Mike’s All-Road
Mike was looking for a Swiss army knife of bikes. He's prepping for a long road ride (Seattle to Portland, which is about 200 miles over two days). He rides some cyclocross, especially Trophy Cup, which has a small wooden jump on each lap. He does longer rides on forest service roads, with occasional singletrack. And he wanted to be able to ride the bike to work every day in good weather and bad.
The bike we settled on is an all-road, with pretty sprightly geometry. It has a 72 degree head tube angle, with only 56 mm of trail. Chainstays are 432 mm long, which is about as short as I could make them with the tire clearance we were looking for. BB drop is 60 mm, to thread the needle between a low road bike and high ground clearance gravel or mountain bike. Wheelbase is 1085, and the stack and reach are based on Mike's measurements.
We set up the bike with 38mm Rene Herse slicks plus fenders, but if we take the fenders off, we can squeeze in 50mm knobbies.
Because Mike's planning to ride this bike at cyclocross, I've attempted to make the fenders and racks easy to remove. The headlight is mounted to the front rack, and the headlight wiring runs through the rack itself. But, I've used quick disconnect plugs so the headlight can be easily removed, then reattached at the fork crown instead. I'm pretty excited about these quick disconnects. They're intended to be used for the battery connection in RC helicopters, so they're pretty weatherproof, they're rated for higher current than a bike dynamo system ever needs, and they can be connected and disconnected many, many times without wearing out. I definitely plan on using them again on future builds.
Aesthetic
Mike and I worked together on the aesthetic choices. He had first asked me if I could leave the bike unpainted, so the fillets would be exposed. I proposed that we apply a blueing solution to the steel of the frame to help protect it a little bit. After experimenting with blueing, I decided to apply a clear powder coat to protect it even more.
Apparently, clear powder coat isn't fully impermeable, so the frame will slowly develop some rust. We'll keep our eye on it over the next few years, and we may end up sandblasting and painting the frame at some point.
Because the bike is powder coated, it can't have painted badges. So the head tube, seat tube, and down tube badges are all made from brass. I also made little brass "Handmade in Portland" labels for the seat tube. And the lettering on the top tube is made from pre-cut brass letters I bought from Etsy. Most of the bolts on the bike are brass as well.
The blue steel turned out even better than I'd hoped! The color is really dynamic, with a lot of depth. It totally changes its vibe depending on conditions. It's sort of grey-blue in overcast weather and shade, but in bright sunshine, it's almost black. The pictures really don't do it justice.
Components
I've attempted to outfit this bike for all the things Mike will use it for. It's tricky to pick components for a bike that is supposed to do it all!
We went with a 1x12 drivetrain, with Sram Apex rear derailleur and crankset, paired with Gevenalle shift levers. These are my absolute favorite shift levers for commuting, gravel riding, touring, and cyclocross. The only thing they're not best for is shifting from the drops, but the tradeoff is worth it for a bike like this.
The gearing is pretty wide, with a 42 tooth chainring and Sram Eagle 10-50 cassette. This should make short work of big hills in the Mt Hood national forest!
At Mike's request, the bike has rim-brakes. We went with the Grand Cru Zeste Cantilever brakes from Velo-Orange. And the cable stop for the front centerpull is built into the custom Fiddlehead stem.
And for the sake of commuting, we included full coverage metal fenders from Velo-Orange, a PDW bell mounted to the stem, a dynamo hub from Shutter Precision, with a hardwired PDW headlight and Busch and Müller taillight.
I also included a third water bottle cage on the underside of the down tube. The water bottle cages are Velo-Orange retro cages. This is my first time using them, and they seem pretty great.
The wheels are aluminum rim brake compatible Mix Tapes from HiFi, who built them up custom in all black, but with brass spoke nipples to match the exposed bronze and brass on this build.
Finally, to tie together the black and white of the components with the blue and brass of the frame, I used the incredible new Great Horned Owl bar tape from Camp and Go Slow. The black, gold, and white of this tape matches the rest of the build perfectly! And this tape is just incredible to ride.
Cargo
Because this bike will be used for both touring and commuting, we needed some racks. So I built custom brushed stainless steel front and rear racks, and I mounted a pair of Fiddlehead cargo cages on the fork blades.
Mike has some old dutch Basil panniers he uses for carrying things to and from work, and we built a rear rack specifically to accommodate those panniers.
In the front is a pretty standard small randonneuring rack, with an integrated headlight mount and dyno wire routing.
Both front and rear racks incorporate fender mounting, so the fenders and racks can be removed as one piece.
The cargo cages on the fork blades are black anodized aluminum. They're surprisingly light and stiff, and very versatile. They're built to hold a Nalgene bottle, or whatever else Mike straps to them.
This Machine Kills Fascists
The words on the top tube have a long history. It wasn’t that long ago that a statement like this wasn’t controversial in the US. These words were often pasted onto mills and lathes in machine shops during WWII. Killing fascists was the height of patriotism at the time.
During and after the war, Woody Guthrie famously had these words fixed to his guitar. He’d been anti-fascist since before the war; his songs helped rally public support for the USA joining the war. He continued using his voice to fight fascism for the rest of his life.
Like many of you, I’ve been struggling lately to figure out what to do. The America of our childhood is being burned down by fascists. Every action I can think to take feels far too small to matter. But fascism thrives on silence and inaction. So I won’t be silent. I may not have the largest voice, but I’ll use what voice I have to fight.
Don’t give up, y’all. Fascism hates art. Fascism hates free speech. And fascism hates bicycles. Buy less stuff. Ride your bike more.
And find some joy! This storm is bearing down on us, and we need to weather it the best we can. And the only way we’ll make it through is with joy. So get on your bikes and ride!
