New builder in the block...

[weisan]

None other than one of our own...ladies and gentlemen, may I present Dave Thompson.

Hurry, we are taking orders NOW!

[William]

Until I see cages with bottles of Ancestra inside them mounted to a "Thompson" frame........I aint buying it (that DT made it that is)!









William

[SPOKE]

Nicely done Dave!!

[Louis]

Hmmm, just my size.

[malcolm]

Doesn't look like Cabo to me

[Louis]

Originally Posted by malcolm

Doesn't look like Cabo to me

But Spokane is in the middle of a massive drought, and that grass looks pretty brown.

[dave thompson]

Originally Posted by weisan

None other than one of our own...ladies and gentlemen, may I present Dave Thompson.

Hurry, we are taking orders NOW!

Yes, yes we are. 6 year wait list, 5 Large

Originally Posted by William

Until I see cages with bottles of Ancestra inside them mounted to a "Thompson" frame........I aint buying it (that DT made it that is)!









William

Willie, just for you!

[weisan]

Originally Posted by dave thompson

Yes, yes we are. 6 year wait list, 5 Large

Ok, no problem, worth the wait...but painted by Joe Bell, yes?

Never accept anything less especially when it comes to bikes.

[Louis]

Originally Posted by weisan

Ok, no problem, worth the wait...but painted by Joe Bell, yes?

Never accept anything less especially when it comes to bikes.

Joe Bell? Ha - they're made in a sweatshop in Bangladesh (Mexico was too expensive) and painted by 8-yr old kids who get the equivalent of $2.50 / week. When they asked for a raise to $2.75 and Dave sent in some local teenagers to scare them back to work.

[Mzilliox]

I feel like I'm missing an inside joke. Is the wait list really 5-6 years?

[Louis]

Yes. No.

[thwart]

Originally Posted by Mzilliox

I feel like I'm missing an inside joke. Is the wait list really 5-6 years?

Ahhh, newbies. Dave's been here, well, since before some of us were born.

And no previous news of his frame building, at least that I've heard of...

So five years? Only if you want a nicely aged bottle of Ancestra...

[dave thompson]

As I get older there are more things that I want to do. I put these in my Bucket List. There are some that I have already accomplished, good family, flown in the Concorde and a P-51, been to some of the 1000 Places To See Before You Die, etc. There are some that I will never do but it's sure fun to contemplate them. Then there are things that percolate to top and the Carpe has to be Diem. Building this frameset was just such a thing.

I was getting my usual daily fix of the Paceline and and somehow heard that Aaron McCambridge of AR Cycles offered framebuilding classes. I had been thinking of taking such a class for several years but it always got put on the back burner because of the cost (some over 4K!) the class was so far away and the logistics didn't work or the teacher never responded to any of my e-mails. Plus doing something like that was for my own edification and entertainment, I had no delusions about doing it as career.

I contacted Aaron and we corresponded and talked and I made the commitment. He's in Sacramento which is 850 miles and a pretty easy 1.5 day drive so that would work out well for me. Lodging was a potential sticking point but through AirBnB I found something that was (literally) 256 feet from his workshop.

Aaron's day job is a elementary school teacher so I was his perfect student. He was gentle, kind, guiding and informative with me. Good thing as I had NEVER used a torch in my life. We got along very well, surprisingly as I am an mildly curmudgeonly old guy and he's a young, long-haired hipster kinda kid. Near 50 years separates us.

The design and dimensions of the bike were settled on weeks before I arrived so all the tubes were marked and ready to cut. He had me do pretty much everything, cutting, butting, mitering, bending and brazing, except on a few critical pieces like the steertube/crown part. Our time was somewhat limited so we spent 4 8~12 days getting the frame and fork done. It was 106 or so in Sacramento that week, the whole town was like an oven.

The brazing part was the hardest as I had to learn how to read the flux and when it was ready to apply the silver and how to read the metal to tell me when it was ready to receive the brass. Aaron watched closely and instructed me how to make and insure each joint was brazed through are correctly. I did it but there were blobs of silver and brass on the exterior parts that required a great deal of clean up.

To shorten this story, I received the frame and fork last week after it came out of paint and I spent the next day assembling (and caressing) the bike. So far a little bit less that 100 miles on it, it's not asplosed yet. it feels good, solid, corners and handles well and it does come downhill quite nicely. I've hit 35mph several times with no shakes, wobbles or signs of impending doom.

I had a good time doing this, I scratched a very big itch. Very hard to do, I have huge respect now for guys like Dave Kirk, who make it look extremely easy.

[Elefantino]

You still haven't answered the question...

HOW LONG IS THE WAIT????



















And would you consider a trade for the Look?

[weaponsgrade]

That looks great! I've also got building my own frame on my bucket list. I haven't heard of AR Cycles and I see that he's pretty close to me. I might have to look into it sometime.