Sixty Fiver

Took delivery of another custom Arvon today and thought I'd share a few pictures... I will get to test drive and demo this bike in the coming weeks and my initial impression was simply... WOW.

I have this response every time I get to play with any of his bikes but this one almost fits me, or will, when I change out the stem to something shorter. Even with a stem that is about 30mm too long I was not at all uncomfortable on my test ride.

She is almost as long as my extrabike... but not quite... and if I swapped in trekking bars my reach would be nearly identical.







I am really impressed by the custom rear hub... it will take two 8 speed clusters and is 0 dish by virtue of it's extra wide dropout spacing and is also 48 spokes. One could run a close range 8 on one side for flat riding and tailwinds and a wide range 8 on the flip for climbing and tacking.

In a pinch the 8 speed indexed shifters can be switched to friction and any thread on freewheel will work... these cartridge bearing hubs do not come equipped to accept cassettes as Arvon was never sold on the superiority of cassettes and opted to engineer and build a better freewheel hub.



The Ultegra drive does what Ultegra is supposed to do... it shifts very smoothly and this bike is deceptively fast and not as heavy as it looks... if it was not for it's wheelbase one could carry it up a flight of stairs quite easily.

Hope you enjoy the pics... there will be a few more to follow as there are some very cool features on this rather nice frame.

Sixty Fiver

stringbreaker

zeppinger

Whats the frame material?

wajg3

That is an absolutely awesome bike. I would sure like to get a chance to take if for a spin around the block. I have only ever seen one other Avron here in the city.

thanks for the pics

al

awesomejack

somebody has got to patent that hub idea. That's awesome.

How much was it?

Sixty Fiver

I think I know most of the people here who ride Arvon bicycles and they love them... my friend crossed Canada on an Arvon custom a few summers ago and had nothing but praise for how well the bike performed and he ran off the peg hubs. His is an awesome green model which is a little shorter and runs on 26 inch wheels as he wanted a bike that could also be used for commuting and some light trail use.

Send me a note and we can arrange that ride... I am five foot ten with a 33 inch inseam and it would not accommodate anyone smaller because of the reach requirement. My touring bags are on loan and when I get them back I am going to load the bike with 50 pounds of weight and triple bottles and see how it rides... it needs a really good workout.

Might hook up with the ATC on a Wednesday night ride too.

The frame is chromoly and the tt and dt are what Arvon calls custom drawn "Mesa Oval" tubes... because he does not mesa round...

The chainstays are also custom drawn and the wheelbase has got to be 60 inches... I think that only Thorn comes close in offering a bike with this stay length and anything else would have to be custom built.

Those hubs are an awesome design and I have a set on my racing bike... they are as smooth a hub I have ever handled and very easy to service.

I was told this was 1 of 6 made and this was the demo version... the other 5 sold for $5000.00 each (complete) and were built custom for their owners. Will be asking how much is wanted for this frame and if it is like other pre-built frames he has shown me it will be a great deal... his frame prices are actually very reasonable for frames and forks (which he also builds).

Makes me want to dig through my couch for spare change... but seriously... I am looking at a custom built s&s equipped tandem and it should be here in a few weeks.

The hubs can be drilled for any build requirement... as a wheel builder this makes me giddy as they cost no more than Phil Wood or King hubs and I like shopping local.

wajg3

I dropped you a line with my contact info. If I messed up and it doesn't go through leave a note here and I can contact you. I think that I still have your cell number.

cheers
al

NoReg

Contact was a problem for me, he rarely answered his email, and he didn't answer any of my questions. He tried to sell me a bike when I was interested in the hubs. Im not fussed, maybe I should have called him on the phone.


Thanks for posting the pics, I love his touring bikes, he really gets it, like the length of his rear racks actually supports the length of the average bag or tent. His wheel base is way longer than Thorn, as far as I know, and a lot longer than even Sakkit, he just singled a tandem geometry after deciding he liked riding his tandem single, according to some onlline blurb read.

Sixty Fiver

He's not one for e-mail and prefers to stop by for coffee once a week and to chat in person and talk bikes... he takes a great deal of pride in his work and should.

He is a really decent and down to earth person who is a rider first (and is still riding at 75) and a builder second so knows what makes for a good ride.

NoReg

That's what it felt like. I am on my father in law's computer at the moment, it's his 75th birthday party this weekend. Not sure why he has a computer,mainly so he can think of reasons why he doesn't need to use it. Never looks at his email.

Attached is the photo he sent me during the exchange on hubs.

GamblerGORD53

Great bike there SixtyFiver. Your bikes are the best.
Turn the stem around so i can try it too.
I just Googled Arvon and it turned up that green Arvon bike in the west end for sale. 200 site visits already. Did you lookie ? Not near as pretty as yours.

