44 Bikes

[fortyfour]

And now...

[fortyfour]

Just back from powder... more on FNL.

[fortyfour]

Paul's 29er back from powder : More this friday on FNL



And the "other" 44HQ : Things are looking greener up at our house...

[fortyfour]

THE GOODS: Club Cut Jersey, Bib Shorts, Wind Vest. Hand picked by yours truly. Just the essentials? Forget about it. These are hotter than all get out. I don't pick fly by night operations. Only the finest have been chosen to make these garments. Made in the USA by the fine folks at Voler. Sewn to Shred - That's GAH-RON-TEED. You're not riding unless you're riding in these duds so let's get down to business... Order link is here.

Ordering period is NOW to June 17th, 2000-and-the-13. So don't delay. All orders ship first week of August, 2013

Here's the 411 direct from the horses mouth, - coming in on the night train - head honcho - big shot over there at Voler:

1. Click on this link to access your team order site: Voler: Full-Custom Ordering - 44 Bikes
2. Click on “LOGIN” to enter your Login/Billing Info. Click on “Create Account” to save the information and to create your new User ID and Password. You will automatically be directed to the home page for your team order.
3. Click on “Add Items to This Order" to gain access to the orderable products page. To place items to your shopping cart, click on the item you want to order, then the options you want to select, then the “add to bag” button. You can choose to “View Your Bag” or “Previous Page” (to continue shopping) after adding each item. Repeat these steps for each item you want to order.
4. After placing the last item you want to order in your shopping cart, click on “View Your Bag” to display the items. Carefully review the items and make any necessary modifications or deletions. Because each item is custom built, refunds and exchanges will not be accepted. After you have confirmed your order is correct, click on “Checkout” to complete the secure checkout process by entering your credit card payment information.
5. After you have completed the secure checkout process, an Order Confirmation will automatically be displayed and e-mailed to you for your records.
6. After the order deadline date has passed, you will no longer be able to access the order site. If you have not completed the checkout process for your order by this date, any items in your cart will be removed. The Order Deadline and the Order Ship Date are displayed on the order homepage. The Ship Date is the date that your order will be shipped directly to your Coordinator for distribution.

Thanks for your support!

[Britishbane]

My apologies, but can someone help me with pinning down jersey fit. I fit rapha XL, sfatto XXL, vermarc XXL. How does this Voler "club fit" fit - I'm between sizes?

[fortyfour]

For fitting info, if you click on the item (jersey in this case) scroll down a bit on the page, and click on "Club Fit" in the "Key Features" list. It pulls you a bit down the page and gives you a detailed account of waist, weight, height, chest and inseam measurements. Hope that helps - it's club cut, so a bit looser.

[Britishbane]

For fitting info, if you click on the item (jersey in this case) scroll down a bit on the page, and click on "Club Fit" in the "Key Features" list. It pulls you a bit down the page and gives you a detailed account of waist, weight, height, chest and inseam measurements. Hope that helps - it's club cut, so a bit looser.

Thanks, I did see that. If I weren't 6'7'' the XL would be a no brainer. 44 chest, but torso length is an issue. Going with XL.

[fortyfour]

6'7"... That's genuinely tall. Welcome aboard the flow team! Voler would be happy to answer any questions regarding their fit/garments. They have been great to work with - you can call them directly.

[fortyfour]

Chris's CX Commuter Rig - Bob'd fender mock-up. Engin fork. 44 Bikes Rack. More this week on FNL...


Chris's Bob'd Fender Mock-up by 44 Bikes, on Flickr

[fortyfour]

Chris's CXish Commuter in ATTACK MODE. More modes shortly...

[G-reg]

I'm a fan of everything you do, but for some reason how you are welding/brazing these braces speak to me. How do you get that look? Are the braces mitered differently? Just tinned brazing, or something else.

I know from personal experience that any hack can file the crap out of a brazed joint and have it end up smooth. But I'm really impressed by things like this where it is apparent that zero finishing has occurred before a finish that magnifies the slightest imperfection is applied.

603848_516963485007915_698841493_n.jpg

[blasdelf]

Are those chainstays 7/8" tube with biaxial ovalizations? Very clever.

Were you able to test any difference in lateral stiffness or vertical deflection from adding the horizontal oval in the middle?


Your results on the rack from starting with the bender before mitering are spectacular:



And bravo for not brazing a bolt into the rack for the crown attachment, the Nitto design is unsafe for larger loads with many failures.


Did you design the steel fork to affect a geometry change vs. the carbon one with a shorter axle-to-crown? Having the HTA get 0.5 to 1° steeper does wonders for the handling with stuff on the rack, especially if the fork has an extra cm of offset. This kind of conversion has been on my mind a lot lately, I designed a bike for myself with it in mind and have been in cahoots on a small-production model.

