hey everyone. i thought i would share a little bit of what eric baar has been up to lately.

track slack baby! tig welded aluminum with bolt-on steel dropouts, beautifully liquid painted at da vinci in denver. the fork is fillet brazed steel. we gun blued it when we gun blued my frameset.

this will be at NAHBS this year, along with eric's copper-plated fillet-brazed track bike, and a bmx cruiser that is so sweet you'll kick your grandma in the black purse. (don't hold your tongue and read that outloud... yikes! tears!)

eric is sharing booths with black sheep cycles and da vinci cycles. stop by and tell him hi! his new site is up and running as well... www.groundupdesigns.com

WOW! I'm looking forward to seeing that in person.

Is that a BMX crank on that thing? I love seeing the groundup frames.

yup. they're profiles. it's really light too, even with those cranks.

sick sick sick.

ISP: got any pics of your gun blued frameset?

i dont see a single njs part. vomit.

Countdown to chain-slack debate....

Ground-Up ruuuules.

...

sure!

it's primarily columbus sp and spx. cinelli lugs. i did pretty much all the cutting and measuring, but eric did the torch stuff. i'm a machinist and wanted my hand in this as much as possible. i got the idea to gun blue it, sort of based on eric's copper plated bike. i love how the gun blueing didn't affect the silver or brass. it's not clear coated, but i may get it clear coated after eric clears that fork. i'm thinking of doing a light gold pearly clear.

this is town trim... i run miche pedals and 50:15 for racing.

side shots:



true temper bmx chainstays. these things are STIFF!!!!!1

he fillet brazed them to the bb, due to the angle of the original chainstay lugs not working with the bb height.

front:

i have to run a 22. that 23 barely rubs and i gave up filing.

rear:

can you discuss the aversion to wheel clearance?

that ground up cat does some real dope work.

isotopesope, how tall are you? i'm 6'7" and i recognize another tall man's bike.

wow. that is lovely. have you raced it?

also very cool that you're getting your hands dirty in the shop; i think we all dream of building our own bikes.

oh man, i saw the title of this thread and got super excited. i most certainly was not disappointed when i saw that alu frame!

i looooooove Ground Up frames so much! His copper plated race frame is quite possibly my favorite track bike.

...

6'7"!? damn. i'm 6'4" with a little over 36" inseam barefoot. the steep angle and super short fork make the headtube huge! thus, it looks even bigger than it is. it's a 60 c-c... or is it 61? haha i don't remember.

new guy,
i only raced it a few times last year. it handles great though! parallel 75's with a 38mm rake fork. i based it off of my old bianchi. the best part about it is how incredibly stiff the chainstays are. it accelerates so well. i hope to race more this coming season. last summer i was more into gardening and riding mountain and road, so i didn't get to the track too much, despite it being a few blocks from my house!

being a part of the build was a lot of fun. i made a few mistakes, but nothing major. i'm actually going to start machining all of eric's dropouts here at work, though we're typically a tool and die shop. i'm looking forward to it.

i'm gonna make a bike...and it's gonna be CrAaAaAaAAAAAAAZEEEYYYYYYYyyyya