Completely naked...

[weisan]

This is my one and only custom frame built by Paul Taylor in June of 2010.

It was designed to accommodate up to 35mm tires and incorporated a ritchey breakaway coupling invented by Tom Ritchey for ease of breaking down and packing for travel. Since then, it has flown to D2R2 twice (Franklin County, Deerfield Massachusetts), Oakland CA, Singapore, and Australia. It was supposed to make its first appearance in Europe to France this coming September but at this point we are not 100% sure if it will happen.









For six years when I was living abroad and out of Texas, it has served as my only dedicated bike. I have used it primarily as a regular road bike but in a few occasions, it's been called upon to perform gravel and bikepacking duties and it did fine.

It has gone through one frame repair (a crack developed in the bottom bracket) and one repaint and is about to go through another one in a day or two. This time around, I am going with powder coat to ensure maximum durability. It got stripped earlier today and my painter allowed me to bring it home for the night. The brazing is nowhere near Dave Kirk's but seldom do we get to see our frame in its naked form up close, so I thought I would share some pictures here, the good and the bad, everything.

[weisan]

Front triangle













Fork

[weisan]

Rear triangle

[joosttx]

Better your frame than you being naked

Really neat to see frames like that. Even cooler when the frame has a history.

[cinema]

looks great! a Taylor that was actually delivered, and still on the road, is a miracle

[unterhausen]

I was hoping you had a better picture of the top tube/head tube fillet on the rider's right side to see what is going on with that black line on there.

[dannymd]

Looks really great!

[Blue Jays]

Cool detailed pics! Excellent close-up camera work.

[weisan]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

I was hoping you had a better picture of the top tube/head tube fillet on the rider's right side to see what is going on with that black line on there.

Thank you for making that request. I have a suspicion that there might be a crack there. I have used the "oil sip" test and so far, no oil was found sipping on to the inside of the headtube. At this point, I am not too worried about the frame structural integrity, I think it will hold. Any observations or suggestions are welcome.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by unterhausen

I was hoping you had a better picture of the top tube/head tube fillet on the rider's right side to see what is going on with that black line on there.

Agree, that sure looks like a crack to me. As for 'oil seep' thing..if the miter is a good one and/or the crank doesn't go all the way thru, oil won't get to the inside..even if it did, t would be inside the top tube, not the head tube. The 'line' is next to the top tube.

It has gone through one frame repair (a crack developed in the bottom bracket)

I am not too worried about the frame structural integrity, I think it will hold

hmmm..BIG YMMV may vary...

[fmradio516]

if the frames paint is already stripped, its definitely worth bringing to a framebuilder to get a professional opinion/a fix.

[Hawker]

Thanks for the inside look Weisan and great photos! Trust this will come out the other end being exactly what you want.

Was this supposed to be a TDF trip this summer? If so, sorry my friend. But those guys would probably be clogging up the roads you are planning to ride anyway.

[velomateo]

I would check that seat clamp lug, the one with the Ritchey logo filled in, that looks cracked.

[coreyaugustus]

Thanks for sharing these. You're right; we rarely get to see what's going on under the paint on most of our bikes. It's interesting to see, for sure.

I just built my first frame last week and that was an eye-opening experience into just how much work there is to get it together. Naturally, I took quite a few pics of the raw frame just to remind myself how good/bad my first effort was in comparison to future ones.

Side note: I used the same downtube cable stops on the headtube much like yours. Those little SOBs are a trick to get positioned while brazing.

[old_fat_and_slow]

Anybody have any clues about all the discoloration in the braze at the seat tube/BB shell/chain stay junctions? That sure doesn't look good. Is that some kind of impurities in the braze material that was used?

Thanks for posting the images. Very interesting.