Bicycle Framebuilding the first year Part 1

The idea to build myself a bicycle frame permanently etched itself in my mind by spring 2007. It took about 6 months to become so indelible. I thought that if I could have the wherewithal to start building a frame by the end of the year I would be doing very well indeed. I started the hunt for the necessities for building a bicycle frame a search that will probably be never-ending.

Looking through endless photo galleries and watching videos of proper frame builders it seemed there were two schools of thought: building in a jig and building out of the jig. The latter makes a good flat surface absolutely necessary but you also need a jig to hold the tubes initially while tacking them. To simplify things I went out to look for a jig and decided to do without a surface plate for the time being. I got an affordable second-hand jig from a blacksmith with a beautiful old forge, with amazing machinery. He offered to turn down the fittings on the jig to the size tubes I would be using. He had been TIG welding mountain bikes in it.
We talked about how I would build the frames and thankfully he subtly pointed out that working in my cellar and in the flat would not work as I naively had thought and he suggested that I should come and use his facilities, for free! 

I have never won so much as five Euros in my life but I have had the good fortune to make invaluable acquaintances and this was definitely a special one. I’m eternally grateful for the kindness Hans and his family showed me and the wealth of information I took in during my visits there gave me a start I would otherwise never have had.

So my jig stayed where it was for the time being and I started building almost immediately. In the mean time I had bought tubes and parts. When I first visited Norbert Koehn’s website he was selling off large parts of his inventory so I wrote him an email asking him for a starter kit and some tubes for practising. I heard nothing more from him but a few days later to my surprise a big box of steel arrived with enough parts to build two bikes for an unbelievable 75 Euros. Later in the summer I visited him and most of his old stock was already gone. But nonetheless I took home a load of small parts and odds and ends that would come in very handy later for very reasonable money. This was the second stroke of good luck.

The third stroke of good luck was that I managed to find space in garage right next to our flat to work in. But that’s jumping the gun somewhat. In between were plenty of mishaps that could have been avoided on the way to making my first frame which by the way was finished before Christmas, the deadline I had set for starting.

Starting a 650B mixte project - the wheels

I've decided that one of my next projects will be a 650B mixte. With this project I'll be jumping on two bandwagons at once. Mixtes are becoming increasingly sought after, particularly by young men in the fixie scene. My mother had a Raleigh mixte called a silhouette which I loved to ride as a young lad of about nine. The whole 650B thing seems to gradually grow from year to year but as always it'll be passé everywhere else by the time it catches on in Germany. The same goes for the mixtes.

650B is the french designation for a wheel that is 584mm in diameter according to the ETRTO standard, placing it between 559mm (26") usual MTB size and 622mm (28") the ubiquitous road bike size. In Germany sizes like these are dubbed in-between sizes as if to say they're neither here nor there.
650B however is enjoying a renaissance partly due to the work of Kirk Pacenti in designing a tyre in this size for MTBs called the neo-moto.

A smaller but growing following of the 650B size sees its qualities in building compact fast touring bikes or city bikes with wider than usual tyres (28-40mm). As Sheldon Brown pointed out, a wheel with a wide 650B tyre is roughly equivalent in diameter to a 28" with a skinny tyre so there's little difference in gear ratio or momentum. The benefit is the commfort that comes with the wider tyre cycled at a lower pressure.

So what does a 650B Mixte look like? Well I'm going for the classical design with the twin lateral tubes running from the rear dropouts right up to the head-tube. You have to imagine their continuation in the bikeCAD drawing on the right. This was just a quick draught. I'll draw the bike to full scale before I start building but you can already see how well proportioned this wheel-size is.

It might seem like putting the cart before the horse but I wanted to be sure I had a set of wheels before I built a 650B dedicated bike. Having the wheels at hand while your building is handy for checking alignments, brake boss position, mudguard clearance and so on.

Rims in this size are hard to come by in Germany. The only ones I found being old Mavic 40-hole alloy rims from Bruegelmann for 12€ each. I bought a pair not realising just how hard it would to find a set of 40-hole hubs. I eventually tracked down the necessary hubs to build the nicest wheelset I've built yet. So I thought I'd share a few pictures. The front hub is hi-flange Sansin and on the back it's a Campagnolo Record for a free-hub.

How chromoly tubes are made

...found this nice account of a visit to a tube works in Taiwan.

The heart of a bicycle frame

Last Sunday (the 10th of Febraury) we had beutiful spring weather here in Berlin. So in the late afternoon I decided to free my Batavus Pro of the thick layer of crud (mostly salt, sand and decomposing leaves) that had built up on it since christmas.

