I'll share this short story and a shout out to fellow forum member, [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION], not because it's especially pertinent to C&V, but because it's probably of more interest to this group than any other.

So, several months ago I ordered a L'Avecaise from from Jeff Lyon. Let me just say that he's a joy to work with and the frame, after several pensive months of waiting, arrived back in June and I'm very happy with it. It's been the easiest build ever, and I fitted fenders in - literally - no time at all. What a pleasure it all was...until I went to install the VO front rack.



Ugh. Look at that angle... and no amount of bending got it anywhere close to level. Enter Mark Guglielmana (dang, I hope I spelled your name correctly.) He offered to do a bit of surgery to the rack stays.



A bending to level the rack out, a little close measurement, and a little cross country flight for the rack to the Pacific Northwest, and a little surgery later, this is the result:



A big thumbs up and a happy smile creasing my face!

Nice, please share detail shots of his brazing/welding handiwork.

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Yet another splendid success for Gugieficazione!

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Thanks! Second VO rack surgery in the last few months to make one fit.

Note to anyone looking to just bolt up a rack designed for handlebar bags: Go to an LBS to purchase one so you can do a test fit. Off the shelf handlebar racks attach at 3 or 4 fixed points on your fork. There is no "standard" dimension, especially if you have to account for fenders.

Nice! That's a great looking bike, would love to see the whole thing.

Nice work.

Both of you guys.

Cool bike!

Not going to lie. I clicked this thread because I assumed it was about breast enhancement

Here she is, prior to the rack enhancement.



Bag is ordered. I'll make photos of the rack when it's not 195 degrees outside. (The silhouette shot above was merely to emphasize that the platform wound up being precisely the amount of level that I wanted.)

Typically I take a few pix of work in progress, but Atelier Gugie is backed up a bit, and I neglected to do so. When I took this on, I thought it would the same job as I did for [MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION] not too long ago - a mod to this style:


. That was pretty easy, I had the desired measurement, and just added a longer stay, pinched off the end in my vise, silvered the end and drilled a hole in each stay, then trimmed it and spliced it together with an internal piece.

This rack used the cantilever attachment style, so I had to save the end pieces, and splice a section in the middle. Here's the original rack:



Since the rack had already been bent a bit to try and make it work (argh, I feel for you Mark!), getting a square cut was difficult, but manageable. I had promised a "can't tell from a few feet away" fix, the double brazes on each end made me worry that it wouldn't be quite as good as advertised.

Customer happy, I'm happy!

[MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION] is underselling himself. By the time he got them, the stays had a slight curve to them - yet one has to look closely to see the joins where he spliced in additional tube on the stays.

The rack I purchased is a VO v1.0. Ironically, it appears that the VO v2.0 replaces the static center post with an adjustable version (Think: Jim Blackburn rack.) Anyhow, the new version would probably have minimized or entirely eliminated the leveling out issue that v1.0 presents. I point this out in case anyone else decides to monkey around with a VO front rack.

Alls well, that ends well though. And once my Berthoud bag arrives tomorrow I can simply chalk the VO rack experience up as one more blog posting on the Early Morning Cyclist.

I will try to remember to do that. As [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION] mentioned, mine was a relatively simple job. This was partly because he's a busy guy and I didn't want to mooch too much of his time, so I started by making my rack fit by my own means; I cut off the bottom 4 cm of the struts, inserted some scrap metal to make it the right length, and put it on the bike as a test fit. Once I had everything to the right dimensions, I sent it to Mark to unbotch the mess I'd made.

So as I say, I will try to remember to post a photo of his work. But you won't see anything. It's prettty close to seamless. :THUMB:

Oh, I totally understand the time consuming nature of this craft. I always find it inspiring when I see custom work done in a tasteful manner. Great job guys!

The front rack I bought years ago had front supports that were adjustable to level the rack. Unfortunately I cannot remember the brand.

Just to be clear, I had to keep moving my bike around just to find light that would allow the seams to even show up at all. They are there to be found if you go looking for them, but otherwise nada.

[MENTION=201510]AZORCH[/MENTION] - glad to see orders for Jeff's work from across the country.

$1600 for a full rando frame and fork from a long time builder. Smokin' deal. Great guy. Would not hesitate to recommend one.

No doubt! And let me tell you how great Jeff is to work with - he ran into issues with the powder coat he originally planned to do. I get a call to let me know that it just doesn't meet his standards, and that the frame I receive is going to have a wet paint job instead. Simple as that. No fuss. Just did it.

He's also a very interesting and funny guy to chat with. No matter how you dice it up, it's a win all the way around for me.

Crazy good prices.

Pretty framesets, for sure.

Reminds me of Roland Della Santa's prices.

Definitely under market trends.

Looks great.

Perfect surgery job...

Looks like a fabulous job! Thanks for sharing

They're working on a cure for that...

I'm thinking we should start a drive to have your middle name changed to Fabbricazione.

We can all clean parts and repack bearings but scratchbuilding is a WHOLE nothuh thang!

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I assume there was some bike that rack fit on, but I'm really confused as to what it would look like. 68 degree head angle?

I had sort of assumed that angling the rack back would be best. However, I have recently seen something that said the old French guys angled the rack forwards a little. I don't think it's a big deal, but the way a randonneuring bag is made, it's not going to fall off

For what it's worth, here's another solution to mounting that same rack.

I cut some spacers from steel tubing, somewhere around 2 cm long, and used longer bolts. I know it's not a great solution, but it's good enough that I haven't had to think about it since mounting it. Maybe I should take it apart and send it in for gugification.

You know, this exact solution occurred to me as well - admittedly, well after the point in time that my rack got shipped off to be modified. It's good to know it actually works though. It's not unusual for my ideas to seem really sound in the back of my mind but to sometimes go a bit south in actual practice!