trends in frame-building ?? in poem form.

[jerk]

isp yay or nay?

bb30 awesome or ghey?

integrated hsets for sure or no way?

what do you poets have to say?


jerk

[e-RICHIE]

i'm a 10 year plus threadless cat.
love 'em atmo.
and since i am also a dedicated steel girl, 1" is the ideal for steerers.
your nonferrous mileage may vary.

bb30?

that's for industrial made stuff atmo.
i am not sure what issue it solves.
heck - i make 'em and race 'em.
but i don't measure 'em.

just sayin'.

[Tom Kellogg]

All of our steel forks are 1.125" threadless. Lighter, stronger, stiffer. It does require that we make our own steerers though. Kind of a pain.

Headsets? Always in full view. Sorry, but integrated is just too big looking for my old tastes and they are just too risky. If the head tube is not perfect, you can't fix the frame. Period.

BB30? We have done one of them. The customer seems to love it, but I don't really see much point. My FC-7800 seems to be pretty stiff and pretty light. Just watch, I'll be proven wrong any time now.

[e-RICHIE]

All of our steel forks are 1.125" threadless. Lighter, stronger, stiffer. It does require that we make our own steerers though. Kind of a pain.

that's interesting atmo.
are you reaming the crowns or using 1 1/8" parts? if
you use this dimension, doesn't the steel set and lug
size(s) that allow for it add to the avoirdupois atmo?

[steve garro]

BB30 will get rusty and dirty. it will no longer spin, only dirt when you look in. after your peek, a hammer you will seek, to remove the junk from within. steve.

[Tom Kellogg]

that's interesting atmo.
are you reaming the crowns or using 1 1/8" parts? if
you use this dimension, doesn't the steel set and lug
size(s) that allow for it add to the avoirdupois atmo?

When we can get a crown that we want in the 1.125" bore, we will use it. For example; our Brevet/Touring crown is a 1.125" version of an Everest crown that is really wide. In this case, we will actually fabricate a steerer, starting with a relatively thin 1.125" tube and adding a butted section. Usually though, we will use standard 1.0" crowns and fabricate an adapter/internal butt with a thin OS steerer. Takes a bunch of time, but it works like the nuts.

Head tube size. Here, we make our own stuff. Since we fabricate all of our own lugs anyway, we use head tubes and lug stock which allows us to end up with smaller head tubes than what you buy stock. I think it looks better than the pretty big stuff that you usually see. Yes it saves weight, but not enough to write home about.

[suspectdevice]

The "old" standards aren't going anywhere. 1.37x24 is good enough for plenty of things, 27.2 has long been mastered. 1.125" forks and headsets all have reached pretty lofty heights.

If there is an advantage to using newer standards, I'm all about it. We lower our overall bike weight with integrated headtubes on the road bikes, and I get better weld contact area with the larger diameter headtube. We could shave a half pound off of a complete road bike by going to BB30... But it would also necessitate me eating the cost of new dies for new chainstays and seatubes to keep the rear end stiffness the same. Our road bike is already the stiffness I want. I don't want it any stiffer. No need for an ISP, as I want our bikes to fit in a bike box quickly and easily for the racers we design them for.

For things that HAVE to by shiny and fancy and new, and get sold mostly by marketing features, all this new stuff is great. Standard frame components and designs are totally dialed in now though.

Take, for example the full suspension xc frame we are doing. It has a tapered headtube, 92mm direct fit shell, semi-isp, fancy concentric brake mount co-pivot location (With fancy Licensed name!), molded composite linkage, pasta maker and brazeons for one of those stupid gravity dropper posts.

Some of the crap is on that bike because I wanted it, or needed it. Some of it is there to help out on the showroom floor. We will make hundreds of these, and need to enthuse average bike-shop dunderheads and conservative international distributors...

On the other hand, I have a DH race bike with an ISP, internal transmission, tapered headtube and a steel rear end. These aren't things the market wants... but they are things that I want. At $8k a pop with the transmission and suspension attached, we will only sell a few, all made and tuned to measure.

A bike company or frame builder can't be everything to everyone, nor does it need to be.

[csbmo]

i gotta say that i too got all warm and fuzzy reading this thread.
thanks gentlemen.

[Dave Kirk]

My guess is that we will look back on the BB30 in a similar way as we do elevated chainstays. They are IMO an answer to a question that wasn't asked.

Way back in the day I raced a MTB and I at various times had different team bikes. One was a Fisher that had press in BB bearings and clip rings to locate the bearings laterally. It worked pretty well until you needed to service it and then the fun began. In the end that frame (a gorgeous fillet custom built by Eisentraut) ended up in the dumpster as so many press in BB frames did because all the pounding and grit stretched the BB shell out just a tad and then the bearings were allowed to knock around in there........ and once they start knocking the impacts made it worse and it was a downhill slide from there. Many years later I did a few big repairs on Fat Chances that had the BB shell compromised - the old ones had press in bearings and many suffred the same fate as my old team bike.

To me the press in headset and the screw in BB make wonderful sense. They allow for the bearing/frame interface to be replaced if needed. No need to toss a perfectly good frame. It's a wonderful design that will allow frames to have a very long life. I seriously doubt that we will see well used Trekandales 10 years from now that don't have serious bearing knock inside the BB shell. But that's OK I guess as I don't think many folks feel they need to last more than a few seasons anyway.

