New York Too

Back in New York for the weekend, this time with nothing to do but ride. It's surprising how well you can get around on a bike in New York- bike lanes and great signage galore! Visited a few shops - one great one called Rolling Orange. Visit them if you're in town.

BaRack?

First photos of my new BaRack (handlebar + rack). Clearly in its prototype stages, this one was made with an old handlebar I had lying around and some 3/4" tubing. Perhaps some fancier ones will be made after the holidays.

Portland, ME

Portland, ME

Worlds best bakery. Awesome bike shop. Tempura battered bacon. Belgian style frites. Pretty good town.

Building a Bamboo Bike

While faced with some free time, I decided to take a leap and fly to New York to take a class at the Bamboo Bike Studio. The studio offers a two day workshop giving you an option to build either a complete bicycle or frame only, from start to finish. I was interested in this class because not only do you end up with a very classy looking bicycle frame, but as a good introduction on building a composite bicycle frame, because the bamboo tubes are connected with carbon fiber.

The workshop is two very long days, and in our class we had 5 students and anywhere from two to five instructors, depending on the session. The studio is located in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York in an old industrial / warehouse space now occupied by a few artists and the Bamboo Bike Studio. The workshop is about $650 for just the frame, and complete single speed bikes start at $900, which is a very good value considering the amount of instruction that goes into the class, and the fact that you leave with a brand new bamboo frame.

On the first day I woke up early and got to the studio at 7:00 am. I arrived with Aaron, another student, and met Piper, one of our very skilled instructors. Piper got Aaron and I started right away with a quick overview of the class, some initial paperwork, then it was off to our jigs to start putting the bikes together.

The first step in building the frame is to attach the bamboo tubes, which were prepared for us before the class started, to the foam blocks that create the backing for the carbon lugs. This is a surprisingly simple process involving shimming and hot-gluing the tubes to the foam. If you're reading this, you're probably thinking exactly what I was thinking: hot glue and foam? and you're supposed to ride that thing? Well, it's true that we did use hot glue and foam, but it's really more to hold the tubes in place for making the lugs, neither the foam or glue are structural.

After the tubes were in place, we got out our files, rasps and sandpaper and began to shape our lug cores. This is again a surprisingly easy process, but because it is so easy to file the foam it is easy to go to far, so a little restraint goes a long way. Ideally you want the shape of the foam to mimic the shape of the bamboo tube that it meets, as well as form smooth transitions between the tubes. This whole process took less than an hour.

After shaping the lug cores, the next step is to wrap the tubes, lug cores, and metal parts (BB shell, headtube, seat tube insert) with fiberglass. The fiberglass creates a bond between these parts below the layers of carbon fiber. It's as strong, but a lot heavier, and so only a little is used in the initial process.

Then the fun begins: wrapping your joints in carbon fiber. Though I worked for Trek for a number of years and new exactly how OCLV frames were assembled (once the tubes and lugs were made), I had never seen how carbon fiber is formed into these parts. I understood the basics: wet the material with epoxy, wrap, compress, and dry, but had no idea how simple the process is. So here's the rundown on carbon fiber, at least as it applied to this frame:

The material we used was 24k carbon fiber tow, which is a ribbon of 24,000 carbon fiber strands that is rolled onto a spool. The ribbon is about half an inch wide, but because there are so many small strands, it can easily be rolled into a thread or flattened and spread into widths much smaller or larger. This tow is wetted with a mixture of epoxy and hardener and tightly wrapped around the lug cores and tubes, which creates the lug. After the lug is wrapped in carbon, it is compressed with plain electrical tape and allowed to dry and harden for a period of time specified by the epoxy you use. That's pretty much it. Simple in theory, a little more complicated in practice.

So we wrapped the joints, one at a time, starting with the dropouts. We used anywhere from 20 - 60+ grams of carbon tow per joint (this weight does not include epoxy). The tow was prepared for us by the staff at Bamboo Bike Studio onto spools specific to the joint we were wrapping, and these numbers are based on years of research and test frames.

After the joints were wrapped, compressed and allowed to cure overnight, we unwrapped to reveal what appeared to be a bike! The carbon on the joints was rough, so the next hours were spent filing the joints smooth, the same way we did the lug cores. The idea is that each sharp corner creates a stress riser in the material, so the smoother your lugs are, the stronger they will be. This takes a long time, because the carbon / epoxy / hardener is very hard, but to play it safe most of this is done by hand. I did cheat a little and use the band file belt sander for some of the hard to reach corners.

