First it was LA
We met & rode with Hobie, Meghan, and Derek… though Mary was sidelined when she brought the wrong front wheel. D’oh!

Hobie says: “Meghan, I think it’s all downhill from this point on” ….time and again.

Fun peeps. Good trails, views, and one of the tastiest tostadas around.

A little “nesting” visit by Ikea… but we made a commitment not to actually buy anything, except the swedish meatballs of course.

Next, San Diego.

We stopped by the Homebrewed Components shop- more on that soon, but the real day’s work was a visit to the fastest dentist on two wheels. (Also see Dr. Sutton here on the SJ Enduro results page.)
We rewarded the dental work with a little beach visit on the way home:

Mary’s looking more and more pregnant every day.

Been running this setup for a week and lovin’ it

I borrowed the middle four gears from an old XTR cassette that was destined for the scrap bin… the Deore derailleur has been with me at least 15 years. Bud Hunt, the local shop owner, donated an old Accushift thumb shifter, which I turned to the friction setting. I’d guess you could put a couple more gears on the Hope singlespeed freehub body.

Upside: The setup works very well. It’s simple, easy to use, and gives me a good range of “singlespeedy” gears to pick from. And, old derailleurs were built tough. The DX derailleur has less play in it than some new bits.
The whole shebang can convert back to singlespeed quickly, as I didn’t move the sliders, and simply spliced in extra chain with a quicklink.

Downside: It sounds like a geared bike again. Chain slap bugs me.
The old derailleurs, while built tough, are friggin heavy.

Been enjoying some third trimester rides on local trails…

We’re creating a newsletter series- want to join in the fun?
Each issue will highlight something new we’re working on detail a custom build.
To join in, drop us a line to our info address here.

This month’s newsletter highlights the ready-for-primetime John Henry and our new Philippine distributor, My Next Bike.

To view the live, html enabled document, click here.

Got this unsolicited email yesterday:

Greg”

Check out Greg’s family biz- some nice stitchwork! F3 Designs

Built up with Chris King, NoTubes, and Syntace goodies.

We built up Joe’s Scandium singlespeed, just short of his Brooks saddle and a nice pair of mango anodized pedals.

His build kit is highlighted by smart, durable components with an eye toward light weight & easy maintenance. The Chris King hubs are laced to NoTubes Arch 29 rims (with mango nipples) and mated to a Fox F29 RLC fork. The cockpit (not pictured) is a German made Syntace P6 carbon post and a F129 stem mated to a Titec Jones bar. Stoppers are the much loved Avid BB7 calipers, controlled with Speed Dial SL levers. The drivetrain turns on a Truvativ Stylo OCT crank and an Endless Bike Company Kick Ass Cog.

Joe’s Trauco features a swanky metallic tangelo powdercoat, with a subtle gold sparkle the shows itself in full sun. The tubeset consists of Easton Scandium main tubes mated to Easton Ultralite stays, the CNC yoke for great mud clearance (good for the bike’s North Carolina home), and Ahrens sliding dropouts.

Local Boy Cannon Shockley stopped through for a visit

We got him on a new bike- a fresh John Henry, still warm out of the oven.
So hot, so dreamy… the bike, that is.  Ah, to have two Sirens in the quiver.

We took his bike out for a spin close to the shop. It was his first “real” singlespeed ride… he whupped me pretty good.

His John Henry has one of the new, riveted head badges. Also hawt.

Cannon left his Song 29 behind for some freshening up- perhaps a new lightweight rear triangle and a fresh powdercoat job… it’s going to be used again in 2010 for an undisclosed bikepacking mission.

Some of his 2009 Tour Divide pics

We took a Sunday drive to the Salton Sea area…

Mary prepared the Ghia Saturday, she purred with a fresh set of spark plugs, an oil change, and a tune… the perfect ride for an air-cooled jaunt into the fall desert.

We passed through the “resort cities” and on into Imperial County.

The environmental oddity that is the Salton Sea. A hundred years ago the Colorado River flooded this below-sea-level area. Today, remnants of 50’s vintage resorts, environmental & social problems remain.

We pressed on to Bombay Beach, Niland, and finally Salvation Mountain, part of Slab City.

We found a shady spot to park the car

Faux Siren

Coincidentally, we arrived on the artist/creator’s birthday. Leonard Knight, 78 years young last Sunday, started this creation 27 years ago with some paint and a message.

Leonard had loads of enthusiasm and was eager to show his guests around. Inside, the Mountain has some seating areas, a comfortable atmosphere, and the lingering scent of latex paint.
This particular view was made somewhat famous in the book/film Into The Wild

A small community supports the mountain, under Leonard’s guidance volunteers come to paint, maintain, and commune around the mountain. He explained that the mountain becomes stronger and stronger over time, with more and more layers of paint. He speculated they’d applied more than 100,000 gallons of paint over time. I asked where he gets the supplies:
“People bring what I ask for- mostly exterior, high gloss paint.” he said.
“Right now I’d like some high gloss yellow.”

Slab City and Camp Dunlap are the same place, garnering different names over time as the retired Marine camp gave way to the desert, and boondockers.
A short walk from Salvation Mountain leads to the pedestals of what must have been water tanks.

Love/War

I finally caved to Dave’s pressure- I built a singlespeed. …so I used it as an opportunity to try a couple new things. A SuperTrauco of sorts.

Miss San Jacinto, as I’m calling her for now, sports a constant radius top tube, titanium seatstays (an evolution from the firm tail project) and our fancy new head badge.

The constant radius top tube provides improved standover clearance compared to a straight TT, but with a bit more real estate inside the front triangle for things like frame bags. Not a big deal to some riders, but important for ultra racers and Tour Dividers… not to mention it looks dead sexy, and let’s face it- a good looking bike gets ridden more.

The titanium seatstays required a bit of custom handwork, especially around the dropout area to make an internal plug that mates up with the Ahrens sliding dropout. It turned out well, but we’re already scheming on a way to do it better should we have a customer who might want something like this.

The titanium seatstays really do smooth out the ride… I know this after having been riding my John Henry for the past several months and now switching over to this bike- her maiden voyage was nearly 80 miles of suffering on the San Jacinto Enduro this past weekend. It’s hard to make a head-to-head comparison because I haven’t ridden the far in a while, and I’ve been riding gears for so long… BUT, this bike is darned comfy.

Oh, and it has the added benefit of belt drive compatibility.

I hope to keep evolving the lightweight firm-tail/ SuperTrauco idea a bit more. Keep your eyes peeled.

These are samples of what’s to come

They rivet on, and we have them coming in two sizes; to fit aluminum or steel frames. We’ll also have some self-adhesive badges for the Sirens already on the trail.