30 Jun 2007

I have to profess it’s rather a relief that that EBR is finally finished and rollin’. I think all-in-all this has been the longest build we’ve ever done, and certainly the most complicated involving a one-of-a-kind frame and a hub that probably has to be the most un-German German thing I’ve ever come accross.

Yesterday for some reason we could not get the hub to engage in some gears - it would freewheel but just wouldn’t drive. The instruction book we got was of course completely in German, but unfortunately all the German words we know are only of use to anyone in a pub brawl, which this wasn’t, although if we’d had started drinking biers at that point it would probably would’ve sunk to that. The Intarweb to the rescue - we found an English version online and downloaded it.

I honestly believe it’s the sign of a great bike mechanic to want to intrinsically know how something works, to get into the nitty gritty and pull things apart just to put them back to gether again. Expressly tied up in this quality is also the ability to ignore parts of an instruction booklet that has a picture of a 1500 dollar wheel and a Mallet.

So that’s what we did for about half a day. Scratch our heads, pull things apart, put them back together again. No luck. 6pm Friday, screw this, let’s have a beer and try again in the morning.

At midday the next day I call up Tim the head mechanic at Flemington Cycles who was helping us out with the build to see if he’d had any luck. “Yeah, I got it running” he proclaimed. “How the heck did you do it!?!” I wondered. “Well, Damian and I had been working on it for about an hour, when Matt picked up the instruction booklet and said “Have you hit it with a hammer yet?” so we tapped it twice as per the instructions and now it works”.

So there ya go. If you’re ever in Melbourne, Tim is now the man to see if you’re crazy enough to have bought a Rohloff. A massive ‘thank you’ to Damian and Tim at Flemington Cycles who have been an amazing help getting this bike together. They’re Pros of the highest order and deserve your business if you’re in the market for a new bike or spares and repairs.

On Monday Gal’s EBR will be on it’s way to sunny Jamaica, and then it’s only 9 days until our little baby boy is due to make an appearance in this crazy mixed-up world. Probably not the best time to be building eight custom frames simultaneously, but hey, that was the plan all along, so I can hardly complain. Also on Monday one chapter in the build of our new road model - the Tephra CTi - will end and another will begin, when the Titanium section is off to have it’s carbon bits added. Exciting times!

Posted by warwick @ 8:37 am

14 Jun 2007

Today in one of the various bikey forums there was a discussion on vertical compliance of hardtails. It’s a good topic, no issues there - part of the reason why Titanium is so groovy, and why chainstays are ovalised in the wrong direction. As often happens when you’re old and crusty, a vision sprang to mind of a bike I remembered seeing in Mountain Bike Action man moons ago. Lucky for me, I have 17 years of mountain bike catalogs neatly archived away, and lucky for us all, I didn’t have to scan it because some German dude had done it already. Behold, the Sotello CRS!

I don’t really have a lot to say about the design, mainly because every time I go to look at it I get a splitting headache and the desire to scream “I got ya Genesis geometry right here Gary ya dickhead!”. However, in the article that photo is attached to is some absolute pearls of wisdom which today have lifted me out of the woes of the everyday and restored my faith in design and the free thinkers that often dwell in there. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Danny Sotello, circa 1990…….

“One of the things I like least about this industry us the arrogance of some custom frame builders. They’ll adda little kink or bend to their frame design and then announce it to their legions of fans that the new way is the only way it should be. I hate that, especially if the new kink or bend is just a step backwards. Most of all I’ve resented the way some of them have looked down their noses at my work.”

On working for big companies….

“They never understood that as an employee designing bikes and product for a big company, I never had the freedom to finalise my ideas as I envisioned them. Having to always get 100 approvals from within the company before a compromised and watered down version hit the market, I was suprised any of them were as successful as they were.”

On the armchair critics….

“It was always a wonder to me that if all these critics were so great and had access to make anything they wanted, where was the “wonder bike”? Where were the real design breakthroughs? I think these pompous Granolaheads are just afraid to explore the unknown for fear they migh make a mistake. Look at the geometry of all these bikes today - ever notice that none of these guru designers venture too far from the norm?”

Here’s a picture of Danny with one of his Love tubeless tires from 2001. I actually have the original catalog in a folder around here somewhere. Bah! That tubeless thing will never take off!

So Dan me old mate, thanks for lifting my spitits somewhat today. Much obliged! A beer will be consumed in your honour shortly.

Oh, and in seeing we’re in trivia mode and talking about watered down design, here’s some tires I did for a company at about the same time, from the same Interbike coverage of 2001. Now children let this be a lession to everyone - before becoming a designer, learn how to say “These are just initial concept sketches” in as many languages as possible.

Posted by warwick @ 9:00 am

09 Jun 2007

90% done on the build of the EBR custom. I’ll save more of a write-up for later because it’s a long weekend and I’m attempting (but failing miserably) at not working during it. In the meantime…..here’s some pretty pictures.

Quick stats : 28lbs (12.6kg), Titanium, Rohloff, no carbon bits, 29″ wheels, beefy Halo rims, 100mm travel fork, no we’re not leaving the steerer like that or the seat that high, and yes, anything that doesn’t look finished, isn’t. Cost? National debt of Botswana.

Posted by warwick @ 1:46 am

02 Jun 2007

Friday was a pretty cool day I must say. The Rohloff arrived so I sprang down to the post office to pick it up, and The Brown Santa had a rather large package from over the big blue for me. Inside it was this. Well, it didn’t really look like that coz I spent two hours and a big wad of Scotchbrite to make it look like that, but that’ll do for now. What a sensational frame! The lighting is completely wrong and my camera is slowly turning to rubbish, words fail, doesn’t do it justice, all those cliches apply. Every time we do a Ti frame I think to myself “Why aren’t I on Ti?”. Heck, why isn’t everyone on Ti? I mean, just look at that thing. Are we all kidding ourselves, thinking it’s not worth it, too ‘industrial’, too ‘whatever excuse I can think of not to’? We’re all suffering some form of Ti denial, and you can only fondle frames like this for so long before you crack.

Anyway, behold the EBR, or ‘Eastern Bush Research’, as a tip of the hat to the Eastern Woods Reserach that inspired it, and because down here ‘woods’ is something you make a table out of.

This is not going to be a regular addition to the line-up, but I think it’s a great example of what we’re capable of in terms of design and execution. I have a penchant for ‘retro’ bikes from the 80’s, and think things in some ways were a lot more adventurous back then. Not to mention some individual design features back then - with a few tweaks - have certain validity to them, like the kinked downtube on the EBR (Helps 29 fork crowns clear the downtube in the event of a crash) and the dropped top tube to improve standover.

This bike is going to be awesome fully built up, with Hope Discs, a Rohloff, White Bros forks and a whole slew of top shelf goodies gracing her. The wheels are being built right now, so hopefully midweek we’ll have some cool build pix. Stay tuned!

Posted by warwick @ 6:19 am