Ride Event: This Fall Five project is a little too much. Many hours into this. Every stage changes the playing field. Too many moving pieces. Sandy storm is the latest. Maybe.
Product Development: Made a bit of progress on Seven Cycles suspension bike project today. Small but important step. We might actually have a rideable prototype in the very near future – for me that’s within the next two decades.
Ride Event: The Ride Studio Cafe Fall Five competition began today. It’s off to a great start. A few Stage One images here. Stage Two starts tomorrow – details here. It’s been a lot of work for Patria and me. Well worth it though; great feedback. Great group of participants. Learning a lot. Working till sleep overtakes.
Only a few more espressos to go photo – Rob Vandermark
Thursday location: Seven | Studio || 7:55 am – 12:05 am on Friday
Note: It finally has hit me why I’m posting in this format: micro posts about what’s happening, almost hour by hour. Reason: that’s the way work gets done by me; I spend a few minutes on one project, have a meeting about some aspect of a project, sketch out ideas when I’m in the middle of something else. Work interrupts work. This is the reality of project based execution. No project, on which I work, gets done in an orderly fashion – like a nice neat blog post, for example. The work is messily disjointed, full of dead-ends false starts, and backtracking. I hope that explains why this journal is the way it is. I’ve not seen any other blog set up this way – although I’m sure there are many. It’s been bothering my that I’m posting this way but I finally now understand why. It doesn’t solve anything but it helps clarify.
Ride Event: Fall Five at Ride Studio Cafe – begins tomorrow. Two more routes figured out. That’s five in total. Great routes. It’s going to be a blast. All five stages now posted: Stage One starts tomorrow morning. We have 25 people signed up already!
Wednesday location: Seven | Studio || 7:40 am – 10:20 pm
Product Design: Worked some on Seven Cycles’ chainstay spreadsheet dummy today. To prove the new decision-tree methodology for choosing, and designing, the optimal chainstay for any component configuration.
Production Management: We’re off our October framebuilding target for October. We’ll get back on track by the ned of next Wednesday. It’s amazing how fast a month goes by. We’ve made some good improvements in flow leveling and balancing; we’re having a better month than some this year. And we still have lots of work to do.
Graphic Design: Wool Jersey design for Seven Cycles. This is the 2012 winter version. We’re working with Woolistic on a different style that I’m not sure they’re going to be able to do for us. Fingers crossed. Timeline is tight – what a surprise.
Tuesday location: Seven | Studio || 7:45 am – 9:35 pm
Speaking: I just got invited to speak at a bicycle materials symposium. Looks interesting. No time to prepare anything worthwhile. More later. Flattered to be invited to this engineering symposium.
Retail Management: I was discussing the changing landscape of retail in the United States today. It’s going to be an interesting season for many small bicycle builders – and for large bike suppliers. Really, for everyone. More so than during some previous years. Retailers are getting pushed hard by big suppliers that wield some big sticks. Margins are too tight, pressure is very high, consolidation means options are few. In some ways it’s what’s been happening for years in the industry. In some ways it’s all been taken up a notch by some recent events. I’m glad I’m working with Seven Cycles!
Graphic Design: Seven Cycles’ latest ad is out in Cyclocross Magazine. Thanks to Dave Chiu, Matt Roy, and Skunk for making it happen.
Materials Matter: I received a really disturbing email from a titanium supplier. The supplier sells titanium tubing with a few states of annealing – as is true with the only two mills in the country. Long story short, annealing is a way to improve ductility and formability. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, as formability goes up, strength goes down. Cutting to the chase, this supplier sells fully annealed material to framebuilders – those that cannot form tubing. This fully annealed material is about 50% of the strength of cold-worked stress-relieved – CWSR- material, like what Seven Cycles uses. ‘Half the strength’ is not a material I would recommend for bicycle building. I don’t fault the titanium supplier; they’re not bicycle frame designers so I don’t expect them to be making recommendations about what’s safe and not safe. They don’t sell ‘chainstays;’ they sell ‘0.875 x 0.035″ tubing.’ However, many bicycle framebuilders are not engineers. Understanding material elongation properties – what 6% means relative to 15% is likely lost on most builders. Even knowing that material strength of a fully annealed tube is about half that of a CWSR tube seems to fall on deaf ears. Dangerous.
Friday location: Seven || 7:55 am – 10:25 pm
Wednesday location: Seven | Studio || 7:40 am – 10:20 pm
Tuesday location: Seven | Studio || 7:45 am – 9:35 pm
