Bicycle Austin forum

AusTexMurf

Member

From: South Austin

Registered: 2008-11-21

Posts: 439

Beautiful New Frame, Ideal for Austin's Coming Trail Systems ?

Beautiful New Frame, Maybe Perfect for Austin's Coming Trail Systems...
Violet Crown, Walnut Creek, Williamson Creek, Boggy Creek, Barton Creek, All Around Town and Beyond...
http://velo-orange.blogspot.com/2013/09 … -here.html
That New VO Frame Is Here

The sage green color is based on Chris's original custom Pass Hunter
The new VO frame is like a Campeur for folks who favor off road touring. It's not officially named yet, but it'll probably be called the "Camargue," after an ancient breed of French horse reputed to be especially rugged and intelligent.

Metal headbadge and bi-plane fork crown.
Here are the main points:

2.1" (55mm) tires fit with fenders, 2.3" (60mm) without.
700c wheels on sizes 62, 59, 56 and 26" wheels on 53, 50, 47.
Geometry is designed to handle like the much-praised Campeur. This frame is not suspension corrected, allowing us to better fine tune handling.
Super beefy horizontal dropouts (so you can use internal gear hubs).
Threadless 1-1/8" fork.
All the braze-on bits that come on the Campeur: three bottle cages, threaded fender mounts, rear brake adjuster, thru-fork low-rider mounts, double eyelets front and rear, etc.
Sage green color based on my original custom Pass Hunter. This color was originally inspired by an ancient type of Japanese plaster.
4130 cro-mo double butted tubing.
Extra wide bi-plane fork crown with extra clearance (guaranteed to plane).

Heavy-duty dropouts.
These photos are of two prototypes. The orange one is a 53cm, the green is a 59cm. We hope to have the production frames ready by mid-winter. We'll post photos of built-up bikes soon. This frame does not replace the Campeur, the frame which I would choose for primarily on-road touring. Rather, it is designed for bike-packing and serious off-road touring, and for those who just like big tires.

Last edited by AusTexMurf (2013-11-17 20:59:47)

AusTexMurf

Member

From: South Austin

Registered: 2008-11-21

Posts: 439

Re: Beautiful New Frame, Ideal for Austin's Coming Trail Systems ?

Or, maybe, this ?

Surly Straggler
http://surlybikes.com/bikes/straggler

So what is this Straggler anyway? The easy answer is to say that we added disc brakes to a Cross-Check and this is close to accurate. People have asked us to make a disc version of our highly versatile Cross-Check for a long time now and almost everything about the two are very similar. Straggler is slightly different, though.

The most obvious difference of course is that the Straggler has disc caliper mounts instead of rim brake studs. It’ll accept rotors up to 160mm. The rear dropouts are unique, too. They’re a partially closed horizontal design that accommodates singlespeed or geared drivetrains. They feature stop screws that thread in from the rear to further secure the wheel and to position the rear wheel for optimal shifting, plus a forward-mounted stop screw on the drive side to keep the wheel from slipping forward under the force of your gargantuan legs. The rear dropouts are spaced 135mm instead of 132.5mm like the Cross-Check simply because there are far more options for disc hubs in this spacing.

Straggler shares all of the Cross-Check’s braze-ons for fenders, racks and bottle cages. The Straggler's geometry is slightly different, with angles and tube lengths very close but not identical to the Cross-Check, but like the Cross-Check it's ready to take you just about anywhere. It’s a day tripper and a weekender. It’s a ‘rough road’ road bike. It’s a cyclocross bike with no pretense about racing. It’s a utilitarian townie. It’s a light-duty touring bike. It’s an all-weather commuter. And when you get tired of one set up, you can swap parts around and turn it into something else. We think that’s pretty neat.

AusTexMurf

Member

From: South Austin

Registered: 2008-11-21

Posts: 439

Re: Beautiful New Frame, Ideal for Austin's Coming Trail Systems ?

A more local option, maybe not quite as off roadish...
Fairdale Weekender (DROP/DISC)
http://fairdalebikes.com/catalog/weeken … ropdisc/#2

Shimano Sora 2×9 shifting provides a full range of gears and Shimano Sora cranks are a great way to get the bike moving. Avid BB7 disc brakes will stop the bike and 37mm wide Continental Contact tires are stable and flat resistant. Shallow drop bars and a Fairdale seat keep it comfortable. A full selection of rack and fender mounts (including fork leg rack mounts) make this bike perfect to ride to work on, or take on a weekend tour.

Available in BURGUNDY or BLACK.
Available in SMALL, MEDIUM, LARGE or EXTRA LARGE.
Also available with ARCHER BARS AND CANTI BRAKES.

AusTexMurf

Member

From: South Austin

Registered: 2008-11-21

Posts: 439

Re: Beautiful New Frame, Ideal for Austin's Coming Trail Systems ?

Another popular concept in off-pavement riding is the 29" wheel. While the rim dimension is actually the same as the 700c wheels on your road or touring bike, with a voluminous tire the outside dimension of the wheel is nearly 29" which improves the capacity of the bike to roll over obstacles and maintain momentum. This can be helpful on rough, washboarded roads like on the GDMBR. This bike built by Hunter Cycles pays homage to vintage mountain bikes from the 80's, with modern considerations, including disc brakes and big wheels.

Moots Cycles displayed this titanium drop-bar 29er, designed to race the Tour Divide on the GDMBR and the CTR (Colorado Trail). While this design retains drop bars common on road touring bikes (and aero bars!), it is otherwise outfitted like a mountain bike with knobby tires. A framebag and other bikepacking equipment will round out the luggage system on this bike, which includes several mounting points on the fork for water bottle cages or the Salsa Anything Cage, which is a simple harness system for small bundles of gear. Pictured on the fork are two new Manything Cages from King Cage, constructed of tubular stainless steel to overcome some of the failure risk of the aluminum Salsa cages.

Pushing the concept even further, this custom creation from English Cycles loses the drop bars in favor of a multi-position upright bar. Aero bars will still be useful on long stretches of smooth dirt and pavement, as this bike is planning to race the Tour Divide as well. The full luggage capacity is shown, including two standard water bottle cages on each fork leg. The fork is also built to swallow a fat tire (26x4.0") in the off-season.

Not into ultralight racing concepts? This Moots bike is designed as a rugged trail-building machine. With integrated racks front and rear, it is loaded with a chainsaw and a multi-function shovel/axe, as well as enough beer for a small crew. Built around the 29x3.0" tire introduced on the Surly Krampus, this bike has the capacity to reach remote places. Imagine losing the chainsaw and strapping a tent and a sleeping bag to the back.

Several tandems were featured this year wearing the new 29x3.0" tires from Surly. This AMPeirce tandem is built to handle southern Colorado's rugged dirt roads and trails, and can even take a suspension fork in addition to the large-volume tires. How do you carry your stuff? Imagine each of those open frame sections filled with custom framebags.