Tuesday, January 20, 2009

What is that bike?

I have had a few people ask about the bike in my header. It's a frame I built back in the mid 80's when I worked for Santana Cycles in Claremont, CA. The head builder taught me how to braze and this was my first attempt. It's a track frame made of Columbus Multi-Shape tubing and entirely fillet brazed. Every tube is a differnt shape, from the teardrop shaped down tube to the left chainstay's triangle shape and the right chainstay's oval/round cros-section. Why didn't I just pick a set of round tubes for my first complete frame? I don't know; I thought I might as well try something a little more difficult, I guess. I had the painter at Santana paint it the same color Imron as the Arriva S racing tandem. Sadly, I screwed up the geometry and the seattube ended up far too slack for use on the track (it's conical and I lined up the jig on the back side, giving about a 68 degree angle). So it's a fixie these days.

If there's interest, I'll post more pictures of it.

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