Bet you haven't seen one of these......

Yes, it's a mountain bike. Yes, it is a Della Santa. I believe this one is from around 1985. My friend Joe is the original owner. He has a Ritchey from about 1982 and one of my bikes from 1995. He rides them all but I seldom see him on this one. There are supposedly only three in existance........that's pretty rare in my book.

My bike.....again !

Yeah, I know....you have seen this bike too many times ! I thought I'd put a post-race photo up of my ride in its current state , complete with the wheelset I built up a couple of month ago. The course had a 200 foot mud pit and it was really sticky, hence the muddy tires. Funny, the mud didn't get on much of the rest of the bike. This was my first race after being in the hospital ony five days previous. I came in 3rd.......impressive until you know that there were only four in my group and only three finishers ! Hey, it's a podium........in slow-mo.

29er bound for So-Cal.

This is the first frame I have built since getting my kidney stone blasted out. I took it a little slow on this one and I'm pretty proud of the results. All in all, I think this frame should handle the rigors of racing well as it has the beef where it is needed-the tubing is really stout here and there but the whole thing only weighs 3 lb. 7 oz. ! I guess that's what you get with 7005 aluminum.
The headtube is short as the 29er shock fork is pretty long and the rider is under 5'10".
I used one of Mike Ahren's seatstay yokes....there's nothing better to make for good tire room , lots of rigidity and some style as well. I use US made and designed hardware as much as I can.
Here's a tiny bit of hardware, or more like it-cobware.......a small brace to keep the disc brake from twisting the rear end into a pretzel. A lot of builders like me learned a number of years ago that any bike with a disc brake that is going to be ridden hard needs extra metal.

The rig loaded for the commute.

I have not been in the shop this week as I have been laid up with a painful kidney stone. While i'm in enough discomfort to not be able to tolerate the unheated shop, I can still build wheels at home. here's my town bike loaded with the last few day's work, my truing stand, dishing tool and whatever was cluttering my kitchen. Tomorrow I see the doctor to get the kidney stone removed.......after 9 days of pain I am more than ready ! This painful interlude has slowed the bike builds but barring complications , I assume I'll be back at it next week with a full head of steam. Normally I like going to work but now it will be like a celebration !

Yes, I am still alive.....

Here's the frame I made with couplers a few weeks ago. I'll be building up the whole bike including wheels pretty soon. The tubeset is almost all Columbus Nivacrome.
This is not a touring frame but a rack will fit . My hope is that this travel frame will feel nice and snappy-fun to ride just about anywhere in the world......that will be handy as this bike will most likely circle the globe in travels over the next decade or so.

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.