Forks, forks , forks.

Getting caught up on my work these days involves building all the forks and stems that have been on order , some since June ! I'm probably known as a guy who delivers custom frames pretty much on schedule and is horribly slow on building forks-even more so on stems. It just so happens that my shop is efficiently laid out for building frames but not so for smaller stuff. All this said, I rarely refuse an order for a fork-I just have a caveat : You can't be in a hurry if you want me to build you a stem or a fork.
The black fork above has one of the remaining few Ritchey/Bridgestone crowns out of my collection. I think I have four more out of the original 18 or so that I bought back in about 1995.
This unicrown fork will be used with a 29" wheel but on a 26" wheel single speed. The fork with the wheel will add up to about the same height as a 26" wheel in a 100 MM shock fork. I have been thinking about doing this conversion with my single speed.......might be fun to have that big wheel and no boing.
Here's a detail of the disc mount and the little cable guide on the back of the blade. I used some larger diameter rod for the 1/4" thick plate on the mount. I think it's easier to weld with and there won't be a problem with anything not staying together under hard braking.
Here's another crown with a finite supply. Kirk Pacenti is selling his bikelugs.com business so all these nice bits he has been selling might possibly be a thing of the past. This is a great resource that framebuilders are losing.....maybe we just didn't support him enough with our dollars. It's tough for me as there is little that I build with lugs,crowns and the like. Ironically, I have built more lugged forks in the last year than in the previous 7-8.
This Paris-Brest crown is really a terrific design and it will be sad to no longer be able to use it.There's plenty of metal on this crown , so much that I'm sure one could build a fork for off-road with it and feel sure that if anything bent in an accident, it would not be the crown. I have to use a rosebud tip on the torch...the largest flame at my disposal to heat up this massive casting.

Canadian transplant 7005 29er built up

I don't know about you but part of me wishes I had Canadian roots just so I could put little maple leaves all over my bike. It really looks like they are blowing in the wind, just like what would be happening around this time of year. The build is pretty nice on this one and it is really light for such a large bike.

Single speed bound for Pennsylvania

Most of the 26" wheel MTB frames I build are single speeds, though not exclusively. This one will have a rigid fork that I made but also accommodate a 100 MM shock as needed. The Paragon slider dropouts are welded on and really a stout design. This bike is set up for disc-only , a good thing for a place where it isn't 300 plus days of sunshine a year like here in Santa Cruz. I have plans to make a 29er version of this bike in my size early next year but it will have cable guides for the use of an internal geared hub......more on that later.

Built up disc 'cross bike

Yes, disc brakes are UCI legal now so you'll be seeing more cyclocross bikes with disc brakes. While hydraulic brakes are still not available , it is looking like that will change soon. This bike is going to be more of a trail bike than a pure race machine. The buildup parts were for the most part provided by the customer. The cranks are some carbon Stronglites that I have never seen and the drive train is all Sram Red . The bike feels like something one could ride just about anywhere.