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Originally Posted by twowheels

Zank--

The rings are going to be great for cx racers that like to shift the front drlr.

Can you share with the masses what handling characteristics you strive to achieve, and the geometry/design features that allow you to reach those goals?

As a zank cx owner, I can say that you nailed the geo on my bike. The bike has fine, neutral balance. If I ride it in a neutral manner, and don't unduly weight or throw the front or rear wheels into a corner, the tires maintains traction equally. Yet if I want to invoke oversteer, I can do it with little effort.

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Hi Chris,
It helps that you know how to drive a bike ;-) So glad you like it.

Depending on the rider, I have a front center, trail, and stem length in mind, and then adjust head tube angle and rake it hit the numbers. The rear of the bike is lengthened or shortened to balance out the front center. The BB drop is adjusted a bit depending on the rider as well. The handling traits are defined by those variables. I have a window where I know the bike will handle the way I'd like it to. Make sense?

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Originally Posted by zank

Hi David,
Which one would you like? We have some of the baseball hats coming. We're still trying to decide on a design for the cycling cap though. Those might be a little ways off.

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Both, of course. But the baseball hat first. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants one.

Cool. Rosey will probably post up when the baseball hats come in.

.....

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...t/IMG_1215.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...t/IMG_1219.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...t/IMG_1212.jpg

Maybe I missed it, and I apologize if so, but I know you're doing compact rings for both Campag and standard 110 mm BCD. Are there any 130 BCD rings with a Z on them in the works? 38/44 and the like would be great. I know they can be had from Thorne and other brands, but I like these both from a design point of view and because of who is behind them.

Hi Jeff,
Man, thank you for the kind remark. I really appreciate it. Yes, 130 bcd and 135 bcd are both on the design slate and will be ready for next cross season. Now that we have the shift ramps and pins figured out, we just have to set the timing for 38 and 39 inners and then make the changes to the bcd. There's more to the 135s with the hidden 5th arm, but the 130s should go relatively smoothly. We'll develop programs for 38/42, 38/44, 38/46, 39/44, and 39/46.

Hope to see you in New England again next fall. Thanks to you and the guys on your team for making the trips down. The promoters around here really appreciate it.
zank

Right on. I'll watch here and on your website/blog for their release.

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Originally Posted by zank

Hope to see you in New England again next fall. Thanks to you and the guys on your team for making the trips down. The promoters around here really appreciate it.

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I certainly hope and plan to make it down for at least a couple weekends.

Those rings are beautiful. I need them.

Those rings look great. As a 40-year-old with beat to hell knees and a thing for hills, 39/46 makes a great winter combination on the road.

Mike, you're obviously determined to address 'cross gearing yourself. What else is, to your mind, a significant drawback/compromise/aggravation from a gear or component standpoint? What else would you "fix" if it was your call?

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Originally Posted by 72gmc

Those rings look great. As a 40-year-old with beat to hell knees and a thing for hills, 39/46 makes a great winter combination on the road.

Mike, you're obviously determined to address 'cross gearing yourself. What else is, to your mind, a significant drawback/compromise/aggravation from a gear or component standpoint? What else would you "fix" if it was your call?

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Thanks! And I appreciate the question. Cyclocross is an interesting beast. It's become this thing that's really popular but really represents a tiny tiny fraction of the market. So there aren't many resources that can go into it from the big player's perspective.

I'm glad to help with the chainrings. I hope they are a hit and riders find the additional options useful.

My two other aggravations pertaining to cyclocross are tires and brakes. It's my background on the mountain bike. I want more traction and better braking. It would make everybody faster.

There's a chasm between cyclocross and mountain bike tire technology and tread design. I mean, take a look around a cross race and count how many people are riding on Grifos. That tread is 30 flippin' years old. Woo hoo...they added an extra row of dots a few years ago. Anyway, and having said that, I think good things are coming. I love my notubes 29er rims and the awesome mountain bike treads available. Mountain tires set up tubeless on stans rims roll and absorb shock so sweetly. I believe that's the way of the future for cross.

And brakes. Brakes brakes brakes. Disks are the way of the future. Hydros hopefully. Not everybody will adopt it. That's OK. But I know I will be faster because I know I am faster on my mountain bike with disks compared to how I was with v-brakes compared to how I was with canitlevers compared to how I was with U-brakes. But I'm a brake late into the corner kinda guy.

Anyway, that's all I can really think of at the moment.

How about you? What would you "fix"?

Prepare yourself for the ramblings of an enthusiast who tries to take care of his own bike. I can think of two things I would "fix": braking and gearing.

I really like the idea of disc brakes, so I want a disc fork with the nice curved blade look of a traditional lugged fork. For now, while I'm on rim brakes, I want DT Swiss-style wear dots on every brake track.

With gearing, I want a third option that isn't proprietary C or S: A new freehub that fits either hub standard, loose cogs that fit the "new" spline standard, and readily available spacers in different widths so building a 5-11 speed cogset is like playing with LEGO. Leave indexed gearing in its current proprietary state, because it's a lot easier to make a variety of resin spacers. Find a way to make individual cogs a lot cheaper than the 30 bucks a pop that C charges. People who have a mixed bag of wheelsets would no longer be forced to have two different cassette standards, people like us could buy nice wheels on the forum without worrying about the hub type, and gearing options would be the choice of the rider rather than the component maker. From what I read you'd probably have to increase the freehub diameter because of the differences in C and S hubs, so the smallest cogs might not work. Then you go to the front to get the correct gear inches with a very versatile chainring standard, like 110bcd or White Industries' VBC, with a range of sweet high quality chainrings along the lines of TA or yours.

