dude, yer gettin' a coast!
 

actually, i am.

met with johnny over the weekend. super cool guy working out of a humble and traditional shop in bushwick, brooklyn. he had a couple of finished frames and a number of frames in progress on hand, all beautiful work. his stems are the nicest i've ever seen...

anyway, i've decided on a pretty traditional track frame made with columbus zona and richie sachs newvex lugs. no brakes, no braze-ons, designed for 23 tires (which i'm questioning a little bit - do i allow for 25s?) and 165 cranks.

johnny is drawing up the blueprints and hopefully i'll have the numbers to mull over soon. the color will be the hardest part... looking at the imron metallic swatch book was amazing.

3-4 months to wait!

Go for a 25c design, as there are many 23c tires out there that run big.

Besides that, congrats. We of course will only require that you post 20-30 pics once you get it.

hmmm...to 23 or not to 23.

I would run a little more clearance if this will be street and track used. If it is only track specific, 23 max will be fine. For the street, if you want to run bigger tires, get the 25 clearance set-up.

did you put the money down already? I met with him this weekend too, but won't be able to put the downpayment till after new years. Damn, was hoping I can beat you in line. I'm gonna get pretty much the same thing as you but def designed for 23's since I'll probably run smaller tires than that. I want to ask him for long sheng lugs but def with the paul dropouts. Hopefully we'll both be getting frames in April, just in time for track season.

good advice on tires, all. i've never run 25s, the real-world difference is probably negligible but i should probably make sure there's a little breathing room in there.

wangster - yeah, i put a deposit down. don't worry though, i think he said he usually works on 5 frames at once and winter is a slow time for new business. i wouldn't worry too much!

In case you didn't already know this, you can order lugsets, track ends, fork tips, BB shells, fork crowns, etc from Kalavinka and they are BEAUTIFUL. Just to give you more to think about.

Kalavinka parts here.

I just made my first frame using a mix of Long Shen, Everest and Kalavinka parts, and the Kalavinka stuff really stood out from the others in terms of its quality.

Those Paul track ends are really gorgeous too, though...

m.

if you don't mind me asking....how much? I've been considering this.

johnny coast is 950 for basic frame and fork. or are you asking mcatano? anyways, johnny's(coast) price is very reasonable and he does great work. but... ALL YA'LL BETTA BACK OFF AND NOT CUT IN FRONT OF ME... damn... all this interest, I better put my money down soon.

he told me he's working another job part time and builds around 20 frames a year now, but with the current demand, he expects to be building frames fulltime come summer 2006. i'd expect his prices to rise a bit. for what you're getting, $950 seems like a bargain.

http://www.motelmag.com/movies/images/dude_boys.jpg
"dude, where's my coast?"

$950 IS a bargain, holy crap!