After taking out the bottom bracket I noticed that the chainstays weren't mitered or brazed the entire length of the lug running into the shell. On closer inspection I realised that the shell had a lip stopping the chain stays from being further inserted...makes sense. That way it's very simple to get both chainstay the same length. This must be one of the best shells ever designed.
Below you can se the lengths I went mitering all the tubes going into the Long Shen BB shell of my first frame. I wish I'd had the Cinelli

Sad day for Cycling

Sheldon Brown died on February 3rd of a heart attack he will be dearly missed. His contribution to cycling was immeasureable, his influence on fixed cycling being probably the best example.
Although he was best known through his website and contributions on mailinglists his way of intelligent answers to even the most naive of queries always salted with a pinch of humour earned him much affection. His traditional 1st of April jokes are renowned.
I sincerely hope his legacy of bike articles or indeed bicycle encyclopedia can be continued on in some form. To me this is the definitive compendium of bike knowledge on the web.
My uncle Gerry Bracken from Westport, Ireland died shortly before christmas. His photography of archeological sites and life in Ireland grew thoughout his lifetime to form a valuable collection. One can only hope that it can be appropriately archived.
If future generations are to profit from the contributions of such prolific men then their works will need to be preserved, archived and made available. This is often a mammoth task however which often cannot be undertaken the families of the deceased alone.
If the Web and its communities has any benefit then it should be to preserve such heritage.

RIP Gerry and Sheldon

Image source Wikipedia

Batavus Professional

The Batavus started out as a bike for my wife who had muttered interest in cycling with me. The idea took form when I won an auction for the Batavus frame for €35. I didn't realise that it was made from Columbus SLX tubing until I collected it. The guy selling didn't show much enthusiasm for the frame, he'd had built up as a speed-bike with a threadless alu-fork. On closer inspection all sorts of beautiful details on the frame caught my eye. The Cinelli BB-shell (with spoiler), the inner tube for the back brake, stainless faces on the dropouts (technociclio) and engraved topeyes and brake bridge. If you run your finger inside the tubes around the BB you can feel the helical reinforcement pressed into the butts of the tubes.
The first problem was to find a suitable fork and the typically the last place I tried, my local bike shop (LBS) "Radhaus Wedding" just up the street, had one that fit. What's more they gave me a present of it. Problem was some knobhead had painted it although it was chromed underneath and what's worse he (I'm assuming a man did this, no woman could be so stupid) sanded the surface of the chrome. Luckily he got bored quickly and only sanded the top half and luckily the paint didn't adhere to the chrome very well and came off easily with an electric heat gun which "Radhaus Wedding" lent me. When it was all cleaned I realised it was no ordinary chrome fork. Firstly it was very light, had an emblem with "R" in the middle and the steerer had the same helical reinforcement so it had to have either Columbus SL or perhaps even SLX blades made by the legendary italien framebuilder Rauler.
The next problem was that the fork steerer was too short for most headsets so I spent a week or two comparing the stack heights of any headset I might have been able to get my hands on.
Tange threaded cartridge headsets have the lowest stack height on the market and if you can find a thinner washer to go with the set you could reduce the height a futher mm or so.
Once that was solved the hunt was on for the rest of the components and some €600 later I had a gorgeous bike set-up for much more that I had initially planned.
So why so expensive? Well most of the parts were NOS and the normal conaumable; tyres, tubes, cables, housing all add up.
The last part that I put on was the chain and I had never used a 9-speed chain before. In my ignorance I broke the stud that came with the chain as my chain tool was too clumsy. One whole week the bike was almost built-up and the chain problem was stopping me trying it out. At last I swallowed my pride, took it the bike shop, and let them sort out the chain which I had somehow cut too short. The mechanic asked me if I usually ride 53/23. I said know and we left it at that.
Outside the shop I just curved around a little on the pavement and instantly fell in love with the bike. Having cycled some 5000km on this bike I now know why I love it so much. It has a very competetive geometry with a long top-tube 555mm and a relatively short seat-tube 530mm. Thus the headtube is proportionatly short. This along with the SLX-tubing and Cinell BB-shell makes the bike rock solid. Astonishingly it still is very comfy and makes fun out cobblestone of which we have our fair share here.
This is my fastest bike to date and last summer it demostrated amazing climbing capabilities against fit guys on the best CF money can buy.
My wife cycled it once and decided a racing bike is not her thing.

Boah!

