30 Apr 2007

I just got news this morning that Chris’ Arete SL was stolen over the weekend from inside his bakery in the city (Melbourne). Aside from being the absolute scum of the Earth, the thieves are also the dumbest scumbags on Earth, stealing what has be one of the loudest most unique bikes in Victoria. Here’s what it looks like :

If you’re a bike nut or live or work in the city, please be on the lookout for it. It’s two tone pearl orange with all black parts, as per the photo.

As often happens with these things, it’s possible the bike couple be stripped for parts. The two parts that are likely to net the theiving bastards the most cash on eBay are the forks (Manitou R7 Supers with lockout, all black) and the brakes (Avid Juicy Carbons).

If you see the bike or any of the parts for sale, please e-mail us or give us a call here on 03 9016 4276.

Posted by warwick @ 12:10 am

20 Apr 2007

There’s three things a man needs on a Friday night. Beer, pizza, and pictures of a Bushy. So pull up a comfy chair, crack open a cold one, and have a gander at some more pics of the EBR.

Real happy with these new Paragon Sliders. They’re ludicrously expensive, but they give a much better perch for the stays to attach to. Because the sliders place the rear wheel further away from where the stays attach, essentially they’re adding a fair wack of leverage on an area that doesn’t normally experience it. This goes some way to improving that, just from the fact that the stays have a larger surface weld area. Definitely worth the cash if you’re in the market for a Ti Singlespeed/Rohloff frame.

Also getting good clearance from these stays. We ended up taking some regular round stays and ovalised the portion that approaches the BB. The tire is a 55mm wide Bontrager, so there’s plenty of room for everything. Actually all the Arete Ti’s have these, but I just thought I’d point that out.

Posted by warwick @ 10:48 am

18 Apr 2007

So I have no shame in telling you that it’s currently 11am, and I’m stilling in front of the box eating breakfast. You can only work so many 14 hour days, and eventually (and especially if you work for yourself) you crack. Granted, I’ve been up since 9, but I’m having a lazy morning and there ain’t nothin’ anyone can do about it.

Part of the motivation to even getting up this morning is I finally tracked down a torrent of the 2007 Paris Roubaix, which was held last weekend.

Yes I’m perfectly aware it’s techincally bad to download torrents. I don’t know where this French coverage is from, whether it’s free-to-air or pay-tv, and to be honest, I don’t really care. The alternative is to wait 2 weeks or more before SBS has their half hour special, or watch the 20 second coverage on the news.

What’s a cycling fan to do? He downloads the frikken thing. So sue me. Either provide what I want in some form…..any form…..or I’ll go find it myself.

–

There’s something cool about watching cycling with French commentary. It seems kinda right somehow. I think maybe because it’s one big melodrama, kinda like the French themselves.

Oh, some Aussie called Aaron Kemp just fell off. Who the heck is that?

Yeah well anyway, I should get back to watching the thing.

SBS, if you’re reading this, 30 minutes coverage weeks after the fact in this world of instant information just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Pull yer finger out!

Posted by warwick @ 1:38 am

14 Apr 2007

Here are some build pix of Gal’s ‘Eastern Bush Research’ Arete Ti 29er. This bike is gunna be so hot, I feel like a giddy schoolgirl.

Posted by warwick @ 11:33 am

13 Apr 2007

I must confess, at the begining of this year I thought this year was going to be pretty crazy exciting, but I didn’t know if was going to be THIS exciting.

The first lot of Ethers are about to be finished, and Erin will finally be getting onboard his, which will a) Shut his whinging up, and b) stop the peanut gallery from flinging shells at him. The finish has turned out bloody excellent and everything we expected. Tough as hell, thin as hell, light as hell. The only downside to it, is that aside from being a pain in the arse to apply, the light colours do show through the brass that’s been used to apply any braze ons. We tried to minimise this by welding almost everything on, but you just can’t do that with things like bidon star reinforcements and head tube reinforcing rings.

Small price to pay for a killer finish that adds only 30g or so to the finished product? We think so.