What inspired you to place the platform with extra clearance over the wheel? I've found that being able to attach the fender to the rack pays off handsomely. I did build my last one a bit too low and get some rub with knobbies in mud, but your partial deck design should totally eliminate that — I might have to retrofit it to mine!


Your bag design is terrific and novel, almost everyone else is exploring heavier structured stuff, but with some forethought you really pared it down well:



Something I've been doing in my rack designs for the last few years is offsetting the backstop rearward and/or bending the rear corners at angles other than 90°, to make sure some part of the rear perimeter ends up underneath the bag. Yours looks like the bag gets tensioned across its bottom so it does end up getting supported by those tubes via the straps.


The only thing I don't get about the bike is the "two front fenders", around here that'd make you some enemies really fast.

[fortyfour]

I'm a fan of everything you do, but for some reason how you are welding/brazing these braces speak to me. How do you get that look? Are the braces mitered differently?603848_516963485007915_698841493_n.jpg

I first dial in the bend of the seat stay bridge:



These are then carefully hand fitted with files. Then I grab a little trick from my gold smithing days: I hammer/file the ends of the miter to get more relief of a kind of "lug" shoreline. All I'm doing is visually building up the ends of that .035" wall thickness tube to get the look down. Then I simple silver braze them in place. Clean up with a bit of emory and it's ready for action:

Here it is fitted:



Then here it is just before it was brazed in place:



This same technique is used when raising volumes from flat sheet in semi-precious (copper) or precious (silver/gold) materials. Often the material thins as you're raising it through several phases. You're stretching and pushing the material up. This isn't a harsh process, but very deliberate and delicate work. Often you can hammer / planish the edges to increase the visual look of the weight of the edges. I do this same technique with these bridges once they are bent/mitered/fitted. All I simply do is file them a bit and occasionally lightly planish the edges to increase their perceived wall thickness. It's subtle as you can see, but it creates that definite shore line. The added benefit I've found from brazing these in as opposed to welding them in place is that it doesn't draw the dropout faces inwards as opposed to Tig welding them in place which I really like.

[fortyfour]

Are those chainstays 7/8" tube with biaxial ovalizations?

Were you able to test any difference in lateral stiffness or vertical deflection from adding the horizontal oval in the middle?

Chainstays are .75" O.D. tubes bent/formed in house here at 44HQ. I do this simply to get the exact bends, forms and dimples where I want them and how I want them with my tooling I've built/modified. I first started ovalizing them in the center for my mountain singlespeeds. A client of mine in Switzerland stated that they're some of the stiffest chainstays he's ever had (and he's had custom Ti and production Carbon 29er builds). I really noticed with this bike below just how much more power is delivered directly to the rear wheel when you've stiffened the chainstays laterally. At least that is what I've felt, observed and clients have confirmed:



I took that and ran with it on the following builds and CX type builds.

Fork was built by Drew at Engin and commissioned by the client specifically. Drew and I discussed the overall build and he made recommendations accordingly. Both share the same A2C with different offsets for both different duties. The front end has a bit more relaxed geo than a traditional road or CX bike. The extra clearance was if the client ran larger tires than the fenders could handle but needed a bit of breathing room to attach the rack. Everything was a push and pull with this build really and I did my best to balance form with function and still have everything come together in all it's various forms (I'll post these all up on this upcoming weeks FNL). The rack was a great challenge btw and again, I wanted to match up the miters with the seat stay bridges so all those connections needed a bit of "flair".

The bag was discussed with the client and he had some basic requests for it's function. A quick drawing and I was on the run. I'll add a feature or two now that it's finished as I dial things in but I wanted it as versatile as possible but also have a function/life off of the bike too:



The fenders are actually a new profile apparently from Honjo. They are front/rear but if I'm going to do fenders, I'm making them my own and hence the bobbed tail. I'll take the lip from anyone that wants to give it and take my bruises in stride. But I'm not just throwing a pair of fenders on there and calling it done.



Again, this ones cut by hand with a jewelers saw and powdered to match. More images soon.

[fortyfour]

Also regarding the fenders: I'm taking inspiration from looks like this and most definitely this...

[blasdelf]

Chainstays are .75" O.D. tubes bent/formed in house here at 44HQ. I do this simply to get the exact bends, forms and dimples where I want them and how I want them with my tooling I've built/modified. I first started ovalizing them in the center for my mountain singlespeeds. A client of mine in Switzerland stated that they're some of the stiffest chainstays he's ever had (and he's had custom Ti and production Carbon 29er builds). I really noticed with this bike below just how much more power is delivered directly to the rear wheel when you've stiffened the chainstays laterally. At least that is what I've felt, observed and clients have confirmed

hell yeah, I might have to try it in the future if I can do it without heel clearance problems

glad to hear you're not one of those people who think they can get vertical compliance with a little tube shaping :)

It'd be interesting to do a little testing, clamp some built frames by the BB post, seat tube, and headtube; then see what it takes to deflect a dummy axle in the rear dropouts. Jan Heine would sure be interested in that for BQ.