The most limiting factor of commuting has to be the winter darkness. On the 21st of December in Berlin the sun rises shortly after eight and has set again by 4. I work an 8 1/2 hour day with at least an hour's commute each way so that in the deepest winter the whole journey is done in the dark. For over 15 km of my commute there is no street lighting and since I didn't have any decent lighting until last week I had to time my cycle so that the sun was up just enough to navigate this part of the journey.
I've had a number of battery-powered lights and they've all been hopeless, the biggest problem being the cold. The batteries seem fine for 20 mins and after it just gets worse and worse. I realised the only practical option would be a dynohub. I'd heard so much about the Schmidt SON dynamos but just couldn't afford a new one so I went for Shimano's 3N71.
The time seemed right to get new lighting looking at the newest generation of LED lights that came on the market end of 2007. Amongst these the Busch & Müller' Lumotec IQ Fly seemed the best value so went out and got one to go with my new dynamo.
I mounted the light on a piece of right angled steel directly on to the quick-release skewer so I can easily swap the wheel-lamp combination back and forth with other wheels.
The first time I rode with the lamp the only thing I could say was boah!
The IQ Fly outputs extremely bright, white light in three beams. The centermost and most intensive building a block of light 5m in front of the bike, bright enough to take in every detail even at 30km/h. The narrower beam lights up details like trees at a distance of 100m. The white light reflects intensively off reflective surfaces like signs but more usefully the reflective linings on jogger's clothing.
The Shimano 3N71 is also very recommendable. There is a noticeable resistance when the light is on but it varies. At it's strongest it feels like a slight climb. Laced up with a Mavic Open 4CD it has made a beutifully stiff, well handling wheel and the extra weight at the front seems to suit my "Batavus Professional" very well.

A real bargain.

The scoop of the week was a 1981 Peugeot PE41M from a well known online auction house for €25. The bike is well used but in good working order and should get me through the winter. I had hoped it would have 650B (ETRTO 584 or 26 1/2") size wheels but sadly they're 28". It seems this model came with both. The dimples on the back fork of this model are definetely not designed for 28". The brakes however don't seem to have enough reach for a smaller rim.
My plan was to turn this bike into a single speed but I'll leave it as it is it works just fine as 5-speed and has a certain novelty about it. It's nice to have a bike again that's "Verkehrstauglich" road-fit by german law (a lot of nonsense for the most part). It has a bell, reflectors, lights that work and two brakes.
What more could you want?
Phelim

Commuting from Wedding to Potsdam: Part 1 Intoduction

This might not be everyone's cup of tea as a means of getting to work. I think most Berliners and Potsdamers aren't aware of cycling this route as an alternative to the train or car. It's also a great way for tourists to visit Potsdam by bike. You might be asking why should I cycle to Potsdam when I could travel by train with my bike for €10 return. The answer is because it's worth the effort, it doesn't take much longer and you can have a nice lunch in Potsdam with the €10 you saved.

In the coming year I'll post impressions of the commute as it changes throughout the seasons and present the numerous highlights along the way. Such as the Glienicker Brücke (photo right by Gunnar Neitz).


The map below shows the 33km route from where I live in Wedding to where I work (Telegrafenberg) in Potsdam. However there are numerous detours you can take dpending on what kind of a bike you're on. I vary my route regularly.
Größere Kartenansicht I hope you'll stay tuned for further episodes as the year progresses.

Phelim

Happy New Year and Welcome!

My New Year's resolution ... get my Blog going!

welcome to my blog. In Summer 2007 I set out to build a bicycle frame. My goal was to have it started by the end of the year and instead I'm now almost finished my first frame. The first bike is going to be a steel track bike for the road.
Framebuilding has turned out to be everything I expected and more. I have always been interested in mechanical engineering and learned draughtsmanship after leaving school. I quit unfortunately and took up a job digitizing maps which got me into geoinformatics and IT which is what I do now at GFZ.
I've loved bikes since I got my first one at the age of five but my interest has ebbed during certains stages of my life. Since I started commuting to Potsdam over 2 years ago I must admit I've become addicted to cycling and everything surrounding it.
I was inspired to the idea of framebuilding by two frames I bought in 2006. The first, a Peugeot from the late eighties is made from Reynolds 753r tubing and had the words "Hand Brazed" on the crossbar.

It seems strange now but until then I'd never asked myself how frames are made.
A real inspiration was Suzy Jackson's Tutorial on "Bicycle frame building for the rest of us".
I'd like to encourage anybody who's thinking of building a bicycle frame to just go for it.
The idea of this blog collect and present the resources and constraints relevant to building bicycle frames in Germany. I am in no manner an expert in this field but the information about framebuilding in Germany is spread across a dozen of forum threads. My goal is to digest it and spew it up here for your degustation.