Basically how the colours work out is like this. The more ‘metallic’ the name, the more like anodising it looks. The colours that are more military have a very low gloss level (about 15% typically) and look, well, more military. The Ethers are all hand sanded, degreased and bead blasted, so they’re going to look fairly flat compared to paint regardless. It’s all part of the ‘look’. Here’s some of the alternate colours available-

Here’s some pix of a couple of the frames, fresh from the refinishers. The colours on these are ‘Silver’ and ‘Antique Bronze’.

And the really cool part? Without the 20g headbadge and the decals, they weigh…….1560g.

Okay punk, so what else is new?

Well, yesterday we had our most massive sales day to date, with orders for three Titanium frames on the same day. As if this wasn’t exciting enough, after six months of twoing-and- fro’ing, we are FINALLY going to launch into the Tephra CTi!

What the heck is that? That is this -

Similar but not at all like the old Lemond ’spine design’ (aka what happens when a Litespeed humps a Trek. Think ‘Aliens 3′ ), the Tephra CTi is 3-2.5 Titanium on the bottom for that snappy zoomy feel we all know and love, with Carbon Fiber in the places where vibration would typically be transmitted unceremonously to your arse - the seatstays, seat tube and top tube. So what you’re possibly looking at here is the best of both worlds, a road bike that’s snappy, smooth, sexy - and more importantly, completely custom.

If this year is ‘Year of the Steel’, it’s only just barely trumped the ‘Year of Carbon’, because the advances and options in carbon these days have never been better, despite Boeing, Airbus and the ‘War on Whateva’ hoovering most of it up.

Even though it’s early days, I want to extend a personal thank you to Pete who has jumped in with both feet and said ‘Let’s make this bad boy’. Without his faith and a lot of sweat and tears, the Tephra CTi would probably have been relegated to the ‘Maybe after Junior arrives’ backburner.

Now? It’s becoming a reality.

That is so cool and so exciting, I’m nervous like a kid on prom night. I’ll keep you posted.

Posted by warwick @ 6:11 am

11 Apr 2007

Okay, so the weight (har har) has been long and painful, but we finally got some good news from the refinishers in regards to our new Ether and Ether SL frames.

To make sure everyone is up to speed, here’s the background.

About a year ago, with talk of all the great new steels coming out and all the great new braze-ons available and how 2007 was going to be The Year of the Supersteel and blah blah blah, we decided that was all the impetus we needed to build the raciest, most pared down Werks steel MTB hardtail we could. We’ll, when I say ‘we could’ I really mean ‘we should’. We didn’t want to cut any corners, use any trickery, or compromise the ride qualities in any way. I mean, if we added a carbon seat-tube, or used smaller diameter tubing to save weight, then it would all be a bit of a joke, right? It would be like a steet hardtail, but worse, so what would be the point?

One of the key factors to producing the best steel bike we could, was re-evaluating absolutely every aspect of the frame, no matter how small. One particular area we’d like to bring special attention to, is paint. Paint suprisingly adds quite a lot of weight to the frame, so we started looking at ways to not only reduce the weight of the overall finish, but also further protect the frame from rust, scratches etc. Depending on how many layers, how thick those layers are, whether it’s paint or powder, a frames’ finish can add anywhere between 75-150g to the total weight. That’s a fair wack!

After a lot of searching and a lot of homework, we found a refinishing system specifically designed for steel, and specifically designed not to add any dimensionality to parts it’s applied to - just like anodising for Aluminium. Originally designed for the equipment used by the US Navy SEALS, the coating we apply to the Ether and Ether SL is a super tough, baked on ceramic-based finish that adds less than 30g to the entire frame, is as tough as powdercoat (arguably tougher) and is available in a whole slew of cool industrial/military colours.

And the best part? The Thylacine Ether is as far as we know, the only steel frame in existence to utilise this amazing high-tech, lightweight finish.

More information will follow in the next couple of days. The first few Ethers are available in Silver and Antique Bronze, but subsequent orders will be available in Stainless, Blue Titanium, Desert Pink, and Light Sage. This finish because it’s applied similar to paint will also be eventually offered in a few different patterns.

