2Cycle2gether

Kai and Sheila rolled up to my work about two months ago. As soon as I saw their bikes I ran outside to greet them and to find out where they were pedaling from. (Sheila had a Rohloff hub  and a Folk Engineered bicycle, so I knew that these were people with a good story.) They ate with me and explained that they had pedaled from Vermont and were on a "five year" cycling trip. I told them about our plans for the next year and invited them to our house for breakfast.
The next morning, we shared a yummy breakfast of pancakes, eggs, fresh squeezed orange juice, and coffee. They gave us much to think and to be excited about.  After three hours of great conversation and laughs, they pedaled away, heading south for Argentina.

Click on their photos to view their blog and the post they wrote about SLO:
2cycle2gether.com

Rohloff Tool Realized

Months after I had discovered it, the materialization was near.  Found on Vimeo through some random google search, while attempting to figure how to remove the cog from the loaner test Rohloff, was Aaron Lisco’s custom Rohloff wrench.  It was a beautifully machined piece of aluminum that eliminates the worry about loosing purchase (tool grab) on the other OEM cog tool manufactured by Rohloff AG. This is of the utmost importance as extreme force is needed to remove a cog that has been tightened by thousands of miles of pedaling. These characteristics were achieved by creating a tool that can be sandwiched by the hubs skewer.  All of this functionality and design only weighs in at about an ounce and a half.

Aaron Lisco's Rohloff cog tool (tool) from Aaron Lisco on Vimeo.

I found his home page, beyondthegreatdivide.org, and immediately contacted Aaron about the availability of the tool through some vague e-mail.  Quickly I established that I was planning a similar trip to the one that he has already accomplished and that I was interested in having the tool fabricated myself in order to maintain my maintenance autonomy on the road.  The tool, which was of Aaron's conception, was engineered and originally fabricated by Evan Anderson of Innovative Solutions LLC.  Soon enough I got a letter back from him with the original 3D CAD file and the permission to reproduce it.

Now I had to find a way to materialize this 3-D computer rendering into an actual object.  I began by contacting some of the ME students who are members of the Cal Poly HPV(Human Powered Vehicle) club as well as techs in the student machine shops on campus.  Despite being consumed by school and hundreds of hours of club work constructing their yearly competition vehicle, they reached out to me.  After  weeks of e-mailing, coordinating and materials purchasing, Chris Hunt and I set up a time to operate the machine at the end of his last day of class.

The Mustang ’60 machine shop was quiet in the wake of deadweek after a full quarter of fabricating on a limited shop schedule because of the departments inability to pay the shop techs to keep the shop open.  Upon transferring the small aluminum work piece and ¼” endmill, Chris began to carefully clamp the work piece to the work table squaring it up a little bit at a time.

Once he was satisfied with the location of the piece he began to press buttons on the intimidating looking keyboard.  He was using a bit called a Jem to aid the computer-controlled mill in knowing where the work piece was located.  Chris was very precise in his setup of the machine since the tool is as wide as the workpiece (bar of aluminum) that it was to be made out of.

Before we ran the mill Chris showed me an animation of the milling sequence, stopping every once and awhile to manually adjust the code inserting an extra step to allow us to view the outline cut path before we had fully committed to removing metal.  When the program was loaded onto the CNC Mill we watched the whiring endmill traverse the perimeter of the tool so that we could make sure it would not miss the metal stock completely.  Once satisfied with the setup, we fired the coolant jets and began to cut.

It was incredible watching the mechanical arm find the exact cutting locations and layer by layer remove all of the unwanted metal.  When the coolant had cleared there sat a perfectly outlined tool etched into metal flat bar.  The tool itself was still connected to the bar by a thin foil of aluminum that stood between the mill and its own self-destruction.  Thanks Chris for all the great work on this project.

After a quick clean up, I was left to break the tool free of its casing.  Using cruder tools such as sheet metal sheers, pliers and some sand paper wrapped around a Sharpie, I began to liberate the tool of its extraneous metal.  The process was slow, and the perforations surround by nothing but a thin webbing of 50 thousands of an inch, or as they say at the machine shop “thou”, thick.  A punch and a hammer seem to be adequate at simply shearing the material away a couple of millimeters at a time around the perimeter of each perforation.

After several hours of metal removal with jeweler like precision the tool was complete.  I choose not to  punch out the reliefs in the handle for fear that I might damage the tool, and besides I think that the machined finish looks sexy.  Now all I need is the modified chainwhip tool to ensure that I will be able to remove a worn cog anywhere in the world.

CPHBS: Legendary

Twas the Wednesday before finals week, and what do I see but but a bunch of M.E's on their S.T.V's.

Single Track Vehicle design is class offered every year by the Mechanical Engineering department here at  Cal Poly.  In this class they spend a considerable amount of time gaining a theoretical understanding of lean to turn vehicle handling characteristics.  After writing scads of MAT Lab code, tedious hours of homework and laboratory inertial testing; they get to build their own bike, and today was their final day to show them off.

Some of the more polished bikes were able to use the SLO Bike Kitchens frame prep tools and many others made use of our bargain basement frame supply.  Amongst the crowd were bikes of all varying levels of completion and construction quality.

Now without further adieu, here are some of the standouts.  All of these pictures were taken by Rory Aronson, and can be viewed here.