Fork was built by Drew at Engin and commissioned by the client specifically. Drew and I discussed the overall build and he made recommendations accordingly. Both share the same A2C with different offsets for both different duties. The front end has a bit more relaxed geo than a traditional road or CX bike. The extra clearance was if the client ran larger tires than the fenders could handle but needed a bit of breathing room to attach the rack. Everything was a push and pull with this build really and I did my best to balance form with function and still have everything come together in all it's various forms (I'll post these all up on this upcoming weeks FNL). The rack was a great challenge btw and again, I wanted to match up the miters with the seat stay bridges so all those connections needed a bit of "flair".

it looked like there was extra offset in the steel fork but it's really hard to tell from photos

seems like the limit on tire clearance is the steel fork there, especially since your platform support means the bag will never droop down into the wheel zone

The bag was discussed with the client and he had some basic requests for it's function. A quick drawing and I was on the run. I'll add a feature or two now that it's finished as I dial things in but I wanted it as versatile as possible but also have a function/life off of the bike too:

you did a damn fine job of that, making a bag that fits the bike and isn't a carbuncle off of it is hard as hell

The fenders are actually a new profile apparently from Honjo. They are front/rear but if I'm going to do fenders, I'm making them my own and hence the bobbed tail. I'll take the lip from anyone that wants to give it and take my bruises in stride. But I'm not just throwing a pair of fenders on there and calling it done.

Also regarding the fenders: I'm taking inspiration from looks like this and most definitely this...

I picked up what you were laying down, but isn't it a case of form throwing mud on function?

Putting the fender bosses at the dropouts meant the bobbed stay needed manipulation around the caliper, but also means the owner can put full fenders on later :)

[fortyfour]

you did a damn fine job of that, making a bag that fits the bike and isn't a carbuncle off of it is hard as hell

Thanks. I really think this is my Industrial Design training and background coming into play on this one. This bike really put all my abilities to the test and it was a great challenge to attempt to balance all the form and function across all these different iterations that the bike could potentially see. Visual balance is a tough one to achieve but ironically, it's again something that takes some practice and repetition. The more projects you work on where you need to balance and focus on things, the better you get at it.

I picked up what you were laying down, but isn't it a case of form throwing mud on function?

Putting the fender bosses at the dropouts meant the bobbed stay needed manipulation around the caliper, but also means the owner can put full fenders on later :)

Actually, the fender stay still would have needed to be bent/formed in some fashion to add a bit of clearance whether the fender was bobbed or not. Not at much but still would have needed a little loving.

However, the bosses are just above the dropouts to keep things clean looking when not in use. I would have had to place them in some odd spot on the backs of the dropouts because of the ISO disk mount (and then they would have looked like some sort of growth). Or they would have had to be asymmetrically placed due to the ISO disc mount. But I love to bend metal and make it flow and look elegant so I didn't mind manipulating the fender stay to move around the disk brake caliper:



But regarding the fender with form vs function, I'll give you my opinion on that whole debate. My personal view on "form follows function" is thus: Neither form nor function follow one another. They both need to be considered from the start and work in tandem with one another as the design is developed. (Some projects obviously put more emphasis on one or the other and that is the job of the designer or engineer for that matter to consider.) Eventually one starts to move ahead of the other in some cases, but the role of the designer is to constantly be considering both at the same time, highly considering functional performance all while balancing form and function to achieve visual balance. What separates the good from the great is when something is functional as well as visually balanced.

With that bobbed look, I needed to push it just enough to achieve the look, perhaps give up some coverage but in the end still get just enough coverage to remain functional. That was the challenge and I think I've achieved that. I have discussed this though at length with the client and he definitely wanted something unique. We agreed if he finds he wants full coverage, this is an easy thing to remedy. But for now, that bobbed tail (I think) gives this build a definite feel and stance I was after while still lending to function.

[fortyfour]

I'm a fan of everything you do, but for some reason how you are welding/brazing these braces speak to me. How do you get that look? Are the braces mitered differently?

Took this picture this afternoon to further illustrate what I was speaking of above. Image on the left is freshly mitered/fitted. Image on the right has the other sides perceived wall thickness increased to create that subtle relief post silver braze:

[devlin]

I soak up pretty much everything you describe and talk about Kris and your style has changed the way I look at how I would approach the craft. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Now, enough of that gushing..... why is there a chain guide and not one of the new style dual width tooth chain rings?

[dgaddis]

Just wanted to chime in along with the others that the rack and look of that brace freakin' rock. When I read you were working on a front rack I was really curious as to how it would turn out, because when I think 44 Bikes I think MTBs made to shred (I know that's your slogan, but even if it wasn't, that's what I think), not rando bikes (which is what I picture when I think of a front rack). But that rack is the business, and the custom bag really knocks the whole package out of the park IMO. Great job.