Posted by warwick @ 7:43 am

10 Apr 2007

Every once and a while there comes along a situation that forces you to answer the question ‘What do you believe in?’ or ‘What do you think is worth defending’. In 2002 when I stared Thylacine, 12 months down the track I was faced with a situation that forced me to draw a line in the sand and stand up for my beliefs. It was a very stressful time, a time where I was literally left with no income for 5 months, nearly lost the woman I loved, and nearly lost the dream of starting my own bike company. Definitely a time I don’t want to repeat, but if anything, I learned that I actually was a strong individual who doesn’t take shit and stands up for what they believe in. I got a lot of respect for that and it certainly helped me feel that I made the right decisions in a time where I could’ve very easily rolled over.

Little did I know, around about the same time, there must’ve been something aligned incorrectly in the stars, or some Hellgate was opened and some Hellspawn was accidentally released. Turned out, I wasn’t alone.

The front triangle of the first ever Thylacine was welded by Brian Caulfield of Kavik Bicycles in Arizona. I can’t remember how I heard about him, but one thing is for certain - it’s some of the best fabrication on a bicycle I have ever seen. The welds somehow have an ungodly accuracy to them, but yet are still obviously done by hand. It’s actually quite mesmerising if you’re into that kind of thing.

Sometime after Brian did that frame for us, he penned a full suspension design which he put up in the Skunkworks section of his website and e-mailled to us telling us about it. I’ll admit at the time I had no idea what I was looking at. It was a four-bar with another linkage behind the BB and a tension member linking the rocker with the lower link. Fast forward to last year. Felt unveils the ‘Equilink’, and it is discussed in length on mtbr in the 22nd of August.

I was instantly reminded of the Kavik design, so I went and searched for photos of the design so I could be a smarty-bum. I could only find one bad photo of the prototype as it was shown at interbike. Here it is:

I was a little confused at this stage. I couldn’t get hold of Brian, I couldn’t find hardly any references to his bikes or this design, and I couldn’t find any accreditation of his input into the Felt design - no ‘BC Link’ decal, no nothin’.

Naievely I thought he’d done a Bontrager, and was probably working on the second version in Puerto Rico while recieving a big fat retainer every month.

Looks like I might have been wrong.

Today I get a PM from Brian saying that he had been out of the bike industry and just found out about the Felt bike. According to him, after he returned from showing that frame at Interbike, two representitives of Felt came out to buy him lunch and test ride the bike. They were lukewarm about the idea, thanked him and were on their way. Fastforward to 2006, and Felt release their ‘Equilink’ bikes.

In case you don’t know what these frames look like, here they are :

Now, here’s a nice comparrison, just incase there was any confusion. Felt on the Left, Kavik on the Right :

Now, it’s my understanding there’s two “golden rules” when it comes to IP (Intellectual Property) in my profession. The first is the ‘10% rule’, which basically states that your design only needs to differ by 10%. The second is ‘Ideas are only as good as your ability to defend them.’

That’s a paraphrased oversimplification, but hey, I’m not the sharpest tool in the box.

I’ll confess straight up that I’m not privvy to all the information, but I’m confident with what I do know, and my dealings with Kavik, and the research I’ve done to date, to at least say something stinks here. And it stinks bad.

Posted by warwick @ 10:24 am

09 Apr 2007

Just a quick update today because I’ve decided to limit myself to an hour online today. Hard to believe, I know. This long Easter weekend all that’s really happened here is a bit of further renovation to the kitchen, and a lot of extended lunches with friends. Noice!

For Team Thylacine however, it’s been a bit less laid back, with Brett and Erin taking out third place in the Mens’ Pro Pairs this weekend at the Chase The Sun 6hr out at Lysterfield. This is especially crazy considering Brett had only got back from a 3 week trip to China the previous day. See man, I told you a break would do you good!

Other bikey news this week is the 2007 Giro footwear catalogue has been posed on their website. I’m pretty excited about that coz I need some new shoes and like all things Giro, they look like they’ve been well designed. I’m not normally a ‘early adopter’, but as soon as these become available, I might snaffle up a pair.

In other Thylacine news, we’re currently totally under the pump with six frames on the go simultaneously these days, which means at this rate we’ll have a backlog which I never, ever, ever wanted to have. When you have a backlog, there’s this instant assumption that you must be in demand, rather than the reality of the matter is that you’re just under prepared and resourced. Our leadtime is still about 8-10 weeks these days, but with especially finishers taking their royal time these days, it’s especially difficult to keep things under 10, but as always we’ll keep you well informed and in the loop.

