post season clearance sale

There will be three '07 team bikes for sale. #1 pictured here is the "pit bike" and had very little use as we had very few mechanicals last season. The bike is all Ultegra with Paul's brakes and a King headset. It has an Easton carbon fork so it is light and race ready with a new chain,cassette cables and XT pedals all for $ 1,700. The other two bikes are full Dura ace and will be $ 2,400 and $ 2,800. These bikes have one season of use and are all with new chains, cassettes and cables. Call the shop at 831-429-8010 weekdays for more details. More photos are on the way.

Vas ist los?

Not something you see every day......a disc brake 'cross bike with an extended seat tube. Maybe a bit like the 'Speedvagen' from Vanilla.... but not quite as the cable routing and brake system are different....and yes, there is no bridge on the seatstays. All these requests were from the customer and reflect the purpose of a custom bike which is primarily to fulfill a need that can't be filled by a production bike. As you can see, this ain't no production bike !

speaking of steel....

Shiny shiny steel......the soft focus wasn't on purpose. It would have been nice for the image to be as sharp as possible as these welds are maybe the best I have done. This frame was an auction donation to benefit the local jazz club, the Kuumbwa jazz center. Needless to say, the winner of the auction is a single speeder and will no doubt be beating the crap out of this frame in the coming weeks as it is almost ready. Speaking of musical stuff, some of you nor-cal folks have seen the band I play in from time to time, the Linkhorns. This band was started in Jan. 1988 and has been rocking out ever since. Now the future of the band is in question as the bass player and very good friend of mine, Rick Williams is in critical care at Dominican hospital with a heart infection and brain anyurism. Rick is holding onto life,but barely. Rick has been a supremely important person in the bay area musical community and has helped countless thousands of people in his 30 plus years in the music sales buisiness. Nobody could tell you more about a vintage guitar than Rick and we all owe him a lot. I hope that Rick can get well and play music again......that will be a great day. Please keep him in your thoughts.

do I like my job ?

As long as Mr. Fab got my back, it's all good. Nice to slow down a bit after the show and weld steel for awhile.

This ain't steel, I built it last month when in the heat of aluminum building. A guy intends to go really fast on this one. Its a TT bike for local racer and U.C.S.C. student Art Rand. I'm pretty sure he'll make this thing move down the road.

More progress on the V.O.S. team bikes,also from last month. These bikes in the second batch have a nice little white stripe between the red and black. With nearly twenty of these built they will be hard to miss at the races this spring.

Bling bling dollar bill, y'all

Sheila Moon knows how to party. The party on Saturday night at a bar called plan B had a raffle and Sheila won a black messenger bag big enough to put her travelling buddy Barb Howe in.....maybe could have saved on airfare on the way home. Barb was hobbled with a torn Achille's tendon but still came to all the after parties and did her best Capitain Morgan .
A.K. was around although not visible most of the three days. Seemed as though he had a good time, probably better than we were having as we were working the show nine hours a day.
Capitain Kirk made the trip north and ditributed the latest FRP sportswear. Steve Garro told me repeatedly "You would be surprised at how many t-shirts you could give away." -Truer words have never been spoken.Poor Daniel Limburg attempting to talk on his phone with all sorts of yelling and carrying on taking place during the raffle.
This might have been the cutest bike in the show....yours for the low low price of : Don't ask, you can't afford it"

Andy Newland's creation.....integrated headset in lugged steel. Andy is the master and was a major inspiration for all the framebuilders of the late '70's such as Ross Shafer and myself.

Steve Garro's wife Denise has a new ride, replete with flowers. Looks nice and sweet now but you can be sure she is going to really beat on this bike on the rocky Flagstaff singletrack.
Paul's components........nice as it gets.
But wait.....White Industries stuff is mighty cool as well. Anyway, I'm glad to be back in Santa Cruz, ride a bike...see the sun and most of all, get the heck away from all that rolling art,brooks saddles, wooden fenders....bling bling yada yada. All this art for art's sake is great but bikes for riding is where I reside. Gotta pedal 'em, no matter how pretty they may be !
Heck, might as well finish off with the linear brakes from Paul Price. Stuff that works and keeps on working. This stuff is probably a lot more reliable than water buffalo horn forkblades.........

Absence of sky

Yeeah, Bacon town ! Prtland....at least outside the handmade bikeshow it was Porltand. Inside it was the custom bike capital of planet earth. Next door neighbor Steve Rex showed his excellent fillet brazed machines in a tidy economical display.
Yes, this is a sub 18 pound wooden road bike and it looked like something you could really ride anywhere.

Paul Price and Tammy held court at his display of superior aluminum . The best brakes and single speed gear around made for a constant glut of folks in front of this booth.

Simon shows off his new skateboard to Daniel Limburg of Shimano. Daniel treated us to a fine sushi dinner on Saturday night after the busiest and most draining day of the show.Ever spend four days in a trade show and not see the sky ? That's what I did. On a good note, though it was the NAHBS and I was surrounded by the best collection of fine handmade riding hardware ever assembled on this planet. The show was a huge success for all concerned and our booth was no exception as the press and public even took notice of our stripped down simple racing machines. IT's nice to know that full-on race bikes can be shown next to rolling artistic statements and still get an enthusiastic response.....after all, there is some exprexxsion in a rider going fast on a bike.

Oh, Yeah.......we in full effect. Simon changes a beat up saddle for a nice new one ( Loaned to us by Hwy. 2....Fizik USA) so that the bike looks all-new.
Saturdays crowds were enough to make the fire marshal close the doors for nearly an hour.Good thing nobody yelled "Fire!"

Yaaaaa, iss good, this wood, no? Wheelsmith Rick plied his wooden wares at the show. Do not ride these through termite colonies.

Here's what it looks like in rolling form

This one is bound for the handbuilt bike show. It may not be fancy but there are two kinds of bikes in my opinion: Artistic statements that you can ride or straight ahead racing bikes like this one. Both are valid means of transport.....this one is just faster and less expensive.