I’m working on an all-season randonneur bike. The latest Seven rando in a 2012 project series. This might be the last rando project bike completed before the end of this year – we have less than three weeks remaining in the ’12. Mind you, this is not a customer bike – we’re likely to do a number of customer randos in the last couple weeks of 2012. This winter bike is an internal project to test a couple ideas that we wouldn’t wish on any paying customer.
For me, here’s what comes to mind when I’m working on this design. Hence the name Nella Neve.
Highlights of this Nella-Wheeler include:
Tagged as:
Randonneur
Anne Mostue interviewed me at Ride Studio Cafe this morning for a piece that WGBH is doing on bike commuting: how it’s changed over the past few years; how it varies by urban density, and how to make it safer.
You can listen to the short 4-minute piece here. She also interviewed David Watson and Lisa Weissman. This piece is a followup to an earlier segment.
We covered a lot of topics during our conversation, including:
- The dramatic increase in Boston area bike commuting over the past five years
- Ways to be safe when commuting by bike
- Ways in which safe varies by urban density: cycling is different in Boston vs. Lexington vs. Harvard, MA, for example.
- The role of helmets in safety – and perceived safety. An inflammatory conversation in some circles.
Tagged as:
WGBH
Sunday location: 7:55 am – 6:10 pm
How I feel at the end of every Sunday. The Moment After Closing.
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Saturday location: Seven | Studio || 8:00 am – 6:30 pm
This might be what the next Ride Studio Cafe pop-up shop looks like.
I took this photo when I visited in Shanghai in 2007. Who takes photos of American crap when visiting the coolest city in the world? Me, that’s who.
I didn’t have the guts to purchase anything from the min golden arches. I had a difficult time imagining what this 7×7 square foot space might sell.
I am going straight to Hell
Friday location: Seven | Studio || 7:40 am – 6:35 pm
- Product Development: Carbon randonneur fork. We’ve got an overall design mapped out. All the features and options determined. Matt O. is helping put the prototype together. Bryan H. may help, too. Neil is pulling together all the components that we’ll be testing with the fork. Lug-work on a carbon fork? Hmmmm. I’m excited to test it out; I’m third in line, though.
- Product Development: Speaking of forks, Seven steel fork project is back on the ‘current’ list. We started this project about 2-years ago. It’s a long arduous project; testing, testing, pricing, sourcing, testing, welding, testing, revision, etc. I figure in another two years we might be ready.
Thursday location: Seven | Studio || 7:40 am – 10:05 pm
- Graphic Design: Seven Cycles posted the Rapha piece online today. Getting great reception. Probably will run out by the end of the weekend.
- Press: Mo Bruno Roy’s bike is on Velonews – twice. Great stuff. Matt Roy made a video. Definitely worth checking out.
- History: The interview with Max Kullaway reminded my of my last day at Merlin Metalworks. What a day!
- Graphic Design: I’ve been working on Seven Cycles’ new head tube badge for about five years. It’s that complicated. No; it’s that not critical path for the business. But, it’s finally back on the board. I’m hoping to have prototypes done in January. It’s going to be different from anything I’ve seen before. At least, that’s the intent.
Mo Bruno Roy‘s PRO 2 gets shown off at VeloNews in two ways:
- A nice slideshow with some details.
- A video that Matt Roy made of him assembling the bike with Dave Wilcox. It’s a fun time-lapse piece.
People seem to be talking about how quickly Seven built the frame – started on Tuesday morning and handed it off to Matt on Friday evening. I didn’t really think it was a fast build. Most every frame goes through Seven’s system in a few days – sans paint. Four days of build time is about 30 hours or so.
Here are some interesting notes from the VeloNews piece; Emily Zinn was able to elicit a few comments from me that I would rarely express outside the four walls of Seven:
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Tagged as:
Emily Zinn,
Mo Bruno Roy,
Rob Vandermark,
VeloNews
A couple years ago Honey Bikes teamed up with Hup United to create a Limited Edition Cyclocross bike – a pure US race bike. We worked with Chip Baker and Hup founder Zac Daab on that project. That bike was a huge success and a lot of fun. We’ve been talking with Chip about doing another limited edition bike with Hup – and this is it! Actually, this is one of three; the other two bikes are a mountain bike and a winter trainer.
Project: Hup Cyclocross Race 2.0
Project Directive:
- Steel frame and carbon fork tipping the scales in the realm of aluminum and carbon – even lighter than the last one – while maintaining the classic Honey durability and warranty
- Disc specific – low mount frame and Enve carbon fork
- A frame geometry designed for tight New England cross courses while still being a blast to ride on some of the upcoming endurance cross races. April is right around the corner.
- Only offer a handful of bikes for a very limited time
- Design colorways that make this bike stand out – in a good way
- Represent Hup United!
I think we can accomplish all of these ideas. Oh, and we’re introducing the bike at a special Hup event in January. About 5-weeks away.
Okay, now it’s two weeks away. We’ve got the prototype frame in production.
Photos below the fold.
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Tagged as:
Hup United
Wednesday location: Seven | 8:05 am – 8:15 pm
- Engineering: I had a conversation with a framebuilder about Asian sourced titanium today. As with just about everything, there exists a stratification from best to worst – from excellent to mystery metal. Unfortunately, my consistent experience is that titanium – whether frames or raw material – coming out of China is on the worst end of the scale; some isn’t terrible and a lot is terrible. Taiwan isn’t much better. Sources for both are getting better; we’re seeing improvements every season. That’s why we do testing of materials every year or so. I don’t like to generalize and follow stereotypes but my experience is my experience. The irony is that the stereotype of ‘all titanium is good titanium’ is just plain wrong. The best titanium is more than three times stronger, and with a three fold improvement in fatigue endurance, over the worst titaniums we’ve tested. That can easily be the difference between a frame that fails in a year and a frame that lasts a lifetime.
- Materials: I’ve been slowly collecting some titanium notes. It’s a mess right now but I’ll make it work better, bit by bit. I have to keep track somehow.
Maxwell at Merlin Metalworks in 1996
The Bicycle Story interviewed Max Kullaway recently. Matt O. just forwarded me the link. Maxwell used to work at Seven Cycles, and before that at Merlin Metalworks. In the interview Max mentioned his time at Seven and Merlin:
Seven got going in 1997 and a bunch of people from Merlin left to work there, including me. Seven is all custom, so it was a completely different set up for production [from Merlin]. It’s all single-piece flow. Still is. I learned a lot about production working there and got to do a lot more welding. […]
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I’m working on an all-season randonneur bike. The latest Seven rando in a 2012 project series. This might be the last rando project bike completed before the end of this year – we have less than three weeks remaining in the ’12. Mind you, this is not a customer bike – we’re likely to do a number of customer randos in the last couple weeks of 2012. This winter bike is an internal project to test a couple ideas that we wouldn’t wish on any paying customer.