Final sanding was done with 100 grit sandpaper, then the frame was wet down to see if there were any voids or areas that still needed sanding. The final step is to add one layer of epoxy / hardener to the outside of the lug - this is what appears as the clear coat over the carbon fiber.

That's pretty much it, you have yourself a frame. Or rather, in my case, a Christmas Gift for your girlfriend. I hope she likes it!

A special thanks to the staff at the Bamboo Bike Studio for making this class possible. The small staff there has a diverse set of skills and backgrounds but all understand the bike building process, and teach it in a clear concise way. If you ever have the opportunity to take this class, I highly reccomend it.

Pre Holiday Trip: Part One

So with my recent change in employment status I've decided to do a little road (or rather Air) tripping through the end of the year. My journey was mostly dictated by seeing family and friends before the holidays, but I've managed to schedule a little ME time in there as well. The first leg of my journey took me to New York, to visit Scott and Ashley and take a class at the Bamboo Bike Studio. I'll write a second post about the bike building.



My journey to New York was an uneventful one. Delta, as always, did an average job of getting me from Albuquerque to La Guardia. I got in at midnight, and jumped in a cab (or rather jumped into line for a cab) t0 get to Scott and Ashley's place in Brooklyn. Upon arrival I discovered that Scott is an exaggerator (or rather, re-discovered). He's always said that his place is sssooooooo smmmmaaaalllllll, but really, it's a reasonably regular sized New York Apartment. I had a lovely place on the sofa bed, and after a few beers I crashed for a few hours sleep.



In the morning I woke up amped for the class, but still goggy from the night before. Scott suggested a little diner down the street from his house for breakfast, based purely on the time I would be leaving (translation: early enough that no place good would be open!). After a sub par breakfast and burned coffee, I had a lovely ride through Brooklyn and ended up in Red Hook.

(Bamboo Bike Building info in another post)

I left class that day tired and hungry at about 10:00 PM, and had again a great bike ride back through Brooklyn. First stop was Fairway, which is a ridiculously large market, where I managed to pick up some spectacular beer and Belgian chocolate. Then off for a quick deli dinner, and back to Scott and Ashley's. They had another couple of friends in town for the evening, so I was banished to the kitchen (see photo) for the evening. Note: sleeping in the kitchen is actually pretty awesome. There are good snacks nearby, and there's a sink for brushing your teeth (and if you can hit the drain straight on, taking a leak). Note 2: two therma-rests are way more comfortable than most sofa sleepers, so if you're staying with a couple of save backpackers, you're set.

The next morning was an early one, with class starting again at 8:00 am. I made a quick and shameful stop at Starbucks, but when faced with the alternatives, it was the best coffee around. Spent another long day finishing up the bike, then headed off to dinner.

The most suprising about my time in New York was how easy it is to get around on bike. Drivers are friendly, lots of bike lanes, adn you don't have to find a place to park a car. Perhaps I've just lived in the worlds most bike unfriendly city for too long. If you go to New York, you certainly should rent a bike to get around.

Frame 0000001

Well, here it is. The first, of hopefully many frames made with my two hands. This one with a little help from some knowledgeable sources. One in particular deserves some thanks: Tim Sanner of Sanner Cycles. Back in the Fall of last year Tim started offering frame building classes for two lucky folks at a time.

The class was a week long and I left with a nearly complete lugged steel road frame. A little more prep work when I got home, and it was off to a local paint shop for a fresh coat of black powdercoat.

For being so special to me, the bike really is nothing more than a pile of steel tubes and some parts. Standard 4130 tubeset, standard lugs, standard black gloss powdercoat. But for some reason it's a lot more than that, more exciting than any new bike I have ever had.

The parts are pretty straightforward as well, though I am proud to announce that there is not a single carbon fiber bit on this bike. Not that carbon fiber is a bad thing, it certianly has its place on a bike (and in my garage). But it's not really built to last, and doesn't really have a place on a 'forever bike'. The bike is built with Ultegra 10 speed components with bar end shifters, new Paul Racer Brakes with bake levers from the olden days, Bontrager Classics wheels (32 spoke) and a shiny new Nitto Moustache bar round it out into a real bike. Something to ride for years to come, or at least until I build the next one.