And so it starts- the last pre-season aluminum batch

 Here's the first frame in the batch of 8-10 frames for June/July. It is a Gravel/CX for 700x47 tires.

My hope is to have all these frames done by mid July-after that I'll have some catching up to do on the steel list. If you have an aluminum frame on order , definitely get in touch with your build and fit info so that you'll have a bike for the fall CX season. Once this batch is done there will be no aluminum frames built in 2025, or at least until December. 

7005 road frame going to CT.

 Last frame on today's data dump is this 7005 road frame. This one is just a bit over 3 lbs. and should be nice for the group rides where speed and efficiency are a must. It is set up for an integrated headset and Shimano Di II. It also has a satin clear coat-that is getting very popular as of late.

Steel 'All-Road' frame

 This customer got a rim brake road frame from me years ago and now wants what most people are asking for these days- more tire volume and disc brakes. This one will be set up with an Enve G-series fork and a SRAM wireless 2X group. The frame will comfortably take 700x40 tires and should open up some new riding routes for the owner.

Steel track frame for a complete build

It's not often that I bust out a frame for stock but this is that rare case. I have a full set of track bits that have been on my shelves for too long so I built this frame last Friday to mount all the parts on. It will be a mass-start style of track bike in my size ( 55 cm ) and it will be for sale as a complete bike- more on that later. It has True Temper S-3 top and down tubes scored from a couple NOS sources so this frame is made out of rare metal and weighs a mere 3 lb. 9 oz.  Look for it on my blog as a built bike in about a month.
 

SSCX in steel with new style dropouts

Never used these before- seems like the idea is good as the flat mount caliper lines up with the chain stay better than the other Paragon adjustable dropouts. I do think that the aluminum hardware might be a bit delicate but time will tell . This rider intends to really make a go of it at the nationals so I can't think of a better testing ground than that. 
 

Low standover steel 27.5 MTB frame

This owner says that she has the legs of a coffee table. Now I would not go that far, but indeed she does have a low standover and the reverse-curve top tube is the way I deal with it. The plan is to have the bike have a more modern wheel spec than here '80's 26" MTB without sacrificing standover. I hope that she likes what I built. I will do a full XTR build on this one and post photos  when it is rolling.
 

Steel 'lifestyling' frame.......

 Yes- that's what it has gotten to. Sure, I build lots of serious CX racing frames and gravel frames but hey- some times you just want a bike to go out and do just about anything on. Here's the one that got picked up today. It has dropper routing, rack mounts and three places for bottle cages. It will take 700x45 tires and maybe a bit more. It has a Jen Green white bronze headbadge and oddly enough, its not all that heavy. Forget the $ 200+ entry fees or driving all day to get to the spot where all the other sprinter vans are parked with the outdoor showers, little solar panels to run the computer to stream the shows that one doesn't want to miss simply because of a camping gravel race weekend. Just open the garage , jump on your bike and see where it takes you instead of you taking it for an all-day car ride ......that's what this bike is about . But- you can still do a gravel race on it and I wouldn't think less of you...

Huge steel gravel/cx frame going to northern Europe

 This rider has to be about 6'7" tall. While this isn't the largest frame of the year , it is very close. The owner is currently riding a 62 CM Kona which isn't quite large enough. With a 240 MM head tube, this one should be fine. I did not need to rough-cut any of the tubes on this frame- they were all full length with just a miter at the ends- that is really unusual. That said, I didn't have to use any special tubes to build it, just the regular gravel set with a bit more metal where needed. 

Not the usual post

Well, this isn't a frame that I built but it came to me as a result of the Masi replica I built back in December. The person who provided me with a Masi frame that I could use as the template for building my fake wound up giving me this 1974 California built Gran Criterium. I told him that I really didn't need it but he insisted. He has quite a fleet of old bikes and he's also one of the more generous people I have run into in my decades of building frames. He told me to build it up and ride it so that's what I did. The frame had much of the components on it. I get the feeling that this was a restoration project that he started but maybe lost steam on and was happy to pass it along to me. Now I can do and A/B comparison with this one and the one I built to see just how close I got with the geometry.

Here's a photo of the one I built so you can see how close I got , or didn't get depending on your view.
 

Steel gravel frame

This customer specified the big 44 mm ID head tube as he already had the headset he wanted to use in the build. I usually don't recommend building a custom frame around a single component but for this customer he was good with the look of the bigger tube and this is not his first custom bike- he knows what he wants and my job is to deliver just that.
 

I have not weighed the frame but it is pretty light as the rider is about 155 lbs.