There are days when it’s not so much fun……………

Just a note, riding season is officially over!

This is the new version of my old site (alliancebicycles.blogspot.com).  All of the previous postings have been transferred and I will continue to update this page.  I will no longer be updating the blogspot site.  Thanks to everyone for visiting the old blog.  I hope you continue to stop in for updates about my adventures in framebuilding land

I love, I mean love handbuilt wheels. I will go as far as to say that every high-end bike should have them. Handbuilt wheels are the perfect complement to a handbuilt frame. In fact, the two have a lot in common.

Handbuilt wheels are customizable in every way. There is way more to it than “you want Kings or DT Swiss”. Spoke count, crossings, spoke tension, and spoke gauge all contribute to overall ride feel, durability, and stiffness.

You can tune the ride by spoke gauge in the same way that tubing diameter is used on frames. The thicker the spoke, the stiffer the ride. By increasing the spoke crossings or count, the wheel gains lateral stiffness and vertical compliance.

Some of my favorite cyclocross wheels have a high spoke count with a three cross pattern, but a light gauge spoke on the front wheel and non-drive side of the rear wheel. The thin spokes have a perceived amount of give, yet the high spoke count and three cross pattern maintain the trueness of the wheel. I run a thick double butted spoke on the drive-side due to this being the most stressed side of either wheel.

This wheel setup, combined with a steel frame and carbon fork, handlebar, and seatpost, is nothing but pure butta’ on the dirt roads that I frequent.

I recently built Jinny some new wheels for her bike. The parts are simple and effective; Tiagra hubs, Salsa rims, and DT Swiss Competition spokes. Most people feel that handbuilt wheels should only be high-end. To be honest, at this price range it would be much easier to buy a prebuilt wheel from Mavic, Velocity, or FSA. I just love building my own wheels so much, that I don’t care to cut corners for the sake of “well it’s just a town bike, just get something that works.”

For me it’s one more piece of the puzzle to customize. A collection of goals and compromises to acheive the desired end product.

None of my bikes have Factory wheels with expensive and hard to find parts, and they never will.

Long live the J-bend spoke!

Yesterday I took some time to work on my bikes. I started by overhauling the fork on my mountain bike. It always amazes me how much better they feel with a little cleaning and some fresh oil.

The freehub body on my town bike was going all fixed gear on me, and not the kind when you wear tight pants and grow a mustache. The kind where the cranks cease to move forward. I pulled it apart and rebuilt that as well. The citrus degreaser never lies……..

Loaded up and ready to move down the street

Practiced brazing water bottle bosses.

It must have been broken black bike week or BBB for short. First it was the chainstay and now a downtube failure. This bike has seen some serious miles and abuse. It’s so old that it doesn’t have a serial number stamped on it. Carl assumed it to be around 13 years old. For starters, its a fillet brazed bike, but it also has a cool Columbus Life tubeset that Carl specified the downtube shape. It’s a pear shaped tube that Columbus still makes. This one is a little different, in that it transitions to a oval at the BB. This adds a touch of stiffness, but mainly gives it some distinction.

Like I stated earlier, this bike was hammered. The owner is a local guy, who rides about 10,000 miles a year. That’s a lot of miles on this poor old bike. On top of that, it appears the bike hasn’t had much maintenance either.

So I started by removing all of the parts from the bike. The headset was rusted solid from years and years of sweat. The headset spacers were stuck together with a salty version of JB weld. Carl cut a piece of the downtube out because we suspected it would be heavily rusted. It wasn’t bad for its age, so I proceeded on.

The crack went all the way around the tube.

I grabbed the hacksaw and removed most of the tube. In the past, I have used a disk grinder to ruff cut tubes. I can get in a little tighter with the hacksaw without the fear of cutting another tube.

Next I file the remaining tube down. In this case there wasn’t much to file because the hacksaw worked so well. I switched to the dynafile and sand it smooth and remove the paint surrounding the area.

Luckly, Carl had one of his downtubes left from years ago. This one was sitting in a box for eight years just waiting for that special frame. I mitered it on both ends and set the fixture to the original blueprint. Carl never throws any of the old information away, which made this step rather easy.

Apply a healthy amount of flux to all the tubes and load the downtube into the fixture.

Carl tacking the new downtube in the fixture.

Part 2 will continue next week.

A couple of weeks ago we received a customers bike that had been crashed in a race. Unfortunately, the bike didn’t fare so well and suffered a collapsed chainstay on the non-drive side. Fortunately, He ordered a titanium bike to “hold him over” for the time being.

This bike was far from seeing its last ride. Like any good frame made of steel or ti, they can be easily repaired. I cut the chainstay out of the frame last week, while Carl ordered a short-taper Columbus Life replacement to match the drive side. Then, I removed all of the powdercoat and prepped the area.

A week or so later the chainstay arrived. The first thing I did, was miter the chianstay where it joins the dropout. Then I placed the stay in a fixture and mitered the junction at the bottom bracket. A little adjustment for length on the dropout side, and it was ready to tack. Carl stepped in and welded the replacement.

Next, I mitered a new chainstay bridge, tacked it, and traded seats with Carl as he laid down the beads.

I placed the frame on the alignment table to adjust the rear tips to center.

H-tooling the dropouts so they are flush.

Check the derailleur hanger to see that it’s strait.

Chase the BB threads.

Packaged and ready for paint.

Went into the shop last night and practiced welding for a few hours. I welded some seatstay cutoffs to a piece of 4130. This simulates the thick butt at the top of the seatubes that we use. Just a few pics below.

Ah Tig welding, no shortcuts on learning this one. When I first started working with Carl, we figured that he welds about four hours a week. Two hours per bike, two bikes per week. I come in on my own time and strive to weld for the same amount of time. Sometimes, I come in on the weekends and sometimes after work.

I have every tube I’ve every welded. Some are pretty embarrassing to look at. Just a few fine examples for comical relief.

I start by grabbing some tubing. Sometimes it’s 4130 from aircraft spruce, sometimes its seatube/seatstay cutoffs. I like to use actual bike tubing because it’s thinner than 4130. I get a better feel for heat management and it’s easier to blow a hole in it. Fixing a hole is a fast way to learn about power control.

When I practice welding I treat it the same as building a bike. I miter all of the tubes on the mill. I deburr, sand and 3M the inside and outside to ensure a quality joint. I finish off by cleaning with acetone to remove oils and dirt that may contaminate the weld.

Then I assume the position and weld, weld, weld. I usually try and complete at least 5 joints. I miter them at 90 degrees, mainly to save space. However, on occasion I will throw in a different angle.

Here are some pictures from June 2nd. These cutoffs are OX Platinum seatubes.