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.

What a ride.

The Start

Rollout

Climb

Walk

Cramp

Speed of Light

In chocolate brown with sparkles. Mmm…tasty

(pardon the shot, I took this on one of the approximately 3 days of the year that aren’t clear & sunny)

Greg’s John Henry clears BIG tires, even that new chunky one from WTB everyone’s talking about. Can’t remember the name; something like “Storm Trooper Violence Assault Triple Threat” Ok, it’s the Dissent, come to think of it.

His bike also features an internally relieved, US made Paragon bottom bracket shell… now standard equipment on the John Henry.

Greg’s bike was among the Medium-Large run we’re working on right now. I’m especially happy with the smooth transition from the 42mm down tube into the head tube… very subtle, but it gives a bit more weld surface at the junction, arguably a bit more lateral stiffness too. Cool points to Russ for the good idea with the squisher tool he made.

Cool points to Mike for the little end caps to the stays… very clean.

Ok Greg, if you’re reading this… please send pics of the assembled bike. But get some of that Texas dirt on it first.

Got some images from Andrew Carney’s lens.

The dude has been laying down some good rides & races.  Check out Vapor Trail, and Moab 24 for starters…

Joe’s Custom Trauco Singlespeed…

- next up, a full report with pics from the complete build. It’s getting a smattering of Chris King mango parts, NoTubes wheelset, and other nice goodies to finish off the creamsicle theme…

The Enduro is shaping up to be a good time.

Word has it the Start List will be published next week. Some strong riders coming out.

http://sjcenduro.wordpress.com

Business & Pleasure Morphed In To One

Interbike ‘09 was everything we’d hoped it would be; a chance to catch up with friends & colleagues, see some new product, and get energized about working in the industry we love.

Here, some of the greats of Tour Divide:

Matthew “One Race Suzie” Lee, Mary Metcalf-Collier, and Jay Petervary keeping the crowds happy with free ice-cold Tecate… (Mary sips water, of course)

We arrived in Vegas on Wednesday and caught up with the World Bicycle Relief folks, then proceeded to the evening festivities at Cross Vegas.

We caught up with divide racing greats Matthew Lee & Jay Petervary in the Cannondale Unimog… Matthew & his Cannondale teammates had ridden the 600 miles from Park City to Las Vegas off road- with a Mercedes Unimog for a sag wagon.

Later, we met up with suppliers, exchanged big ideas with our cohorts, and helped staff the World Bicycle Relief booth. Once again my hat goes off to FK Day for the realization of his vision of the Power of Bicycles.

There were lots of neat bikes to see… but I didn’t get any pics of that. I was too excited for our post-Interbike explorations, starting with Jon Hanson of Sabrosa Cycles.

Rocket Track

Through many turns of luck, we had the very rare & fortunate honor of a tour of the Hurricane Mesa Test Track, outside Virgin, Utah. The “No Photography” signs meant the camera’s stayed in the car… below, an old pic from the internet.

The track , as seen from the North Point of Gooseberry Mesa

My great uncle had worked there in the 50’s, as an aeronautical engineer in the research & development phase of the earliest ejection seats for supersonic aircraft… he told me stories when I was a kid about launching chimps off the mesa at supersonic speeds.

The track is still in use today.

The tour was amazing. The staffers were super friendly & answered our incessant questions. I could go on & on about this tour, it was one of the glowing highlights of the trip for me.

Today, they use test test dummies rather than chimps, and they don’t need to go over the edge anymore. The work they’re doing now is more sophisticated and affords safer ejection for today’s pilots, with their added equipment & demands.

We went home from the tour buzzed & spent a nice evening with the Sabrosa Family. They have some of the best neighbors, by the way…

Rides

We had a killer campsite atop Gooseberry Mesa- complete with a great view, some juniper shade, and a bit of petrified wood to gaze upon during morning coffee time. Utah mesas have a way of cleansing one of Vegas funk.

We joined up with Dave Nice at Over The Edge in Hurricane. This was our first visit to the Hurricane shop- the place looks good! They were hosting “Afterbike,” which was a low key celebration of the bike lifestyle complete with bike rides & BBQ.

We joined in on a group ride with a bunch of total strangers- and what followed was some of the best riding & hangout time a guy could ever ask for.

Jonathan from Bianchi, and Jason… sadly, this was the last documentation of their whereabouts before getting split from the rest of the group. Ha!

Riding Guacamole- where else do you find a cairn made of petrified wood?

Riding Gooseberry Mesa with Monte & Shiggy

Monte points to his house… very good dude. We hope to see him & his wife Bonnie again in a couple weeks as we come through on the way to the 24 Hours of Moab.

I returned from the trip even more energized than before, with a karmic recharge of sorts. Friendships are built and strengthened where bikes & people come together. I guess that’s why we build them, right?!