AR cycles

[intheways]

I can’t wait to see what it looks like built up!

[8aaron8]

Finishing up the build on this lightweight road frame. A combination of varying tubes including Reynolds and Columbus were used. OS down tube and round chaintstays for a stiff drivetrain feel while using a 1" top tube and 3/8" seat stays for compliance and weight reduction. Fillet and bi-lam construction used to reduce weight fractionally over a traditional lugged construction, the bb shell is where most the weight is lost, especially after milling out large portions of it. Polished stainless headtube and custom stainless dropouts on the rear end feathered to a knifes edge between the seat and chainstays. Custom 1" threadless stem with 31.8 bar clamp in both 110 and 120mm. Frame/fork/stem came in at 2160 grams, which for steel is pretty respectable.

[dave thompson]

That headtube treatment is brilliant!

[8aaron8]

[Robot870]

Looks fantastic! love it!!!!!!!

[iwishiwasriding]

Nice work. The tire clearance looked pretty tight early on, but those finishes are spot on.

[8aaron8]

The journey from start to finish can take many paths and this frame preferred the long road. Eric, at Elite Velo, had been in contact with me off and on since 2019 when he sent me a Berk saddle for one of my bikes at the North American Handbuilt Show. We talked about a build at some point in the future but no plans were made. Fast forward to early 2022 Eric was ready and I was ready with the caveat that I had a lot of projects being juggled, the most time consuming being the shop I had been planning to break ground on. I was assured that there was no rush on his part so I agreed and was excited to make something for a solid member of the bike community (if you've ever dealt with Eric you know he treats customers well).



Early 2022 was an interesting time for purchasing materials. We had planned on doing a modern classic build, so stainless lugs and rear triangle had been penciled in. Eric really wanted long point lugs, which there exists few options but even less when trying to find stainless. I was lucky enough to find not 1 but 3 sets of Pacenti Artisan lugs in stainless from a local builder. These were perfect because they A. have long points, and B. lend themselves to heavy shaping since they have a lot of extra material. With these in hand I began shaping until I found a shape I believe suited the overall aesthetic. At this point I was ready to put the front triangle together with Columbus spirit and life tubing. Once brazed up I began the tedious task of polishing the lugs, 80/120/220/400/800/1000/1500/2000 grit paper. Stainless work takes a toll on the body and between this, the building of the shop and the concurrent frame building class I was teaching my wrist crapped out.






As my wrist was on the mend I plugged away with shop building and wrapping of a frame building class while preparing for the next frame building class, there was a small backlog to clear from the 2 years of quarantine. I still didn't have any chain or seat stays in hand because stainless tubing was not easily found, Eric even checked on some sources for me and came up empty handed. I did have the fork parts in hand so I made the fork with the beautiful Columbus max blades, straight blade as Eric expressed a strong desire to have. Then I received a message from Joe and KVA stainless and was able to get a pair of chain and seatstays. My custom made stainless dropouts were ready to be brazed up and the frame was back on track.

[8aaron8]

I was on the home stretch with the frame working out the style of seat stay attachment. I felt the sharp points worked well with the long tang lugs. Last up was the brake bridge set at the max height for standard reach calipers, usually this means a 30mm tire can fit, often times a 32mm. All the final cleaning and polishing was ready just in time for the next snag.






At this point the frame was ready but my shop was not. I was determined not to set up my makeshift paint booth not only because it was a pain but also because at this time I had a total of 6 frames to paint. The shop structure was up and drywall done but I still needed to move my equipment from the garage out to the shop, power everything, pipe my airlines into the paint booth, build a filter box over my exhaust fan, set in the lighting and a thousand other small jobs. What I thought was going to take less time inevitably took more, however with everything functioning (though not organized at this point) I began catching up on some long overdue paint work. I had planned to paint Eric’s frame last as it had the most masking to do and I needed to get comfortable with the gun again. Eric wanted a pearl white bike with some red, we went back and forth with ideas then he gave me the green light to make it what I wanted which turned into a pearl white main frame with pearl silver graphics and a Ferrari red head tube and contrasting bands with a pearl coat over the top.

[8aaron8]

[mhespenheide]

Beautiful!

[8aaron8]

A few more photos while this one gets boxed up.

[truth]

I love the extra height on that upper headtube lug! What a lovely bike you've built!

[clyde the point]

Beauty!

[KarlC]

Wow, that's amazing. Such nice work. Great job

[Toddtwenty2]

This is really gorgeous.

I love the aesthetic choices. Somehow, this bike both looks like an elegant Sunday cruiser and a mean race machine at the same time.