The business of Framebuilding is not an easy one. Its incredibly demanding in the sense you need three essential skillsets: Business and marketing acumen, practical applied design and fabrication skills and financial resources. If you’re missing any of those three, the uphill road that is framebuilding gets exponentially steeper. Experience occurs over the course of …
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The Business of Framebuilding
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Midfoot
I’ve been an SPD addict for over 30 years. I actually bought a set of my buddy’s old Shimano M737 SPD’s back in ’91 or ’92 when he “upgraded”. But I’ve been a SPD pedaler ever since and I’ve always biased the cleats slightly ball of foot forward of the pedal spindle so strictly a …
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Snakedriver by the Numbers
I’ve been working on the Snakedriver project since 2019. 5 years of R&D and 4 prototypes have brought me to this current iteration. After an evening of assembly, tuning and triple checking my work during the build process, I took V4 of the Snakedriver on its first shake down ride. I couldn’t be more pleased. …
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Electrification
Editors Note: The above image is purely a visual for size and technology comparison. It is not meant to compare old vs new nor is it a Shimano vs SRAM comparison. The GX AXS rear derailleur is actually my personal piece of kit for bike packing excursions to quickly convert my singlespeed to a geared …
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Geometry
When I built my first bike, I pretty much didn’t have much of an understanding of geometry, handling and what made both click. I basically plucked a few numbers based on riding experience up to that point and then slowly, over many iterations, a lot of trial and error, riding, building and repeating, things started …
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Laywire 101
Back in 1995, when I was a Sophomore at Penn State University, I was across the street from the Jewelery Departments studio spaces in the Arts and Architecture building’s shop space. Well outfitted woodshop dovetailed to a metal shop. Over on the metal shop side, I noticed a big Miller TIG Welder. When we all …
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Tack Sequence
Over the years I’ve been asked about my weld sequence. I’ve been asked it enough times and I’ve written it enough times that I think it’s about time I make it permanent here, in ink, on the 44HQ Blog. Apologies for the radio silence for some time. With all that’s been going on, I’ve honestly …
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1UP Quik Rack in Review
The first rack I ever had was a Yakima roof rack. Mounted up on my old aqua Honda Accord! (Also my first car…) You know the kind: Trays, towers, clips to adapt to your car. I was working at Nestor’s Full Cycle bike shop in 1998-99 in Quakertown, PA. Every year, they had their annual …
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Marauder Ti UTE
As a kid, I was a Boyscout. I was a member of East Greenville Troop 108 and my friends and I in the Apache Patrol raised hell every month on our troop hikes and campouts. You see, our troop was a bit special in the fact that we had a very dedicated scoutmaster, Karl “Moose” …
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PNW Components Dropper in Review
Early in the Fall of 2018, one of the founders from PNW Components reached out to me to see if I’d be interested in reviewing one of their dropper posts and their Loam Lever. Sounded like a fun project so after a few questions I settled on their Bachelor Dropper in 150mm of drop and …
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