Last frame of 2022 and another frame builder garage sale

Hugh Enochs built his first frame in 1961 when I was six years old. Now he is in a care facility with parkinson's and is no longer capable of working. This has left his wife with quite a task- figure out what to do with all of his accumulation from being in the bicycle business for a half century. These boxes of tubing represent a tiny fraction of what he has stored in the garage. I went there at the urging of one of my customers to maybe buy some materials left over from when Hugh was building frames . I took what I could- not all of it is useful but there's enough there that will be fun to turn into bike frames.

What you see here is a frame and fork made almost entirely with matrials from that garage sale. This is also the last frame of the year and a project that really does not have much of a reason to exist other than that between Christmas and new years I like to build a frame or two out of old materials in the manner I did when I first started 44 years ago. 

This frame and fork are meant to mimic the style of frame that was built in the '70's in  Italian prisons ( or so the legend says..) Brands such as Atala, Ideor ,Lygie and others were supposedly produced in prisons in Italy for export , mainly to the USA. These frames were not built with a lot attention to detail but they had their own sort of charm. I used a set of lugs I got off of Ebay for $ 14.00 and the tubing was out of the boxes in the photo. The fork crown was one I bought from the late Art Sump in about 1993-1994 , along with the BB shell. The dropouts are fairly modern and they can still be purchased from Nova cycles. The tubing however is very old, some of it from the '60's . There's a good chance that much of this stuff was old when Hugh got it. Frame building supplies tend to get passed down and some of the tubes have a very long wait to be utilized. Some times they never get used and wind up in recycling or landfill. I'm trying to use all the stuff I get, even if it means building something that has no purpose other than to just be a bike- a bike that will some day be much more useful than a pile of old tubes 

I'll be interested to see how this one rides. It is make for longer reach caliper brakes and up to a 700x35 tire. Maybe this one will see a little dirt........one can only hope. Happy new year, everyone.
 

Aluminum track frame with steel fork going to Iowa

This one will be velodrome bound. This is the the aluminum version of the "mass start " track frame. There isn't much available in carbon track forks so I opted to build a custom steel one to match up with this frame.

 

Aluminum road frame going to S.F.

The customer asked for paint, not powdercoat so if you like the finish on this frame , that's the reason it has the look. There are a lot of great powdercoat colors but nothing exactly like this one.

The fork was painted at the same time as the frame so the match is perfect. It almost has a Masi Gran Criterium look to the gold metallic with the black and yellow decals. 

 

Steel cross country MTB frame for a local

This one is not made for really big tires but it does have boost spacing. It also has an integrated style head tube. The advantage is with less headset stack the head tube can be a bit longer and less overlap of the tup tube is needed to fit both tubes on the back of the head tube. 

Much of the steel on this frame is US made. The top tube is NOS True Temper and the down tube is Velospec made from surplus True Temper steel that was drawn into tubes in Taiwan , then sent back to the US . You might say that these tubes have a larger carbon footprint than the original but if you want this US made steel, Velospec is currently the only way to get it. 

 

SSCXWC prototype frame in steel

Yes- the shop may be closed this month but that does not mean that I won't be doing some work . This is a project that I wanted to do as next November the SSCXWC will be coming to Santa Cruz and I wanted to make a commemorative frame for it. The idea is that the winners of the event will each get one of these. I'll get them painted a special gold and will try to cook up some nice graphic touches and maybe a custom headbadge from Jen Green. I'll have to try to design one soon as this frame will be ready for it in a matter of a couple weeks. I'll try to have a fully built bike in the next two months. I'll do a special blog post then.

Notice that this one does not rely on an EBB for chain tension adjustments but uses a pair of the Paragon "rocker" dropouts. I could have gone with the sliding dropouts but they are heavier, more expensive and don't have quite as sleek a look. The 29er single speed I built for the Chris King guest house show had the same dropouts.

Nothing all that special about this frame. I though that I wanted to do something a little more ornate but eventually went with the functional look of my normal tig welded steel CX frame. This one is special because it is tied to a specific event that changes location every year. It is a major coup for the locals to have it land in Santa Cruz.
 

Steel road frame

Rim brakes and mechanical shifting will be how this bike is built up. The frame will be mated to an Enve non-tapered 50 mm rake fork. I put an extension on the head tube as the rider has had a history of neck pain. Hopefully the more upright position will help.

The rider os about 5'3"and very light so this frame did not need to be built with heavy tubing. The weight pf the bare frame is 3 lb. 7 oz. and should build up very light.

 

Gravel frame in steel with painted to match fork

Ahh, King headsets are back in stock and I can get them again ! It has been a long wait but this customer's patience was rewarded with the rare gold tapered 'Nothreadset' - a great addition to this frame.

Another nice touch is the Jen Green badge in bronze. I have to re-order as I have now sold through all the badges in stock. 

As you can see, this one has rear rack mounts and is set up for mechanical shifting.