Getting Close to Go Time - CTR

July 24 is the date I fly to Denver and then a week in Denver before I start one of the biggest adventures I will ever do. After over ten years of traveling to Colorado each summer to spend a week camping and riding my mountain bike, this year I am lining up to doing the Colorado Trail Race starting on August 1st.  The race is a 460 mile self-supported event from Denver to Durango on the Colorado Trail.  I have been training and acquiring gear for this race over the past year and I am really looking forward to the experience. I know being from Austin and not being able to train at altitude will limit my performance, but my main goal is overcoming all the challenges that I will encounter during the race  ( i.e. altitude, lightning, exhaustion, hypothermia, etc...) and finishing it. Mo will be holding down the fort in the shop starting the 25th and I plan to be back mid-August.  I will post up my gear list and tracking information, so you can follow my blue dot before I head out. 

-Clark

More Frames

Here are some shots of John's 29er. As soon as the fork is cleaned up, it is off to Spectrum  along with a custom stem for a special powder coat:

A finally here is a teaser shot of the bike we are building for the Oregon Manifest contest in September. Mo will follow up with more details on the contest and our design:

Head Down Busy in the Shop

We have been working hard in the shop on several bikes the past few weeks and here are a few shots of what we are working on. First a fork for John's 29er,  it is our typical segmented fork set up to turn his 29er into a gravel grinder duty when needed:

Next up a pair of road bikes we have been building for Doc and his friend Pat. We went as light as we could on these road bikes, with solid ride that is built to last. Working on putting the braze-on on both of them this week and then off to paint.

More frame pics tomorrow.

TF road bike gets 4th in P12 Crit

Check out this great video of the last kilometer leading up to the finish of this weekend's Houston Grand Crit. Scott Henry (blue/red kit) aboard his white TF road bike bridges up to the group of 5 leaders and then takes 4th in the sprint!

STEMS!!!

Hey all. . .

- Happy Memorial Day. . . hope you have fun memorializing. . . .

- Summer has come to Austin. . . those who say "finally" either live in A/C or are insane. . . as for me, I say "Let's move to Saskatoon." Not only is it way cooler, but who can't get behind a city whose flag promotes "Commerce, Industry, [and] Education?"

- More time should be spent in the shop in the coming months, and we're already ahead of our personal timelines for certain projects. . . one of which is

- STEMS! Yep, as I mentioned awhile back we would be making stems, not just for fun, but for PROFIT!! That time has come, and all for the low low price of $150. That'll get you a custom length stem similar to the one pictured (1 1/8" steerer, 1 1/4" bar clamp, custom length and rise). All 4130 steel with the exception of the faceplate which is 6061 aluminum.

Powdercoats beside black and other deviations from the norm can be done, but there will be an up-charge (contact us for details). While I didn't weigh this one, I'm fairly certain it's on par with a Thomson, so you may be saving a few grams PLUS you can get it in that so hard to find 153.713229 length that you need to complement the 95mm headtube on your Golden Ratio bike. PLUS PLUS look at how good it looks just doing its job!!!

- June is National "Update your Business's Website Month" and in that vain we have recently hired someone to do just that. My eyes bleed eye blood whenever I check my email so we thought it best to find someone who knows what they're doing behind a keyboard. Look for us to let you know when it's actually done here on this blog as what we have now is so out of date I can't even laugh about it. (NOTE: it's worth a peek if you wanted to know what websites looked like during the Ford Administration, so for all you high schoolers wrapping up your term papers on "The History of the Internet," feel free to use our site as a primary source. . . just be sure to print out pictures on the dot matrix currently being used as your bathroom step stool).

Frames, Frames, Frames

First off, I have to apologize for the quiet blog though April, I had thought I had lost my camera and after looking all over for it, it eventually turned up in Cody's car.  We have been busy with bike an here are several images of what we have been working on. First up Antonio's Gravel Grinder, back from paint and now prepped to be built up:

Next up a hard tail 29er that is going to Tennessee, can't wait to see the paint job that is going on this one.  It is going to be the personal ride for the painter of the Rat Rod and Bill's Cherry Blossom bike:

And finally a bikepacking 29er for John S.  So far we have it built up to the point of seat stays which will be going on this week and then of course braces and braze-ons. We are using the new paragon rocker dropouts on this one and we are really please with them:

 Next up back to some Titanium work this weekend and then on to a couple road bikes.

Back from Paint

Look what has finally arrived back from paint! This TF gravel grinder is going to be really nice. Of course its for a customer but its not unlike how I'd do one for myself: disc only, room for very fat CX tire, stiff bb, mounts for a salsa minimalist, 3 bottle mounts, etc..