This week we should have some Ethers back from the finishers so we should have some good quality bike pron to share for a change. Watch this space.

Posted by warwick @ 3:22 am

04 Apr 2007

As anyone who has spoken to Brett or Erin at the races, we’re kinda/sorta/maybe sponsored by Maxxis, which is why we pimp the Crossmarks whenever we’re asked. I say kinda because really it’s just the Aussie Maxxis distributor looking after us and our raging tire habit. I’ve known those guys for well over ten years, so it’s really cool that can help us out.

Anyway, yesterday there was a knock at the door and there was Wardie with another box full of tires. This time however there was a suprise in the box - some Crossmark 29×2.10’s.

So how do they look? Like big Crossmark 26’s. How do they ride? I’d hazard to guess like big Crossmark 26’s. Yep, that’s how excitingly revolutionary it is.

As some of you might know, the 29er thing is not even on the radar here in Australia. Apart from Shannon at MTB-Precision in Qld and the odd shop here and there, 29er’s pretty much don’t exist. I’ve never ever seen one at a race. Ever. My new LBS - Goldcross Cycles, Puckle St. Mooney Poonds - actually has some in stock which came as a bit of a suprise when I went in there looking for some 29er tubes. They were that white GT thing whose name escapes me at the moment.

Naturally, although they sell the bikes, they didn’t have any tubes. Yep, that sums up the Aussie bike industry. “We could special order some for you” said the pre-pubescent behind the counter. “Okay, so how about some 700c x 40 or so? Got any of those?” I wondered. “Will those fit?” Came the reply. “Of course they will. They’re not perfect, but they’ll get me out of trouble.” “Cool”.

So the kid opened the draw and it was full of Tioga tubes. Doh. I coulda just got them off Wardie.

Tie-OH-gar!

Speaking of which, I had the pleasure recently of working on the Ad campaign for the new Tioga pedal. Currently the boys have got a ‘Spider’ thing going on with there now being a ‘Spyder’ pedal to match the “Look Ma, No Padding!” saddle.

Excuse the rubbish mobile-phone photo (That’s what we call ‘Cell Phones’ here), but you know what, I actually think it looks pretty funky. It always helps when the product if funky when you’re trying to design an advertising campaign for it. There’s nothing worse than trying to upsell a shit product. Anyway, I wish I could tell you more about these. I actually thought they were already on the market, but apparently not because I got a few e-mails from people wondering how much they were, how much they weighed blahblah blah and I actually don’t know. I do know that they are pretty darn light and will apparently be available in two different sizes.

Also recently I got some pre-production samples of some new offroad tires. They’re both designed as part time off-road tires for the ‘enthusiast’. ‘Enthusiast’ is one of those words that get’s a bit Lost In Traslation when working with the Japanese. I actually think their definition is closer to ‘Weekend Warrior’ or ‘Hack’ than ‘Enthusiast’. I mean, I’m an ‘enthusiast’ but I wouldn’t use either of these tires for anything. The square-ish one I can see working well for Trials or some form of Urban Prankstering, but the other one looks like ….. a knobby XC tire they’ve tried to put on a diet. By ‘modern’ standards the knobs are too big to be a fast rolling XC tire, and the pattern is too aggressive for the ’sometimes offroad’ or as I prefer, the ‘80% paved, 20% unpaved’ urban explorer.

So anyway, that’s the next job to do inbetween designing Thylacine’s.

Hey, the team might have a raging tire habit, but it’s not half as bad as having a raging bike company habit.

Posted by brett @ 7:08 am

02 Apr 2007

Just a quick couple of things today as I spent way too much time online yesterday and now have some catching up to do.

First up, our Number 1 racing fool Brettie is currently in China riding an Oxfam Challenge. His full gallery can be found here. However, I’ve posted a few pix here for those that don’t want the full gallery experience.

Also, on a completely un-cycling related note, our mates in a very fine ’stoner rock’ band, Peeping Tom, have just announced that they are supporting Clutch Australia-wide during their upcoming tour. A major coup for the lads, so we’re super stoked for them. For once a rock gig where you’d be stupid to miss the support act.

Posted by warwick @ 11:46 pm