Thursday, July 19, 2012

Bike Friday's First DuraAce 7900 bike

Just yesterday, we shipped out the first of its kind, DuraAce 7900-equipped Pocket Rocket to a customer in the New York area. The bike has been a labor of love from the beginning. The customer supplied the integrated shifters, the rear derailleur and the crankset. All other components were sourced by Bike Friday.

Up to now, the newer Shimano stuff including DuraAce, Ultegra and 105 have not been used on Bike Fridays since the internal cable routing of the shifter, the shorter cable pull have not worked well with the needed double bend down by the bottom bracket. That coupled with the long cable housing created too much friction to work well with our bikes.

Shimano has developed a new cable that is nano-coated to create much less friction and so will work not only with our bikes, but also with Tandems, some Racing Trikes and the like. Were it only a problem for Bike Friday, this problem probably would have gone without a repair and we would've kept selling Sram or Campy as a solution to the integrated shifter problem.  Thankfully, some of the larger brands like Trek, Cannondale and others, have had problems with the new shifter performance on their tandems and such - and so we now have another option to give our customers.  I think for the most part, we'll only offer such an option when someone is particularly set in their desire to use Shimano-eqiupped bikes and/or they want a triple crankset and 10-speed cassette.

And now to the photos!

Here's the build tag and parts bag including the built-up wheels. The rims are Alex R390, Xtralite Capreo Hub by Chosen in black, black spokes. Pretty sweet. These are the black version of my personal rims.

Here's a bike after cutting. This is not the exact bike since it was further back in the shop than I'm allowed to go... but you get the idea. We organize the bikes on this rack to be able to quickly tell if everything is there.

Here's the main body of the bicycle, painted and ready for assembly and alignment.

Here's the seat mast, fork and steering tube of the bike, ready for assembly.
The bikes wait on this rack after paint (powder coat).

Our production employees take great pride in their work and put a lot of time into each bike to ensure everything is just right. The rear end of the bike is being assembled here with the front of the bike.

Here's a photo of the complete main frame, awaiting alignment.
The seat mast and steering mast will be added next.

Here's a close-up of the parts kit showing the handlebars (these will be split for easy packing in a suitcase), crankset, seatpost, etc.

Here's the bike in our cabling station being assembled.

Our engineer, Rob (right), is assisting in the assembly of the bike to ensure correct fit and shifting performance.

Here's a very short video showing the challenges of setting up the new DuraAce shifters - the braze-on front derailleur was at a weird angle and was corrected for good shifting performance.




Here's a photo of the rear end of the bike. Beautiful!


Monday, April 30, 2012

Bike Friday - Custom Bike for TiMoney

Well, now that my day job has moved from The Ink Well to Bike Friday, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk about my cycling passion.  I've been at Bike Friday (BF) for just over a month now and have learned a ton about bikes. I already considered myself an expert when it comes to mountain bike parts and such, but now I'm becoming a more well-rounded expert... particularly when it comes to travel bicycles and bicycles for commuters.

One of the first few bikes I sold was to a really cool guy named Tim who lives on the East Coast. He called in one day and wanted to order a bike to allow him to cycle while he travels. He travels often (5x or more per year) and right now isn't able to explore his destinations by bike, but that's about to change!

Tim wanted something with an Internal Hub (changes gears inside the rear hub) and that would allow him to go really fast. There are a number of internal hubs available, but few that will allow a really good gear range (most allow you to go fast up hills, and decently quick on flat ground, but not on downhills... The SRAM Dual Drive allows you to have even more range than your typical triple-chainring system, but with the simplicity of a single ring in the front and a single rear derailleur.  It's got an awesome sound too!

Here are some pics of the bike in process:
Each bike gets "Kitted" which means the complete bike is put into this bag prior to going out to production. The Kit includes the wheels, and all parts for the bike. We pre-order the parts so they're ready and waiting to be put on the bike once the frame is built up.

This shows the suspension seat post a "Thudbuster ST" and the Dual Drive actuator.


One of the things I knew Tim would appreciate is the "Gold" chain.  I think this ultra-light and durable component really sets the bike apart.  I want one for my bike!

The wheels were waiting for assembly prior to the bike build at the wheel station. At BF, the wheels are laced by machine, then hand-trued by our master wheelsmith. I love the fact that the front hub is Shimano XT. Very nice stuff!

After the bike is cut, it's put onto this rack so that the brazer can quickly assess that all pieces are correct and ready for the brazing process.

These are shots of the brazing process (sort of like tack-welding the pieces in place prior to doing a full weld)

In this shot you can more easily see the finished frame on the assembly jig. Tim's bike has a "Heavy Rider Upgrade" which means that the large oval tube and the rear seat-stay / chainstay loop uses thicker-wall and slightly oversized tubing. It's easily identifiable prior to being powder-coated since it has a darker color and has writing on it. 

Don't look into the light!   ... But it's so beautiful! Zap!

Here's a close-up shot of the fork on the welding stand.

Above is a close-up of the mono-tube near the base of the folding seat mast.

Above is a shot of the bottom bracket including our stamped frame number. To the left is the top of the folding seatmast with brazed-on clamp.

Once the bike is brazed, welded and powder-coated, areas that require bolts are drilled out, then the frame is aligned. Using calipers and exacting measurements, each frame is hand-aligned.

Once the frame is aligned, it goes to the assembly station to have all of the parts put on. This is the bike in its near finished form.  Notice that Tim got a special custom 2-color paint job. He requested black fork with his Orange bike. He has an orange Camaro and I suspect this will look pretty awesome sitting next to it... or inside of it.  Not too many full-sized bikes can go into the back of a Camaro. But, a Bike Friday can!

This shows a close-up of the Cane Creek Solos Headset. This is the same one I'm putting on my new Bike Friday. It's a high quality headset that won't break the bank. The headset takes a lot more torque on our bikes due to the long steering mast, so it's really important to have a high quality one.

This shows the Sram X-7 rear derailleur and the smokin' gold chain!

I love the color-matched chain protector!

This shows a close-up of the SRAM DualDrive Hub.  All of our frames come with a pre-brazed trailer attachment. It takes a standard air-compressor nipple and works very well.

Here's a shot of the finished bike after the test ride, just before it went into the packaging stage.

Once I get a photo from Tim, I'll add it below.  More to come!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Latest projects at Cameron Graphix

My two latest projects at Cameron Graphix have been very successful and I'm proud to introduce the new sites to you all. The older of the two, which still has some work to be done on it is www.PegasusPizza.net - this site was a full web site with menu - they previously had a simple one-page site with a downloadable menu. They also had a place to enter your e-mail address for a future mailing, but there wasn't any capture device on the back end, so all of the addresses were disappearing instead of forming into a usable database.  The color scheme is based on their new interior design in their restaurants, their new logo and the new menus I designed for them.

My second project is www.ExceptionalMD.com and is nearly complete. I did a full website, marketing materials, logo and forms package for them and am still working on small changes nearly daily. Much of the work has been done over the phone with the client and I would work then upload the changes... he would then hit refresh in the browser. The process worked very well for me and for him as well. Exceptional Health Care is a new type of medical practice (in Oregon) and is the first in the State to be Certified by the State of Oregon as a Retainer Medical Practice. They focus on the customer / patient and for a small retainer fee, you have access to a medical Doctor whenever you need him, regardless of your insurer or whether you have insurance at all.  It's a really great concept and if you have insurance or a Doctor you're unsatisfied with, you may want to give them a call: 541-746-7073. They're on Coburg Rd. in Eugene.