Bikes are Nice

Here's a little something from Fly on the new bits that they've got happening at the moment. Ideas are high, resolution is low:



Those investment cast bridges look particularly nice with different style for each of the models, though they do leave me with a little tinge of guilt since months ago I made the mistake of declaring that I was putting together a post about the investment casting technique that Fly and WTP have started using for for fork and frame dropouts. So now they've done a bunch of bridges too and I ain't done shit. Life's hard.

One thing that's distinctly missing from the layout above is the Fly cassette hub. You've got to wonder if it's hit the wall, cause none of their team seem to be riding it. There was that KP bike check the other day he was rocking Profile and Javier Ortega's got a bike check up on Transworld and he's riding a Mini too. I was really looking forward to seeing what angle Fly would bring to cassettes and how the hell they were going to get down to the 12 oz mark that they had put out there. So is it all over, or is it in an unmarked box headed for InterBike. Either way Javier's always got a nice looking bike for those that remain unoffended by the simple functionality of a brake:



Speaking of nice looking, when it comes to manufacturing precision machine porn, the Germans are going to win every time. They're just not that good at making cheap rubbish. You've only got to take a look at Svevo Bikes to confirm that. No new fangled T.I.G welded frames there. They've gone the full craftsman route and fillet braze their frames, which means that you end up with pretty much no visible weld bead:

Clean. But is this cleanliness enough for you to shell out US$850 (just a little over A$1000) for a frame? If it were, you would have to go full Bauhaus, let the beauty of the construction shine through and adorn it with nothing more than clear coat over the stone cold craftsmanship - wouldn't you? The Svevo frames hit the scales at 2180 precisely calibrated German grams. That's 4.8 lbs to you.

Final frame news for the day is that Colony have a few shots up of their new models for 2010. Whacky paint jobs are officially in:



If you would like to see a pic of all four pro models for 2010 you can search amongst the Flash web death here.

Same, same - 3 New Frames

Three fresh frames to have a look at. Take your pick.

1. MacNeil: Whitton III - Raw is the new black.



Top Tube - 20.75″, 21″
Rear Triangle - 13.65″
Head-tube angle - 74.5°
Seat-tube angle - 71°
BB height - 11.75″
Stand over height - 8.4
Weight - 4.55 lbs

2. Volume: Rob's Zombie



Top Tube - 20.5" & 21"
Rear Triangle - 13.75"
Head-tube angle - 75°
Seat-tube angle - 71°
BB height - 11.7"
Stand over height - 8"
Weight - 4 lbs. 8 oz

No surprises on either of them, specs are pretty standard. In fact not much difference between the two at all - 0.05" here, 0.4" there. Spanish on the Macneil, Mid on the Volume.

The WTP Warriors is a little more interesting:



It's Max Gaertig and Mike Brennan's new frame. It's not actually out yet and I ain't got the specs, but I can tell you that it comes with 21.3 tt option. And, just like Fly's new forks and their integrated dropouts, the Warriors' dropouts are investment cast. Which looks slick, but in terms of functionality, it moves the welds a little further away from the stress points in the dropouts. If you check the pics you'll see that the welds are much smaller than a regular weld. This is because of the tighter fit you can get between the casting and the seat / chain stays when compared to a regular cnc'd dropout. And a smaller weld = less chance of impurities in the weld = stronger weld = nice.

New Fly Fork with Integrated Dropout

I was just sitting here and writing a post about Fly Bikes when this appeared in the feed reader:



A new fork from fly. I don't know if they had put out any info about it during development, but apparently they've been testing it for a few months and it's set to go into production.

No weights or specs yet, but the most notable feature of the fork is the dropouts. Like the integrated rear dropouts that Fly have been working on for a while, they are investment cast. I plan on doing a post on investment casting soon, so I won't go into detail about that, but have a look for yourself:



They haven't done anything particularly fancy, but kept a nice simple shape that looks similar to a regular cnc'd dropout, but used the more three dimensional properties of a casting to have extra material at the point where the dropout meets the fork leg - just where you want it. All in all a nice, simple, under-the-radar improvement.

So that's a new fork from Fly due for sale in September. And two new blog posts from me that I'll hopefully finish some time before then. Good night and good luck.