stainless steel front rack with decaleur prototype

just finished this front rack which will accompany the hand made waxed canvas bag made by Anhaica Bag Works.
i have also been toying around with a new idea for a decaleur(a traditional french method of attaching a front bag to a rack)
typically decaleurs hold the front bag very securely and make it easy to remove the front bag, but every once in a while, you hit a bump just right and your load is distributed just so and the bag jumps off of the mount. one way to prevent this is to also have a strap which holds the bag to the rack, this is not the most elegant setup and requires more work to remove your bag.
my new design utilizes two spring loaded rods attached to the mount on the bag and by pulling both pins outward the bag comes off quickly and easily.
check out the photos.

Rack photos

last minute building

we have been working like crazy this week to get ready for our trip to Maine, i built a car roof rack for the tandem bike along with a front rack for the bike. we are cutting it so close i dont even have time to file and sand the brazed joints on the rack. luckily i used stainless steel, so no rusting. this trip will be a great test for the 304 stainless as a material for rack building. it bends much easier than chromoly and i have used it on a number of racks, but none which will take this much abuse and weight. ill report back on the outcome after our bike trip to montreal.

Ali's bike back from the powder coating shop

got Ali's bike back from the powder coater. they do an acceptable job, some rough areas and the masking for the couplers was not as well done as i would want, but this a polo bike and the goal was a durable paint job. i used to get all of my powder coating done with my friend Dave  at Organic Engines who passed away recently. Dave was very meticulous with his work and did a great job, he also pretty much powder coated bicycles exclusively. powder coating can be a very aggravating affair, every color works differently and can come out of the oven with various outcomes. humidity and numerous other factors can effect the outcome as well. unlike wet paint, you dont know what you will end up with with a powder coat until it comes out of the oven.

more photos of Ali's polo frame before powder coat

here are some more pictures before taking the frame to the powder coater. after these photos i went over the frame with 80 grit sandpaper and cleaned up the brazed areas again.

Custom Polo Frame nearing completion

this little gem had S & S couplers, made with oversized tubing with s-bend seat stays and mountain chain stays. its mostly tig welded, the dropouts and the seat stays are brazed. it will have cantilever posts  and the dropouts have disc mounts. the head tube is machined down from thick 4130 tubing.  this bike will be running 26" wheels and the fork is from a surly 1x1

bike on display at Higher Ground

currently set up at the Higher Ground road shop on capital circle northeast

stem/riser bar combo

stem bar combo prize for a bike race in Gainesville.

dirt road commuter back from paint

picked the frame up from my painter Tommy. the frame is a charcoal grey with a little bit of sparkle. the blue panels match the tires and handlebar tape. the stem is painted to match the frame. Marina Mertz of Anhaica Bagworks fabricated the matching grey waxed canvas front bag and saddle bag. the first few photos in the set are of the custom decaleur which is designed to mount the stem, this frees up the handlebars from any mounts and gives real sturdy support to the front bag while allowing it to be taken off the bike easily. if you didnt see my earlier post about this bike, its designed to use Sturmey Archer drum hubs, the front being a dynamo hub and the rear a cassette. the other neat thing about this build is that its set up with an 8 speed Shimano drive train matched with Campagnolo 10speed shifters(this is sometimes called ShimErgo, it was found that 10speed ergo shifters have the same amount of throw as shimano 8 speed derailleurs)

other things of note, internal brake routing on the fork and internal wiring for the front light(the cheap halogen lamp in the pictures will soon be replaced with a Lumotec IQ Cyo LED headlight).