Sixty Fiver

I like the short tail design too although that is not what Arvon is best known for building... a friend of mine has a similar model and it is not every day people sell off their custom made bikes.

tmac100

I spoke with Arvon a couple of days ago and he is still in business building bikes. He custom built me a touring bike that has stainless connectors and is exceptionally strong. Since I put the pieces together I have never "split" the bike (into suitcases) for touring. The LBS weighed it at 40 lbs!! It is obviously heavy and strong and is made of steel. The 48 spoke, 26" wheels are on PW hubs and were basically indestructable on the sand and dirt roads in Australia's outback. The non-dished rear wheel is exceptionally strong as compared to dished ones.

A speed demon, the bike is not, but it was built extra strong for expedition stuff - not exactly "touring" as we know it. Going across the Nullabore in OZ (on pavement) will be a piece of cake..

His after sales service is excellent. I have moved and separated and somewhere misplaced the front pannier racks and "shelf" Here where I now live and travel, it is easy for the metal fabricators to make almost anything out of steel. Arvon said he would send a schematic with dimensions for the rack and shelf. Now that is service - 4 years after building the bike.

tmac100

This photo is a dead ringer for the bike Arvon built for me in 2006! That pic shows all I got from him - I got the rest :-) What a bike!!

Sixty Fiver

That is nice to hear but you really need to post pictures when you post things...

He also offers a 1 year no questions asked exchange if you find that your bike just isn't all it should have been which I believe is rather unique among custom builders.

His longtail did evolve from his experience riding tandems with his wife and finding that if the solo ride was this good why not build a single rider bike that rode as well as a tandem... some craptastic weather has kept me from taking the bike out for a proper ride but am hoping the week will give us more nice springtime weather.

Should be having coffee with Arvon this week and sending off some work and he will be pleased to hear about the nice comments that have been posted here.

NoReg

"This photo is a dead ringer for the bike Arvon built for me in 2006! That pic shows all I got from him - I got the rest :-) What a bike!!"

Any pictures of the finished bike? It could well be yours, looks like a bigun.

Sixty Fiver

Bump...

Over the past three years I have apprenticed with and continue to work with Arvon and know that a few people who have posted here now ride custom Arvon cycles and have bought another... at 78 Arvon is busier than ever and I have been told I need to take over some of the rack building, am doing quite a bit of frame work, and at some point will take over the business which would extend that lifetime warranty.

Should clear up that I don't own that World Tourist... it is a shop demo and it gets around although we would sell it if it turned out to be a great fit from someone and our demo bikes tend to be a pretty awesome deal.

I now spend more time working from my own shop now that I have a brazing set up although the main frame work still happens out at our main shop... I do a lot of repairs and customization from here as there is a good demand for that.

Custom racks have been occupying my time of late... designed this for my Surly Pugsley.



Racks are a lot of work...

We also have some real internet out at the main shop now so things like images can be sent and received in a timely fashion although there is no phone in the main shop and when we have a torch in our hand we are not checking e-mail and will check messages when we take a break.

Ciufalon

That is a really cool rack you built for the Pugsly. I would say the perfect rack for that bike. Great work!

fietsbob

put in a lot of miles on a 48 spoke freewheel hub .. any single spoke breaks were no BFT with 47 left.

yea a 145 , tandem spread, lets the hub-shell move rightward ..

Aaron in Seattle drills another 16 holes into 32hole Rohloff hubs , the new spokes are radials added to
crows foot a 2 x standard pattern.

buyers tend to be fitting them in Big dummy cargo bikes ..

Sixty Fiver

My good friend and mentor has told me that he has decided to retire this spring as he will soon be 80 and wants to make sure he enjoys the good years he has left with his wife of almost 53 years.

He told me I'd be inheriting the lathe and picking up the torch, so to speak... but he said he will still consult and continue to work on smaller projects.

You have to respect that.

Sixty Fiver

It is hard to find a rack that fits the Pugsley as it has a 17mm offset and I wanted a rack that was plug and play with no adjusters, sliders, etc.

I called it the Portage... the drop between the rails is much greater than what is normal so it offers really good ground clearance for single panniers and allows for some serious top loading (the deck is almost 7 inches wide) without interfering with the bag's opening.





It takes less than 3 minutes to install / remove...

djb

65er, all the best with this, I imagine that custom stuff is a very fickle business, but again, all the best with it.

BigAura

These guys fat biked with pack-rafts. They carried the rafts on their backs, I'd rather use your rack for that kind of load.

djb

Aura, I'm sure they went that route because of all the manhandling and lifting of the bikes they expected, so they made a compromise to keep the weight of the bikes down. I just hope they tore down their hubs after that trip cuz all that salt water getting everywhere would be hard on everything. Noticed the one guy using Prolink on his chain, good for sand and stuff, but in my experience you gotta put it on all the time (but its a fast easy application as it is so water-like in consistency and cleans off stuff as it goes on)

gotta love those tiny chainrings with bashguards (look like 14 or 16t) , and the "piss power" bit at the end was silly, but funny.