44 Bikes

[fortyfour]

Wow, a stunning bike...All the better without that WB wart of a fork installed. They had to have sold tons of the things as the only non QBP/Fatback/9zero7 option for years, but man they aren't up to par.

I've seen the WB-SP on your builds Kris, so you may have a higher opinion of them than I do. That said, how does a tapered steerer T/A 44 fork ride compared to the snowpack? (loaded question acknowledged!)

For a few seasons, the White Bro's Snow Pack fork was pretty much one of the ONLY fork choices available that was relatively light and not offset or using rear disc brake mount standards. In other words, I did not have the tooling at the time built to make forks and so these were the only course of action that had a relatively good balance of options. The rode well enough for me and no one complained other than the aesthetics. Basically it got you out there on snow when everyone else was on their duff's. That's the point!

I will say a tapered fork (no matter what brand) tracks exceptionally better than a traditional 1.125" fork. Under heavy braking, little to no fork flutter, which translates to better tracking and more of a sure footed feel. It's a steel rigid fork at the end of the day - it's not going to be a miracle feel. But making my own forks opened up the ability to really tune "how" my fat bikes handle and ride, so that is really the biggest factor. For the record, the blue fat bike's fork was built to the same specs as the WP Snow Pack it once sported so as not to mess with any of the handling of the clients bike. My own is very different however:

[fortyfour]

[fortyfour]

Just finished my tooling to make 1.375" O.D. Radius Seat Tubes in House a reality. This allows me the ability to offer 30.9mm seat posts and finally a dropper post which does not require a straight seat tube. I can either made my own seat post collars to spec or in the mean time, utilize Paragon Machine Works 30.9mm seat post collars which can be pressed in and welded. I will most likely create my own 30.9 and 31.6 seat post collars to offer both sizes to my exacting specifications. It took me well over a year of working on and off of this challenge and I'm beyond stoked right now. There's no dents. No ripples. No D-Shapes. Smooth, consistent and repeatable. Only marks are where the tube was held which gets cut off when mitered for the bottom bracket - when I return from Thanksgiving, I have a plan to eliminate that so I can radius a seat tube and have a straight section at the bottom without having a short bit to waste. Few shots for all to see. This is steel - getting a sample to do in Ti next. Compared to how I was doing this before, this is LIGHTYEARS ahead, a heck of a lot easier, and accurate.







And shown with Paragon Machine Works 30.9mm Seat Post Collar (Part No. MS2019). Stoke. A great way to head into the vacation with a triumph like this one...

[drewgh2o]

Lookin good Kris, glad to see it's moving forward. I've been working on benders this week coincidentally.

[fortyfour]

Lookin good Kris, glad to see it's moving forward. I've been working on benders this week coincidentally.

Hey Drew!!! (This is Drew Gillingwaters everyone - he made the dies for the tooling I built to make these seat tubes). Thanks so much for those dies. First few attempts initially were not good. I was getting ripples but after looking closely, I noticed that the machine method you used to get the radius's left very subtle high spots. So I had to make a few custom dies to sand/polish the tools radius by hand. Just took some time and then a bunch of thinking about how the tool initially was designed and then how I needed to modify the methodology to make the existing tools work correctly.

So just by chance I remembered that one of the Titanium tube samples I have down in the shop is a stub of 1.375" O.D. Mid-dinner, I apologized to my wife Lynn (bless her...) ran down to the shop, chucked up the Titanium sample and BLAM:





1.375" O.D. Titanium Seat Tubes too made in house at 44HQ. Couldn't have done it without you Drew. Thanks again!!

[fortyfour]

I don't know what it's like out in everyone else's neck of the woods tonight, but up here in NH it's filled full of rain, freezing rain, sleet, snow and bone chilling cold. A proper New England Sampler... Here's one to keep us warm tonight:

[fortyfour]

[fortyfour]

Head on over to the 44 Bikes Online Shop and use discount code "SHREDTASTIC" to take 25% off your entire order. Offer ends midnight. Get to work kids...

[fortyfour]

[fortyfour]

[drewgh2o]

Yo Kris, sorry about those scallops. Theoretically, they should have been about .0001-.0002 tall and I figured they would disappear after the first few bends. We're the wrinkles solved by the hard following die? I saw you switched from a trunnion wheel to a solid wheel pushing on a flat die in your FNL post. Glad to see you're getting good results now!

[fortyfour]

Hey Drew - The flat spots on those dies were really subtle. Running your finger across the dies surface you could just feel them. First try and they created very small wrinkles in the underside of the bend. Good enough for some, but not the level I was after. At that point I recalled a tour of the Aerospace Research Lab at PSU I had taken as a Sophomore at PSU. I got to see the water tunnel as well as their extensive CNC Carbon Fiber Weaving machines, giant SLA machines, their massive machine shop and last but not least their 4 or 5 axis CNC centers. I got to see them machining the turbine's for torpedo's. They were 3d machining them to a certain tolerance, then one of the machinists would hand file / sand them down to another tolerance to remove the marks left from the machine. That little tour sparked me to go ahead and make some additional tools to take off those high spots by hand and polish the dies basically. That removed the high spots and produced what you see above. I'm going to do the same for the followers.