Of course, I have no idea how to make this work from an engineering standpoint, but it seems like a good idea at the moment.

Mike,

Have you done a disc-brake cross bike (yet)?

Thanks.

zank baseball cap, just received --- beaut blue with Z on front and logo on back --- so very classy, but what would ya expect..

ronnie

Bikerumor did a mini pre-NAHBS interview. Check it out:
Bikerumor » Race To NAHBS! ADHD Interview – 11 NAHBS-Related Questions For Mike Zanconato

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Originally Posted by ron l edmiston

zank baseball cap, just received --- beaut blue with Z on front and logo on back --- so very classy, but what would ya expect..

ronnie

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Hi Ronnie!
Thank you for picking up a hat from Scott. So glad you like it! It'll help with that Florida sun.
Best,
zank

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Originally Posted by grscha

Mike,

Have you done a disc-brake cross bike (yet)?

Thanks.

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Give me about a week....

Hey Mike, I like what you had to say on the BikeRumor interview. It cut to the nuts and bolts. It's nice to hear.

Thanks, Craig. I've been getting a lot of feedback today. Most people seem to like the answer to the "what won't you build?" question best. Which is funny to me because I thought that was the most straight forward question of the bunch. That and the "who wouldn't you want to fight?" question. That was a no-brainer.

just like a fine wine & ----
the more i see of your craftsmanship and completed bikes --- the more i smile & enjoy..

waitin for austin,

ronnie

Many thanks, Ronnie! Can't wait to see you in Texas!
zank

Mike, what is the color name on the blue NAHBS show bike #2?

It is sharp!

That is House of Kolor So-Blue SG108. It's the same color as your first bike.

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Originally Posted by zank

That is House of Kolor So-Blue SG108. It's the same color as your first bike.

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That is what I thought. I have good taste.

Mike, you are killing it! Your NAHBS show bike #3 is simply sublime. The depth of your talent is framed around that seat cluster. I wish I was going to Austin.

Thank you very much, Bill! Since I missed the timing on FNL, here are a couple of shots. I'm really trying to refine every aspect of my fabrication and designs. The bikes have evolved over time. Each subsequent bike has been an even better reflection of my mind's eye. It's been a fun path.

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...F/IMG_1422.jpg

http://i428.photobucket.com/albums/q...F/IMG_1423.jpg

Mike, that Di2 MAX bike is my favorite Zank I have seen to date. I love the old school/new school combo. Very nice!

Thank, Tony!

Hey man,

It was cool to see you again in Texas. I hope that next year we can actually have a real conversation. I feel like I'd like to go one year just as a spectator so I can talk to other builders more.............. but then I'd just be clogging up the works as guy are trying to sell stuff.

Until next year I guess.

Dave

I hope this is the right place for this. I just want to say that I wound up with a used Zanc CX frame from the classified here, and the derailleur hanger and one of the dropouts was...let's say a bit tweaked (In case anyone is following at home, the seller didn't realize this and was totally standup about the whole thing, offering to take back the bike or pay for any repairs). I'm in MA so I called Mike to see if he would be willing to take a look and assess the damage so as to let me know what sort of repair we were talking about.

Anyway, long story short, I just came back from Mike's shop in Sutton. He "assessed" the frame and then pulled out his tools, bent, filed, torqued, etc., the dropout back into perfect alignment, and refused payment for the work (Mike if you have reconsidered, just email me an invoice, you know how to reach me). I left with a new t-shirt and the sweetest CX bike I've ever seen.

I'm sure you've heard it before, but Mike is seriously a stand-up guy....a gentleman and a scholar. I'd whittled down my list of builders from whom I'd chose when I'm ready to order a custom frame of my own, today that list just dropped to one. Now when the time comes, I just have to figure out if I should go cross or road. It's obvious Mike would be a great guy to work with on a build.

Thanks Mike, it was a real pleasure to meet you this morning.

Zach

that's our Mike!

Tyler's thread about the NE framebuilding lineage (http://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum...ree-20322.html) prompted me to dredge up an email I received from Zank when he was working customer service at Seven almost 8 years ago. I'd purchased a used Axiom and wrote Seven's "info" address hoping for a little info. The detailed response came back about 4 hours later. I was so impressed I wrote this:

Mike,

Thanks so much! I was a little hesitant to even ask for this info in the first place, and you respond within hours with more than I asked for!

If the bike is as responsive as the company (and I expect it will be), I should be very, very happy!

Nothing's changed. Mike really is that nice.

You guys are making me blush.

At the moment, I'm working double time getting bikes off to Keith. It's getting to be spring. I want everyone on their new bikes ASAP! Of course, all at my standards for quality. But goes without saying. My family name is on the downtube, after all.

Zank is at the top of my list too. We have to make sure he goes to NAHBS next year...

Zank's been working hard: Zanconato Custom Cycles - Tailored Steel Bicycle Frames and Forks

Look at all those photo galleries! Whoo-hoo!

Trying my best!