As so many have said before it seems to me that the BB30 was designed for the mass makers to have an easier and quicker way to build frames and assemble them. Nothing wrong with that in the slightest. But until there is compelling and solid reason to make the change I'll do what I do knowing that I won't get a distressed calls years down the road with a floppy BB.

As an aside - I had a customer in the queue (a very nice and reasonable man as far as I could tell) who walked away from his deposit because I wouldn't build him a frame around the BB30 standard. He was worried that even a year or two down the road he wouldn't be able to get parts or service on a threaded BB. He really thought that BB30 was a new standard. I tried to explain why the BB30 was an idea whose time IMO had not come but he was convinced by the market hype and I haven't heard from him since. Too bad really.

Humbly,

Dave

[steve garro]

Way back in the day I raced a MTB and I at various times had different team bikes. One was a Fisher that had press in BB bearings and clip rings to locate the bearings laterally. It worked pretty well until you needed to service it and then the fun began. In the end that frame (a gorgeous fillet custom built by Eisentraut) ended up in the dumpster as so many press in BB frames did because all the pounding and grit stretched the BB shell out just a tad and then the bearings were allowed to knock around in there........ and once they start knocking the impacts made it worse and it was a downhill slide from there. Many years later I did a few big repairs on Fat Chances that had the BB shell compromised - the old ones had press in bearings and many suffred the same fate as my old team bike.

Dave

that is exactly what i am talking about! i was a mechanic/racer during that whole era and remember all that shit. what a pain in the ass. all the bearings were different ID and OD too. and it was fishers, fat chances, kleins and others......one thing Dave, just for history's sake - i believe all the team fishers were fillet brazed by Tom Teesdale.......just sayin'. steve.

[EnginCycles]

that is exactly what i am talking about! i was a mechanic/racer during that whole era and remember all that shit. what a pain in the ass. all the bearings were different ID and OD too. and it was fishers, fat chances, kleins and others......one thing Dave, just for history's sake - i believe all the team fishers were fillet brazed by Tom Teesdale.......just sayin'. steve.

This press in bearing thing is way older than the mid 80's and lots of them are still kicking (the French bikes i am talking about). As is always stated there is nothing new and if we browse the Data Book there are lots of bikes with press in bearings. I agree the Fats (Cook Bros BB), Merlins and Fishers all had flaws in the lack of size. The Merlin was even smaller than 1.5" shells. The Klein was the least likely to fail because he used the largest O.D. for a shell (except it was Al which we all know lacks the strength for not ovalizing). The BB30 is bigger than all these designs and the shell is hardly wimpy and if maintained (KEY!!) it will last. What bike won't crap out if neglected? Shit, bikes rust but that is not stopping us from using steel! Again i am not saying it is better, just sayin!

Cheers,
Drew

IF i was building a track tandem i would want it used in the stoker BB for making the bike stiffer, allowing for a bigger boom tube with full miter purchase and the ability to run huge chainstays with the miter lowered away from the seat tube and again getting bigger purchase for the weld/braze.

[steve garro]

OK - one thing - grease guard technology MUST be implemented........whadda ya say? that would DRASTICALLY increase lifespan - it would suck to make something that only took what would be seen as the next ISIS a few years after it was built, and that's all the frame would take - at least you can chuck an ISIS BB and screw in say, a Phil........ steve.

[Dave Kirk]

i believe all the team fishers were fillet brazed by Tom Teesdale.......just sayin'. steve.

That may have been true at one point. When I got mine I talked with Al directly to go over the details and it was shipped from his shop so there you go.

Dave

[jerk]

it is odd that we live in a time where headsets are residing inside the tube and bottom brackets are moving outside the tube. to me, bb30 like 1 1/8th headtubes and even the newer 1 1/8th to 1 1/4 headtubes has more to do with allowing for different materials to be used. cheap aluminum steerer tubes insured the acceptance of the 1 1/8th headtube standard, and carbon steerer tubed forks with carbon crowns and races seem to be insuring the standardization of these new designs with 1 1/4 and even 1 1/2 lower bearings. my thought is that bb30 is much the same. the standard will allow for bottom bracket bearing to migrate back into the frame itself, and allow for things like intergrated carbon spindles and the like to be uses in crank and bb assemblies.

now all this begs the question, when standards are determined through factory production efficiency schedules and composite and other non-ferrous materials, where do you frame builders hold the line? tom seems to have developed an even lighter fork steerer and front end through going 1 1/8th with steel; while alot of other builders still use the standard 1 inch headtube that seemingly makes the most sense with steel steerers. remember the 68 and 70mm bb shells are really the last vestiges of standardization from the days when all real race bikes were made out of steel. how do the industry trends designed solely to fullfill the needs of massive factory style off-shore production of high-quality bicycles equate into newer and better hand built frames? do they? are the relevent? do they hold you back or encourage you?

thanks,

jerk

[steve garro]

That may have been true at one point. When I got mine I talked with Al directly to go over the details and it was shipped from his shop so there you go.

Dave

proven wrong again! :cheers: totally OT: is eisentraut still building? off to work, steve.
steve.