Long story short, those dies needed followers as the trunnion wheel was not big enough producing a "lump" as it started it's bend. I knew that if I reconfigured the entire process to accept followers in a new way, I'd solve both problems (or at least I had a really good hunch it would). So a lot of work, chips and squinty eyes later, I had it exactly where I wanted it. Both Ti and Steel of the same diameter tube of course produces different spring backs and hence slightly different bends. They are consistent from tube to tube when the same O.D. / materials, but different between different O.D.'s which makes sense. Last bit of the puzzle is to produce a set of drawings of the finished tubes. So that means making prints the old fashioned way from the originals and then producing vector eps art of them to be exported as DWG's so I can get the originals into the computer/CAD as very accurate drawings BUT accurate drawings based on the actual results.

I feel lucky that I learned all of this sort of stuff the "old fashioned way" in addition to growing up with computers integrated in the classroom.

Here's the 31.8mm O.D. tubes finished up. Also can do True Temper double butted tubes pretty easily too in both 31.8 and 34.9mm.



This scrap DT is a True Temper tube with a butt of .9/.6/.9 - The bend goes well into the .6mm butt section with no deformities. Pretty stoked on all of this.

[fortyfour]

I get a lot of questions about 1x conversions and I think it has a little something to do with the fact that none of my personal bikes run front derailleurs. I've also seen a lot of the same types of questions of "How do I convert to 1x" kind of stuff on the internet. I just converted my wife Lynn's 650b to a 1x10 drivetrain and figured I should take the time to expand on some options, the jargon, and explain the basic simplicity of how it's done but emphasizing key points that should be taken into consideration. For those interested, here's the expanded version via the 44 Bikes Blog.

Few pics for everyone of Lynn's 650b before (Saddle and Seat Post were stand in's as her saddle and setback post had not arrived yet when I shot that photo):



And then after the conversion :

[Scott Altland]

Hi Henry...noticed you hade a Wolftooth direct mount chainring on a Sram X9.This exact setup was one of a few changes I've been considering on my SS Mariachi.Experience with this setup...can you tell a difference as far as stiffness/power transfer etc.
Thanks..Happy New Year.
Scott Altland

[Scott Altland]

Read you blog post...should have done that first.
Scott

[fortyfour]

Hi Henry...noticed you hade a Wolftooth direct mount chainring on a Sram X9.This exact setup was one of a few changes I've been considering on my SS Mariachi.Experience with this setup...can you tell a difference as far as stiffness/power transfer etc.
Thanks..Happy New Year.
Scott Altland

Hey Scott-

Are you considering going to a 1x setup or swapping out the existing spider/ring for a direct mount?

The rings themselves (5 spoke versions) are plenty stiff and rather beefy in terms of construction. Wolftooth's tooth profile (IMO) is superior to pretty much all the stock stuff. But I have not noticed any lack of power transfer or stiffness. What I have noted though is over the course of the season, NOT having to break down the entire crank, clean / re-grease all the chainring bolts and interfaces. So the lack of maintenance that I would usually see halfway through the season in the summer, due to when it gets dry/dusty and creaks and clicks appear, is/was not present. If anyone out there has a Race Face Cinch specific direct mount chainring, Wolftooth's ring is considerably stiffer/beefier than that stock ring - that I will say. I know Sram FINALLY came out with a X-Sync direct mount ring in a variety of sizes (up to 40t.. Can't wait till their 38t hits this spring for the 1x set up on my road bike). What took them so long I will not know.. But thank you Sram for stepping up your game.

IMO if you do make the move to a direct mount or head in the 1x direction and have the ability to go direct mount: Do it. You eliminate the spider and all the chainring bolts so you're dropping a little weight but you simplify the whole system so there is less to maintain or go wrong, and you also get access to chainring's with teeth counts lower than 32t without having to jump through some hoops. I just swapped over to a 30t ring this past week and it has been interesting how much more variety I have for seated climbs in the upper half of the cassette and it seems I'm using pretty much the entire cassette now throughout the ride instead of just being in the upper half. I pretty much sit in the middle of the cassette now most of the ride - which brings up a point of chain line with 1x setups : Sitting in the center of the cassette puts less wear on that chain for a longer period of the ride. So long term, that's good. I'd also say if you are 10 speed, highly consider a 40t hop up for the rear. Either drop the 15t or 17t cog (I dropped the 15t as I like the 17t). But what is interesting about a 30x40 vs a 32x40 is that he gear inch calculations are about 21.75 of the 30x40 compared with 23.2 of the 32x40t combo. So they are close, but on a long ride say 20-30 miles in, that little bit of extra ease could really start to add up. I know in the handful of rides I've been on over the course of this past week, I'm seated a lot more on climbs (ours are short and steep for the most part) and I finally feel that if I need to just sit back and pedal to take a break and recover I've got that set of granny type gears again. The 36t cog is nice, but the 40 is even better for this. I'd say the 30t chainring up front gives me a little more variety in feel over the entire cassette vs the 32t chainring combo. It's not much but it is enough to make me stop and think about it.

I will say though the mental side of it has me thinking I'm getting soft though going from a 34 to a 32 and now to a 30...

[Scott Altland]

Currently have the Truvative Stylo 1.1 with a single E13 ring in front...btw.Along with other ideas considering a direct mount chainring setup which would mean upgrading the crank also.Like you said I like simplifying the system.Thanks for the input.
Scott

[fortyfour]

South Bend Heavy 10 with Taper Attachment. Time to make chips...

[fortyfour]

#operationheavy10

[fortyfour]