Finished the forks today. The blades are a bit shorter then I would have liked them. But I think they will work fine as is. I ordered a set of Salsa Delgado / Hope SS wheels. Seems Hope has a problem delivering them. JJ (singlespeed central) was kind enough to lone me one of his personal sets for fitting purposes. I sure like to looks of those Phil hubs, but still can't wait to see my own wheels. I will try to fabricate a disc tab this week. Hope I have time. I will also be finishing work on my frame jig stand. I now have it bolted to the wall which doesn't give me access to al the hard to reach places. The stand will get castor wheels and have a big pivot. That should help.

After building for a couple of years I noticed people didn't want to hear I learned building bicycle by just starting and practicing untill I got it right. (I did learn a lot in that period).
I decided I needed a better story to tell them and I also wanted to know if I did things the right way.
So, I went to Dave Yates in England and took a framebuilding course.
Normally these courses are aimed at first timers, but never the less I still learned a lot and had a great time. I should have done this to begin with and it would have saved me a lot of time.
If you are also interested in buidling your own frame contact Dave, he can have you build your own frame in a week.

His and hers madly in love.

Toolbox

Everything is ready for tomorrow. I plan to finish the forks this weekend and to start on the frame. I have almost all the parts I plan to put on this frame so I can fit them as I go. I designed the frame a couple of months ago but am not sure anymore.
Everytime I build for others I seem to be more sure of what to do. Building for myself doesn't happen so often (second frame in three years!) and this makes it harder to deside which design to go with. I have always wanted to build a bike in the OCC way. Just start and see where the creative flow takes me. Lets see what happens!

half time clean up

Man oh man.... I sure know how to make a mess. Been working two nights and the workshop turned into the picture on the right.

This is something I will never learn. I usually clean up every week. If I am very busy it might take a month. But then I have no space left to work.

To give you an idea my workshop is not so big. It is about 7 meters long (23') and 3 meters wide (10') And it has one of those overhead inside rotating doors that are very usefull when you park your car in there but not so usefull when you use the place as a workshop. My car has never seen the inside of the garage. My bicycles are mostly more valuable than the car. A car takes you from point A to point B. Keeps you dry if needed and lets you take some heavy object along for the ride if you like. On a bicycle you also have to look good. Much more important!!!! So it makes sence to spend more on a bicycle and to take better care of it.

My fixie in its current state. It has been a crossbike, a roadbike, a touringbike and now finally a utillitybike.

It might turn back into a cross bike this winter.

My wifes pink tourer. Picture taken last summer during our bicycle vacation.

Just a picture of my fixies rear hub. Dura Ace flip flop NJS.

The righthand drop out is modified. I can now use it as front opening.

Started work on the forks tonight. Noticed the forkblades are very short. These were the longest I could find. I have to build it shaped like C'dale Fatty forks in order to get enough length out of them.
Good thing is that I can now easily fit wide tires in there. I plan to use 2.1 or 2.2, but realy like to try 2.55 WTB's. They will fit without a problem. I hope I can shape the chainstays to do the same.

Tomorrow night I will make the mitters. I am still doing them by hand. After practice I got pretty good at it. But I have sourced a tube notcher. I hope to do the main tube notches machincally in the future. This should give me nice enough mitters to TIG weld. (I see titanium.......) I then need to make some fixtures to machine other mitters in my lathe. As if I didn't have enough to do over the winter.

I brazed the drop outs to the blades and the steerertube bulge to the steerertube.
I also modified the drop outs so that I can use them as front opening. I need them like this to be able to use disc brakes.

29r progress

I am currently working on a Zona tubed 29r SS and gearable. I haven't made the progress I wanted to make. Had to work to many long hours and other excuses. Tomorrow night I hope to start work on the forks. (non-corrected, disc only).

I have made spacers to help me fit the Bushnell EBB shell to the fixtures.

I'll try to keep posting updates with pictures of the progess untill it is finished!

Have fun,
Caspar

First one

Hello, Nice of you to look at my blog. I hope to keep posting on a regular basis. I've been building bicycles for three years now and hope to get more serious about it. I have a background in cycling and engineering, and have worked several jobs in the bicycle business.
If your native language is English you might notice mine is not, so please excuse me for that.

I hope to keep you all up to date on my progress from backyard amateur to hopefull professional. I expect this to be a long and winding road, but very rewarding in unexpected ways.

Have fun and please let me know what you think of my Blog and my bicycles (I hope to post pictures now and then).

Caspar