jbpence

I am building a new touring bike for a tour of Yunnan Province, China next spring.

Black Sheep, of Fort Collins Colorado made this TI frame and fork to my specs. These folks have been just great throughout the entire process.

Here are the specs:

Top Tube 55
Seat tube angle 73.25
Headtube angle 72.5
Headtube Height 150
Chain Stays 43.5
Spacing 135
Braking Avid Road BB7 disc
water bottle mounts 3
Extras: Pump peg/ low rider eyelets, rear rack eyelets, fender eyelets, TI S&S couplers, Rear Disk Brake mount on chainstay for better rear rack clearance, Titanium Racks (have not yet arrived from fame builder, removable Canti brake tabs AND disk brake mounts for future flexability.

Components
Chris king hubs, stainless drive shell,
Chris King headset
and Shimano XTR crank and deraileurs
Shimano Ultegra bar end shifters
salsa 44-36-22
SRAM 11-34 cassette
Salsa Delgado Cross rims
DT stainless straight spokes
Brooks B17 narrow saddle

Pictures posted soon. The build Process starts Monday Jan 19, so stay tuned!

jbpence

Here are the picts of the frame, just arrived From Black Sheep after being sent back for some modifications (removable canti Bosses, moved rear disc brake to chainstay)
Shot of the frame left side:


Shot of the rear of the frame:


Shot of the right side of frame:


Shot of the fork

mesasone

Sounds very nice. Out of curiosity, how much does something like this cost to have built? You don't have to answer, of course.

jbpence

the frame list price was just under 2500.00 not including the Titanium S&S couplers (800.00 list), the fork somewhat under 500.00. Compared to a Moots Mootour frame, very affordable, considering their base price and the cost of each and every customization.

bigbadwimp

why do you have two different brake options?

jbpence

like i said, for flexability. I might want to someday use canti brakes, myself. And if I sell the frame someday, the new buyer might want canti brakes instead of discs.

and i intend to tour in some very out of the way places, where Avid road BB7s might night not be available, but canti brakes might be easily found. I like options

vik 

Congrats on the new bike. Definitely post some photos when you get her built up...

sth

Mmmm, pretty frame. What is the purpose of the cups over the front drop outs? Do provide more bike porn as it comes to life.

sth

...also, I like your choice of rear caliper mount location on the chain stay. My guy wouldn't put it there.

antokelly

fantastic piece of work,it must be so light and super strong.do you have your groopset sorted.what other gear have you got for that beauty.as vik said please post some (lot's) pic's as soon as possible.

thecrunge

Very nice frame and well thought out. Can't say much about their logo...:-)

jbpence

crank and der's are shimano XTR - I want a 172.5mm crank and thats not available on the other shimano MTB cranks- cassette is SRAM, 44-36-22 rings are Salsa. most of the other components are in the first post.

I'll be pulling an extrawheel voyager trailer, the 2009 model, which packs for airline travel better than the 'classic' model.

it looks to me that the 'cups' over the front dropouts are to rim the end of the fork,note that these do not taper into the dropout -

I'll post a frame and fork weight monday.

jbpence

Just heard from Mike, at Aberdeen Bicycle in Chelsea that this fork has a breezer style dropout. The advantage of this style of dropout is mainly to the builder who is freed from having to roughly match their frame angles to the angles of the braze-in tab on a conventional dropout. It is Joe Breeze, who developed them originally, for whom they are named. The tabless design allows for almost any fork to dropout angle. for a pict of some breezer dropouts, see

https://www.gaerlan.com/bikeparts/fra...s/dropout.html

jbpence

jbpence

Considering this is a fork designed for a disc brake for a bike that is a cross between a touring bike and a cycloscross bike, 640 grams seems pretty reasonable, I think.



I am really happy about the 1920 gram TI frame... Mind you, one sees a lot of 1500-1600 gram racing frames in TI, (and some are even less, down to under 1200g). Keep in mind that this includes the weight of the Titanium S&S couplers somewhere around 260 grams for the pair. This frame is built to take some abuse, so the weight is, to me, really good.

jbpence

The welds on this frame are remarkable.


the bottom bracket area

jbpence

Here the fork crown race is going on


crown race installed

jbpence

Use Antiseize compound wherever metal contacts the titanium frame...


using the headset press is harder than I thought it would be



et voila!

jbpence

Still day one - installing a front deraileur

going to need these shims for my size of seat tube



fastening the derailleur to the tube


this is looking pretty snazzy - I start imagining the front der efficiently selecting rings as I pedal through the mountains of China


