Today was a good day

It was a good day of tying up the details on the last two bikes we have planned for the "big show." Brian Twilley's singlespeed 29er is pretty much done and it is going to be a hot bike! I was realizing that we have showed a mountain bike at each of the shows we've been at and they have all been singlespeed 29ers. There's something about that category of bike that I find really appealing. The simplicity of a singlespeed makes for a low maintenance, quiet way to experience trails, and the 29" wheels rolling abilities take just enough of the bite out of the bumps. It's a really fun, efficient bike.
The last bike that we are taking to the show is my personal city bike.I'm getting so excited about the thought of riding this bike. I thought about this bike a lot and decided to make a Signal version of the bike I've been riding for the past six years as my daily ride bike. That bike is a Miyata with a front rack that I built for it. I found a European spec Shimano front wheel that has a dynamo/ drum combination and I've been riding it for about three years and love it. The dynamo powers a front light so I never need batteries and the drum brake means that there is no wear on the rim from brake pads, so the wheel should last forever. This bike is all about being low maintenance and utilitarian. I had a weird idea for a chain guard and tried it on this bike (because I know the customer won't mind) and it came out really nice. I also built a big flat front rack that I'll use to carry my bag on when I'm riding across town. The coolest part of this bike will probably be the alloy shelled coaster brake hub. It will be a prototype for a hub that I've been wanting to make for years now. It's pretty top secret, but if you are at the show, be sure not to miss it!

Now I just have to figure out what color to paint it.

Just the beginning...

This is the accumulator for a 1946 Monarch 10ee lathe. Yeah, that's my hand holding it. Nothing more to see here.

Ahhhh...

Newly formatted blog thanks to Brian Twilley! Something about blogs and my limited knowledge of CSS and where to put the things that the page wants. I tried, but it was a pretty bad try. Let's move along shall we?
Lots going on right now in the Signal shop. We did a pretty big reorganization a few weeks ago and now when I walk into the shop, it feels like we gained so much more space. It's really important to squeeze as much functionality as we can out of the tiny footprint that we occupy. I feel like took it up a few notches.
We are nearing the end of our NAHBS preparation. Two bikes down and one (maybe two) to go. How about a round up of the bikes we are taking?
First is Nate Woodman's fillet brazed city/ dirt bike. It will be built up with 700c wheels, fenders and a load of hoarded old school mountain bike components. We used a Pacenti crown for the fork and added a custom stem as well. The bike will have a custom built Vertigo titanium handlebar too!


The above picture is Myles H's long reach brake, fendered road bike. It will have all Ultegra components and a lugged frame and fork with a custom stem and a front rack (maybe a rear rack if we can squeeze it out). It's a sporty road bike that will be comfortable for those longer all day rides.
Third is Brian Twilley's single speed 29er. It is a fillet brazed frame with an eccentric Bottom bracket and clearance for some huge tires. This bike has internal rear brake routing and will be built with a rigid carbon fork.
Bike four, if it happens is my personal city bike. I really want to get it done, but it's the one that can fall off the plate first. I built a classic road frame with single speed dropouts and a plate crown fork. I'm planning on building it up with either a coaster brake or a fixed gear rear wheel and a dynamo drum front wheel. It will have a big flat front rack and a custom flat bar/stem combo. If I can get it done. And there is room in the crate for it.
And other big news is we got an awesome new vice stand from EVT. It is topped with the nicest vice ever to be used by Signal Cycles, a Reed (Thanks Brett!).


That's all for now. We'll keep lighting the torch and taking pictures. Thanks for reading.

LATE NIGHT

In keeping with the pre-NAHBS tradition Signal has established, Matt and I were in the shop until midnight last night. It seems every year we have a few times before the show when there just isn't enough hours in the day.....so we get to work at night, too! But it really makes the morning coffee and parmesan, bruschetta omelette, or bi pong moun in Cambodian, taste even better. Off to work!

Do we have room?

I think we do...

bunk

Went to Bunk for lunch today and it was raining pretty good so there wasn't even a line! It's the place with the best tuna melt around, but don't tell anyone, the lines are already long enough. They also serve coke in bottles from Mexico so they have sugar instead of corn syrup. Good stuff.
The NAHBS preparation is still taking most of our time. For some reason we decided that this would be a perfect time to rearrange the shop. Actually, the reason we got motivated is that we helped Ira Ryan move a lathe into his new shop and then went over to check out Tony Pereira's new shop... all that shop looking and tool fondling made us feel a little inadequate. So we are in the process of trying to squeeze all the space we can out of our tiny workshop. It started with a trip to the rebuilding center. And now there is a big mess in the middle of the floor. Ahhh... as the saying goes it's always darkest before the dawn. Speaking of darkness, on the bike ride home today in the rain at 5:30pm I noticed a little patch of blue up there among the rain clouds. Yep, there's light in the sky at 5:30! Pretty soon we'll all have sunburn and be complaining about how damn hot it is.
In other news, I just heard today that Woodman's bike is all ready to be picked up from the painters. Hopefully we'll pick it up tomorrow and take a few pictures to show it off. Stay tuned!

Shop tour of Efficient Velo Tools

We had the pleasure of spending the morning in Brett's shop the other day. Brett helps us when we run into problems that are over our heads. With this much equipment, there isn't much he can't solve.