Thursday Location: Seven | Studio
Time: 7:10 am – 8:10 pm
- Product Design: Messing around with chainstay designs for mountain bikes. I’m certain we’ve got 10 times more designs than we had two three years ago. We’ve got way too many options happening. It’s what Seven Cycles does as a custom framebuilder. Here is some of the craziness on “mountain bikes” alone – not including road, triathlon, etc. – that affect chainstay design. Of course all of these aspects interact so in combination if feels almost infinite in complexity:
- Wheel diameter: 29er, 650b, 26″
- Tire width: Anywhere from 23c up to 2.5″ tire – and everything in between
- Tire profile: slick, file tread, knobby, how knobby? Of course, one company’s 38c measures 38c, another company may measure 35c or 42c. No good standard, in my view.
- Drivetrain type: Belt or chain?
- Number of chainrings: three, two, one, blast off.
- Chain-line: road vs. mountain vs. belt drive vs. triple vs. my patience
- Gears: Single, internal, or classic. Additional detail issues with single and internal because of the belt or chain tension method.
- Chainstay length: Most people want the shortest setup possible. Not secondarily for the right reasons.
- Other frame geometry elements: Primarily seat tube angle and drop.
- Tubeset choice: Tube diameter affects design, clearances, and possibilities.
Some nice words about Ride Studio Cafe from Lovely Bicycle! in her recent blog post about her D2R2 experience.
D2R2 2012 | Photo: Lovely Bicycle!
Last Saturday I took part in a famous East Coast ride known as the Deerfield Dirt-Road Randonnée (D2R2).
a couple of weeks ago, Rawland Cycles offered me to try a new bike they’ve just released – a sporty model with 650B wheels and fat tires. When I mentioned the D2R2 was coming up, everything happened quickly. The Ride Studio Cafe took delivery of the bike just days before the event, assembling and tuning it with miraculous speed.
A thank you to Rawland Cycles and Ride Studio Cafe for making this happen at the last minute.
I hope to see you next year. More pictures of the event start to finish here.
Thanks Velouria for posting about the event and including the Studio. We’ll definitely see you next year.
The fall issue “17” of Cyclocross Magazine has an interview with Andrea Smith. She mentions her Seven bikes.
“I race on a custom Seven Mudhoney SLX and have a Seven Modhoney S as my pit bike.”
Andrea is the women’s 2012 National Champion age 30-34! Go Andrea.
Wednesday Location: Seven
Time Marker: 7:50 am – 10:35 pm
- Design: 2013 brochure for Seven Cycles. John L. has staged the 30+ articles we’re writing. We’ve got 10 people from outside Seven writing pieces. Coolness. John is employing his magazine editing skills – at least some of them; he has many more publishing skills not yet employed; what we’re doing is a lot easier than what he used to have to do. Photo-shoots scheduled. Cover ideas worked out. Layout tests about to happen – tomorrow. First mock up made by end of this week.
- Graphic Design: Posters: Re-shot the last of them. We’re so picky. Driving some people crazy. Hoping to go to the printer on Friday. “Hope in one hand…”
Tuesday location: Seven | Studio
Time: 8:10 am – 9:05 pm
- Project Management: Brochure 2013: We’ve got a nearly impossible deadline. Actually the deadline isn’t the problem; my management of the months coming up to that deadline is the problem. On the positive side we’ve got all the elements in place; on the negativeland we’ve got about two and a half weeks to wrap it up. Oh boo hoo. John L. is managing the words. Skunk is managing the layout and printing prep. I’m “managing” the other parts. This includes the “catalogue” and the “book.” We have about 30 pieces to write with only about one third of the drafting completed. For better or worse we’ve got about a dozen people helping with the writing; I think that will have been worth it. We’ll see if John agrees at the end of this month; he’s the one herding the cats. We’ve got about two-thirds of the photography completed. Again some outside help with that. I’m very excited about the design of the book. I worked a cover concept this evening. The overall size of the book is still in question but we’ll have that wrapped up by week end – thanks to Skunk. Buckle up with Mario Andretti.
- Project Bike: Mount Washington Climbing Machine from Seven Cycles Axiom SLX got raced again this weekend. It didn’t fair so well this time out. The above photo shows some of the carnage.
Monday location: Seven | Studio
Time Marker: 8:35 am – 9:55 pm
- Product Design: Working on Seven Cycles chainstay designs. The design is somewhat infinite because every bike is custom. Within that infinity we have roughly 50 design parameters or templates account for about 99% of our bikes. I’m working on two design aspects right now:
- An updated version of Seven’s 1″ chainstays – these are the stiffest titanium chainstays on the planet. Not suitable for most riders, these stays are definitely for a small number of specialty bikes. And, I’m working on a couple ways to incorporate thsese stays on more bikes – making the 1″ stays more versatile, more adaptable, and more appropriate for a wider range of riders and bike designs.
- Fatigue testing program that relates to titanium as a material. I’m hoping the testing program goes well becuase we’ve got some ideas I’d like to implement. More variety. More specialized applications. But many of these ideas require pushing the technical parameters of the material a bit farther – hence the testing to determine where are the boundaries.
- Business Thinking & Design Standards: Good standard, bad standard. When is a standard helpful and when does it hinder progress? This is a big conversation that I’ll try to write about another time. It’s a topic that’s been rearing its head a lot lately. I think I know why and it’s a bit disturbing. Standards exist for many reasons – not all of them good. It’s often difficult to decipher which are good and bad because those paths are often intertwined. So much to say about this.
We’ve finally assembled Seven Cycles’ first Campagnolo EPS test bike today. We’ve designed a number of EPS frames to Campy’s spec but this is the first bike we’re actually testing.
The bike is a Diamas S with a full Campy kit. We have a very generous customer that’s letting us abuse assemble his bike. Maiden voyage tomorrow. Some nice features to the kit. I’m looking forward to a full report. Wish I was going to ride it. I have a Dura Ace electronic 11-speed bike in the queue so I’ll have to wait for that. We’ll see how DA11 works in cold weather.
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“If everything is under control, you’re not going fast enough.” – Mario Andretti
This is an image of Mario Andretti pushing a car to its limit; some might say beyond its limit. I wonder if he could get a bit closer to the edge of traction on that front left tire.
Sunday location: Seven | Studio || 6:20 am – 8:05 pm
Just a double workday today. No projects. Home = too tired.
I sure do. And I still do.
Saturday location: Studio || 7:20 am – 7:25 pm – a ride in the middle somewhere
Rode with the Sunday group today. Super Dom style. Rained for most of the ride. Had great fun nonetheless.
The mark of a Studio Super Dom
Thursday Location: Seven | Studio