Blaire's fully bamboo bike, only sporting metal bits in the BB, headtube and rear dropouts.  I believe that it weighed in at about 23 pounds.  This might have been my favorite project as he ended up with a beautiful project and did not have to sweat waiting for the on TIG welder available at any given time, which was limited.

Rory's cargo recumbent, which was another back yard project.  This bike was surprisingly stable, especially at low speeds, due to the low center of gravity. The only design issues that still need resolving are the steering linkage and chain line off of the jack shaft pass through the cargo compartment.

A student riding a ghetto wooden bike.

A beautiful 70% wooden bike, this was another of the projects prepped at the SLO Bike Kitchen.

Me goofing off on my triple tall.

Once the professor had ridden their bikes, many of the students bolted to finish the design reports that were due by Friday.  Good luck gentlemen.

NAHBs: the Story

Two Friday's ago we made the trek through the fertile center of California to Sacramento in pursuit of the North American Handbuilt Bicycle Show (NAHBs for short).  We made a small stack of mini business cards to see if we could promote ourselves to some venders in person, all the while getting to see some pretty pretty things.

This was our first trade show and we didn’t quite know what to expect.  We had perused the website and  gawked at  images of gorgeous bicycles.  Under the glint of a camera flash, we had no way to predict the climate on the floor of the convention center.

So we headed out early, cruising HWY 46 to the I-5. We were greeted by blossoming nut trees brimming against the surrounding  green hills tinted with the yellow of mustard.  Quivering with excitement and tentative anticipation we inched through Stockton with car seat fatigue.

Cruising down J Street we knew we had arrived when one by one all the bikey folks in their short brimmed caps and cuffed up pants dotted the streets of the city center. Trying to find parking in our capitol city was probably the most challenging moment of our trip. Too many quick, last minute turns and frantic lane changes followed by an ascent to the fifth floor of a parking garage, we confirmed (once again) why we will be traveling the world by bicycle.  Finally, after locating the first open parking spot, we practically leaped out of the car before coming to a complete stop.

The descent of the stairs was of dizzying length when we quickly realized that the lunch hour had silently passed us by.  Forgoing a sandwich for early admission we quickly paced towards the convention doors.  We grab up our tickets, stick on our bracelets and step inside.  Before us lay row after row of sparkling bikes, large logos and black sheets…where would we begin?

Aimlessly, or guided by some mysterious bike force, we picked a random row in the middle of the room. Too many things to look at, I began to focus on wiring routing and light mounting for dynamo setups.  Peering through the digital viewfinder I attempt to get as close as the lens would allow to see these intricate details on these metal masterpieces.

Curious, I began to poke the builders about their design features.  Some builders were more than happy to sate my bike dork appetite, some seemed only interested in convention goers that might actually order a frame.  

One of the first venders we stopped at was King Cage, the makers of my favorite bottle cage.  He had a whole interactive display where he would bend a cage right before your eyes.  

Other Notable visits:

Wipperman: the German employee and the US representative gave us their pitch, and when we gave them ours they bartered amongst themselves until we were offered  50% off two stainless steel 8 chains and a beefy chain travel chain tool. Thanks, Wipperman! we will give you a status update when we are underway.

Santana:  We had been altered by our tandeming experience so much that we wanted to geek out with the company’s founder. He was able to confirm for us that our beloved Santana was in fact built around 1978.

Chris King: We really enjoyed talking to them, but they were not to hopeful for sponsorship.  Since then, however, they have granted us a one time employee purchase for their famous bottom brackets and headsets.  Thanks Chris, we are excited to pedal with your precision bearings.


I think it was here that we bonked. Lauren tugged at my shoulder and indicated that eating had become imperative. As we left the building in search of a good sandwich we found this local man sporting his wares in the "auxiliary" section of the show.

After we had fueled up, we got ready for a second round.

Dirtrag: The man running this show was excentric, excited, and full of travel stories. His tip and key to fun travel: show up with a helmet and a bike light, and find some local cyclists. When you find them, ask if they have an extra bike you could ride while you are there.  He says it rarely fails him and that he ends up discovering the best of each city and its people. (Sounds like good advise!)

Frances Cycles:  Joshua Muir and his cohort were a relief in the midst of much consumer driven conversation. Their soft spoken, humble nature reflects the unpretentious, useful nature of their beautiful bicycles. (This was Lauren’s favorite builder, by far).

Cycle Monkey:  Neil Flock has been nice enough to answer my many questions about the Rohloff hub over the last year or so. With his steady stream of knowledge and the necessary parts and tools, he has enabled the proper assembly of the Rohloff test bike. Thanks for the technical support.

We left the show to spend the night at Lauren’s sister’s house, absolutely exhausted after a long day of shamelessly selling ourselves.

Look out!

Last week, one of my older brothers, Ethan, came down to SLO for a little spring break vacation. He, Miriam and my nephew Max road-tripped through Big Sur with another energetic family--Clinton, Deanne, Nolan and Landon. And they all came bearing bicycles.

I don't know if children these days are just more capable, coordinated, and passionate, but these kiddos have talent. Max just turned eight, Landon is nine, and little Nolan is a big six.

We took them biking in the beautiful Montaña De Oro State Park. They climbed 1000 foot elevation gain and then took on the downhill with utter confidence.

It was the highlight of my week watching these guys own the mountain. There's nothing quite like watching a young person feel confident in themselves and go beyond what anyone expects of them--and all the while, doing it with joy and a smile.

Look out world! Here comes Max, Landon, and Nolan!