DANGER, WILL ROBINSON. Yeeks. this clearance looks a tad tight. WAY TIGHT. Hmmmm. Not GOOD, I am thinking. No room for this deraileur let alone room for a fender. This is a A Schwalbe Marathon in a 35. Our frame spec said I would be able to get a 45 in here. Hmmmm. Need a different derailleur for sure, and even then will a fender fit in there?? and will a 45 tire?? I am starting to get hives thinking about what's up here... Only three weeks until I depart for China, and this is a... well... a surprise for sure




Ok, so a tiagra road derailleur "sorta" fits, so an Ulltegra will too... I'd rather use the XTR derailleur, but on my trek 520 the Tiagra worked with the Deore crank (and the 22 tooth small ring) I had on it... I still don't see room for a fender, let alone a fender and a 45 tire...



Oh, well, forget about the derallieur here is a shot looking down the at the clearance between the 35 tire and the chainstays. about 1mm. I think something needs to go back to the frame builder. Like... the frame.



and here is a close up, looking down at the chainstays and the inside edge of the rim. The chainstays clearly have to be reformed to provide enough clearance for a 45 tire, and lengthened to provide clearance between a 45 tire and the seat tube, to allow a fender and an XTR front derailleur clamp. 3 weeks until I depart. Is this enoughh time??

jbpence

Here is the bike thus far. We talked to the builder, who by the way has been VERY responsive all along, and he agrees to turn the frame around as fast as he can. There is plenty of time. We are sending the frame and ALL the components to him tomorrow, so he will have all the parts, rebuild the rear of the frame, and even build the whole bike and ship it back in time for me to finish my planning and packing for China. I have a lot of time in China, so will do the shakedown cruise in and around Kunming before I leave for any tour.

So Tomorrow (Tuesday), Mike and I will finish enough of the bike so we can dial in the fit, the reach, the seat height, etc. Wednesday, the airline case should arrive from S&S, and we'll to a breakdown and pack exercise, then the whole shebang jets off to Colorado and the builder gets busy. I must say, despite this snaffu, I am most impressed with how the three of us (me - Mike - owner of Aberdeen Bike in Chelsea Michigan and James of Black Sheep Bikes) are pulling together as a team.

And the bike will be fit tomorrow (Tuesday), I dont expect any surprise there, and it will probably ride like a dream, and its already a work of art too. And three whole weeks to do it. piece of cake

vik 

I may have missed it, but what are you sending the frame back for?

jbpence

go three posts back and looks at picts 4, 6 and 7 - in 6 and 7 there is only 1 mm clearance between the chainstays and the size 35 tire. thats too little to allow for any side wheel flex at all, and a 45 tire is supposed to fit according to our spec (and it wont fit at all), and also the in pict 4 chainstays are too short for even a 35, cant get an XTR front derailleur clamp and the rear fender (not shown since there is zero clelarance already) between the seatpost and the tire.

so the chainstays need to be formed - bent to allow tire clearance instead of straight the way they are now, and lengthened a couple of cm. maybe 3. we'll see. our wheelbase is already pretty short, (in the rear 430cm) ok to go out.

thecrunge

Thanks for posting the excellent photos. The bike's looking very cool indeed! Sorry to hear about the screw up with the stays though.
You know, while they're fixing the frame, they might be able to braze-on a fourth set of water bottle bosses just above the down tube ones. There just might be some room. Or if isn't enough, the top boss of the existing two down tube bosses could be moved down towards the BB, then becoming the lower boss. (Does that make sense?) Maybe they'd do it free of charge, since they made a goof up. If there's time before your trip, why not?

jbpence

well, it turns out that the bottle mounts are much too low already. think about uncoupling the S&S couplers for shipping in the airline legal box. I'd like to be able to un-couple the S&S couplers without removing the bottle cage (on the lower seat tube), so those mounts are moving up the tube as part of the revisions. and note that there is pump peg, so an 'old school' pump will hang below the top tube. so there is no room for an additional bottle cage on the seat tube. three water bottle are plenty, considering I can carry water plenty of other places (back of the seat, on the back rack, in the extrawheel I am taking with me, etc.

soon, pictures will be posted from the second day - wherein we finish the bike to the point that the seat position and stem length and fork tube length can be dialed in, and we ride the bike around Mikes new store (its 20 degrees outside here in Michigan) and break the bike down and pack it for shipping back to the frame builder

jbpence

Day 1, part two, The stem, cassette, rear derailleur, and a large stack of spacers, many of these will get removed as we dial in the fit later.


The wheels have arrived from a wheel builder, and we have installed the cassette


The rear derailleur has been installed. Note the removable titanium dropout/der hanger. If it gets bent, I have spares