Here is a video of Michael building some wheels. He's pretty fast. Plays those spokes like an instrument.
Music by Hot Snakes.
Hand Building Bicycle Wheels from Joseph Ahearne on Vimeo.
Here's a short video of Mike building a set of bicycle wheels.
Off Road Touring Mixte
Touring4 Comments“What is this thing?!”
This past October at the Oregon Bicycle Builders’ Show, Jonathan Maus of bikeportland.org stopped by the booth and was looking at this crazy bike of mine. I tried to sum it up as succinctly as possible: “It’s a mixte off road touring 29er commuter monster truck thing, with a flask cage.” Something like that.
The bike was hanging on a stand at the back of my booth. I’d been riding it for a couple of months without paint, and it had a nice patina of rust going. When Jonathan was done taking in all that information the only question he could think to ask was, “Why?” The only proper answer to that is, “Because I can.”
Video: Hyper-Speed Brazing
Video4 CommentsThis is the high-speed version of building the front triangle of a bicycle.
Here is what it looks like to assemble and braze the front triangle of a bicycle on high-octane caffeine. The music is by Annihilation Time.
Enjoy!
Bicycle Front Triangle Braze from Joseph Ahearne on Vimeo.
This is the fast version of building the front half of the bicycle.
Rear Rack Build Process
ProcessI've taken a series of photos detailing the process of putting together a rear touring rack. As you can see, there are a number of steps involved. There are a total of thirty joints mitered (fitted) and brazed, including the u-lock holder. I receive a lot of requests for racks, and I don't know if people in general understand what all is involved in the construction.
If you notice, a lot of custom builders out there are not willing to build racks. That's because they are tricky, time consuming, and it's really hard to make a rack that looks right, fits right, and does the job it's supposed to do. I have to admit, I have a sort of love/hate relationship with building racks. On the one hand, they are light (relatively), incredibly strong, and when built with the bike and painted to complement or match the