3 and 4.8"s for Sale

 I'll be making runs of things like this in the near future. These two are for sale: 3* up, 11* Back, 30.5" wide. 3" or 4.8" rise. $85 and shipping

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Chris wanted to see these bars (for sale)

 Spent the morning making stainless washers to finish Patrick's frame.

 Lots of weld surface overlap and straight stays make for a much stiffer rear triangle. Not the prettiest but definitely the most effective for a race frame.

700X 43mm Wheel street bike

The frame needs a clear coat and then I'll be out taking photos of all three together

Slotted/BMX style dropouts are so much stronger and stiffer than hooded drops, due to the larger weld area. I think its unfortunate that all of the stock sliders are hooded or involve some tenuous little plate/weld area. The reason hooded dropouts are sold to frame builders is because slotted dropouts have a set range of angles, whereas hooded dropouts can be used at any seat stay angle... but slotted are functionally superior.

 NOS parts are the best. No "new lighter weight" marketing BS and a much lower cost. The Mavic D321 was the same rim as the EX729. The Profile high flange hub is older (I think) and the old  Profile HIP stems were perfect for mountain bike bars with 22.2 clamps. My first one was a 25.4 clamp. The little piston mechanism was probably a little weak for 9-10" bars, but 2-8" bars work fine without any movement. Profile discontinued them more than ten years ago but they sold some of the old stock last year. I've bought 6-7 of them over time.

My new wheel is going on the 26" MTBMX with the new Machine Slot peg. This front rim below is about 15 years old, and has a massive ding from a night time street ride in college. 

Randle had these made for Machine bikes at a local machine shop. 

Paul's Blue Balls clamp bolt

Tapered chainstays are on order. The Supertherm stays that I thought that were going to work were actually 26" specific (cut to length). So this one's a week out from completion.

The difficult FGFS forks are up on the list and in progress.

 I don't recommend these metal flake blacks if you want something that pops (they're very subtle in most light). A little bit of dirt and the frame just looks black

Patrick's frame can start now that the fork is welded.

Techmology: why do heavy, long coilover shock springs exist?

It occurred to me that I'm running a super long, 650 lbs spring which could be halved in (# of coils) length and reduced significantly for the same spring rate... unless I'm missing something (highly likely). This would save a huge amount of weight.

I did see that Enduro racers are running super short coils with spacers:

https://www.pinkbike.com/photo/12462828/

Unfortunately my crappy Marzocchi shock has threads way up on the shock, so it would require a pretty big spacer. The old Fox shocks that I once ran had much more threads on the shock body.

Back from the Washington trip. Working on Patrick's frame and fork and coating a bunch of other frames that I can't show here. I'll have 13 more of those and 10-12 forks... So maybe I'll shoot some videos again or try to squeeze some custom stuff in between the outsource stuff.

Here are some recent favorites from Stout's Facebook

 Dave's race bike, Bruce on his long travel hardtail and Billys Twin TT: