It’s been awhile since we’ve had a Team Lope Bike Grrls post. This series, called ‘Charmer’, was interesting to me because of the camera angles, primarily. But while I’m not certain those grrls rode those bikes, I do like that it evokes what I imagine to be the best sight you could hope for if you were riding by on a warm weekend day… roll up to a pair of cuties eating icecreams, looking for a pair of swank folks to ride around with…

Something like that…

Or, it could be the same model involving magic or trickery or whatever, and in case of that scenario, don’t skid stop for 33 feet like someone offered you a margarita, but keep on going.

http://southbeachqueen.wordpress.com/20 … 9/charmer/

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man, i haven’t been this excited about a build project in a long time. a few weeks ago i mentioned offhand to WR that i was thinking of getting my beloved fixed townie loos3y coupled. that frame’s been with me a long time, been through hell actually, and it remains my favorite of my stable. so i thought it would be awesome to be able to take it with me on trips. and WR had been fantasizing about building a coupled frame for a while, so it got him amped again. next thing you know, it was on. we had bikes stripped down to their frames and down at the framebuilder before we knew it.

the downside was that in EACH of our cases, the frames we wanted to use weren’t going to be viable. in his case, it was an old frame made of questionable quality steel that may have ended up being just a waste of a LOT of money (this is a VERY expensive process) when it finally broke or imploded or whatever. and in my case, loos3y’s frame had some fluted tubing on the downtube near the BB, so the coupler would have had to be put way further up than is structurally sound.

and what does all this mean when you’re a bike geek? that’s right, TIME TO BUY NEW FRAMES!!! WR ponied up for a gorgeous SOMA van ness track frame with chromed lugging at the head tube, while i went for the no frills pake rum runner track frame. since these frames were going to be stripped and cut and welded it really didn’t matter what color they were. my frame is red, my fork is black, and i don’t know what WRs stuff was before it was all done up nice.

anyway, a CRUSHING work schedule disallowed me from going to powdercoat immediately, which is why in all of these pictures it’s half-red, half-steel and all fucked up. but it goes to pc on tuesday morning, so before long it’ll be sporting it’s new look, which i’m keeping a secret for now. (incidentally, you can see WR’s after powdercoat over HERE.)

so that’s the frame up top, coupled. and here it is un-coupled…

i fucking love that picture. it’s so wrong and weird. only a bike geek would pony up over a grand to have a $150 frame cut in half and then re-attached.

here’s a closeup of one of the coupler joints…

i’m really thrilled that the couplers are lugged. it gives a nice touch of class to an otherwise plain frame. oh yeah, one kind of cool detail — since the frame didn’t come with bottle bosses, he added them for me. so i can still rock the hydration.

so stay tuned for further shots, as the build comes together. it should be pretty quick after powdercoating.

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This project, codename: Carpetbagger, was supposed to be built from WrongBike’s remains, ie. an old Vista frame from the 70s and casual cruiser fixie parts, but retrofitted with a coupler and given a repaint. Team Lope’s preferred framebuilder, Tom at 4130 Fabrication, however, recommended that a project of such expense and scope might better be undertaken on a new frame with better structural quality and fabrication detail. As Lung and I have been developing coupler projects side by side, we both saw the wisdom in this recommendation, and proceeded to start fresh with new frames. Bonus, each of us are now able to rebuild the bikes we gutted in the first place, which makes me especially pleased, as attached as I am to WrongBike in it’s glorious yellowness.

Part 01 of this Bike Build Process Log: Extrusion

I’ve taken several extrusion shots over the last few years, always wishing I had a raw loft space again, but with proper lighting and all that. But hey, this works. Here we have Carpetbagger’s bones resplendent in indulgent New Zealand shag wool. Of course, the focal point of this build is the S&S Coupler, which you can see above.

Stay tuned for the next report, once the build is underway…

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steven jensen is one of maybe two or three fixed gear freestyle guys that i really, REALLY respect. i think mostly it’s because he goes so hard. he’s not doing freestyle tricks from the 90s on a modded track bike. he’s doing modern shit, shit that’s hard on a BMX bike. it may have something to do with the fact that he’s a BMXer, ha!

SEE for yourself.

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This Kickstarter project involves the use of a flexible titanium band that is long enough to lock both wheels and frame around a pole, yet lighter than most of your components.
Pretty cool concept, though the question in my mind remains portability…

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/105 … -your-bike

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I tread, or pedal, carefully around boozy products related to bikes*, but I have been knows to enjoy a beverage, I’ve been known to enjoy one and then ride sensibly, and I’ve been known to enjoy mods.

The Niner YAWYD is a top cap that allows the mounting of your favorite beer bottlecap. Or cola cap, OK. Not sure the diameter, but whatever is common for 29ers…

Preddehkul

http://www.ninerbikes.com/fly.aspx?layo … parts=true

*Except for the flask carrier, which is clearly the LEAST responsible and yet most desirable to me.

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The Spalding Building in Portland.
BANK VAULT.

Yeah, that’ll work!

http://bikeportland.org/2011/04/28/hist … ault-52254

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Here we are, spending all this effort on bikes that can relatively easily be carried onto planes, and tandemracer, meanwhile, broke his TANDEM down to fit in a normal bike box. Bravo!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tandemrace … 5666078666

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What’s the best part of this? The scramblehands, the angled heart, the bike profile.. or the downturned eyelid? I vote the eyelid.

http://trdl.tumblr.com/post/5403589194/ … ng-me-up-i

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Currently, due to a back problem, the only bike I can really reasonably safely ride (dare we use the word SAFE in a Team Lope post?) is Redcoat.

As I rolled to get my afternoon cuappjoe, I was marveling at how, despite how much fun it is to strongarm a fixed=gear into all these other things it wasn’t intended for in the modern period (climbing bike, distance rider, cargo bike, baby bike, trick bike, townie bike) if you go down the path of total logic on it, for everyday riding, you can forego the pantleg roll-up if you just put a chainguard on it. And you can ride in a much more relaxed posture if you change the geometry to be upright and put longer, swept-up bars on there. And you can have a more comfy grip if you forego the Keirin thingies or the cork and just get grooved rubbery handgrips. And you can ease the burden of bearing if you forego the Brooks or the racing or trick saddle and just have a nice springy bit of business. And you can make things easier on the knee, and on the heart, and the FINGERS, by foregoing skid stops and tiny cross levers, and use a coaster break I mean brake. And you can forego the obsession (when it’s a good thing) or drama (when it’s abad thing) of maintaining a clean, pretty build if you just have an olllllllld frame and let it naturally wear. And you can have a comfier, more stable ride if you forego skinny tyres and ride big balloon gumwalls. And you can relax some of the car hate, and at the same time increase your neighborhood cachet, if you trade flipping birds and screaming with a few handy old timey horns. And you can have a more secure one-handed coffee-getting riding position if you center your gravity over the seat, not over the stem, by riding in a relaxed mode.

Oh wait!

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