I’ve posted full frame specs of all 3 sizes for the cross/allroad frames I’m building this summer. I’ve still got space for 3 frames. Contact me if you’re interested. allroad@shandcycles.com
see this post for more details.

small (pdf)

(click for bigger pdf)

med (pdf)

(click for bigger pdf)

large (pdf)

(click for bigger pdf)

Summer holiday….
I’m off on hols for a couple of weeks from this weekend so if you’re trying to get hold of me you won’t be able to. I’ll be checking email intermittently so send an email if you need to, but it may be a little while before I reply. Cheers.

Can you hear that? No? Me neither.
I’ve just got a nice new quiet compressor which means I can get rid of the hideous noisy thing I’ve been using up ’til now. In fact, I say ‘using’ but the truth is I wasn’t using it as the noise of the fecker is enough to drive you…  read the rest

I’m about to do a run of lugged cyclocross/all-road frames and have some capacity to run a few extra of each size to be generally available.

Columbus Zona tubing*

S-bend stays

Oversize tubeset

1 1/8 steerer
31.8 toptube
35mm downtube
31.8mm seattube

Paragon disk dropouts (disk between stays, see pic below), inc spare hanger.

68mm BB shell

135mm rear spacing

Designed for ~400mm fork**

rack and…  read the rest

I snuck out from the workshop this afternoon afternoon for a couple of hours. The sun was out and I was being distracted by Le Tour anyway so out on the bike it was.
Found some nice singletrack only a few miles from the house that I must have ridden past loads of times without…  read the rest

It seems that the folks behind the Rouleur magazine are about to launch a sister title for off road cyclists called ‘Privateer’. Due for release late August. Should be interesting.
UPDATE: looks like there’s a website: http://www.privateer.cc/

pic by placid casual via flickr

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long, but I realise now that I’ve battling in an ongoing internal conflict of bicycles vs bicycling.
Most of my work time awake is taken up with bicycles. Building bicycles, designing bicycles, talking to customers about bicycles, ordering parts for bicycles, staring at tubes of metal that will…  read the rest

It seems lke I’m getting asked for a ton of of forks these days. All sorts of stuff, road forks with fancy crowns, old school curved blade unicrowns and new tapered blade 29er forks. All good. I finally replaced my very old crotchety fork jig with a nice new Anvil jig. That should speed things up…  read the rest

Following on from yesterdays post about retrofitting S&S couplers, I thought I’d post a reminder that I can also do frame modifications to make your steel frame compatible with a belt drive.

The current belt drive that’s on the market is the Gates belt marketed by Carbon Drive.
Since the belt can’t be broken and rejoined, the…  read the rest

This past few weeks have been a blur of repairs, modifications, odd new builds, conversions (recumbent trike!) and non-bike metalwork shenanigans.
I had a few people ask me recently if I do S&S conversions? Well I do. I can do these on new bike builds and as a retrofit option on most steel bikes.

For those…  read the rest

I’ve managed to juggle round some other work and freed up some additional time for new frame builds. So if you’re looking to get something built between now and start of Summer get in contact with me. If you’re already in the build queue and would welcome a shift higher up the list, let me…  read the rest

Well, it’s been 3 months since I last posted anything here and more than that since I last posted any meaningful bike/framebuilding stuff.
I have been pretty busy in the workshop over the last couple of months but I’ve been getting lazier and lazier about taking and posting pics and getting anything online. This was mostly…  read the rest

I’m off on hols. I’ll be away for 2 weeks. If you’re trying to reach me and I don’t respond, that’s why.

Currently playing in iTunes: The Tale of Lonesome Fetter by Black Francis

Got out yesterday for my first ride off-road in ages. Went down to Glentress with Fat Al, AndyJ and JJ. Remembered how unfit I am at the moment. Took my cross bike down so between the 4 of us we had 2 full suspension 26″ (Santa Cruz and Giant) one 29er single speed front suspension…  read the rest

Leadville Trail 100

I have been having some issues with my email server over the past few days so if you’ve recently sent me an email and not received a reply, it might be an idea to try again.

Nice 700c rando with twin plate fork crown just back from paint. Pics are a bit weird, colour is much more aquamarine but it just looks blue in the pics.

more here ….

So I f’d up. Was building a fork that should have been 1-1/8″ but built it 1″ by mistake. So now it needs a new home.

1″ ahead steerer
700c
canti mounts
low rider rack mounts
mudguard and rack mounts at droupout (2)

It’s not drilled for a center/side-pull but it can be. I have the technology.
Can’t remember the atc…  read the rest

Well, unsurprisingly, after a pretty productive week in the workshop, I came down with some kind of flu bug which kept me in bed for a few days and out of the workshop all week.

I’m pretty sure this wasn’t swine flu, bird flu or any other random animal flu. Just plain old man flu.
Feeling…  read the rest

Been a busy time in the workshop this week. Lots of repairs, catching up on building some new fixtures, couple of forks, finished one frame and started up on another.

Currently playing in iTunes: Five Cups Of Coffee by The Jayhawks

So I just got delivery of some custom drawn 29er downtubes. There’s not much choice in 29er downtubes, they need to be long, especially for suspension (corrected) frames. I’m thinking some dimensions got lost in translation!

Currently playing in iTunes: Guilty by Kenny Roby & Neal Casal

This is a nice little video from geekhouse.
Geekhouse Movie from Geekhouse Bikes on Vimeo.

Tom came by to pick up his frame and forks last night. It’s a 29er singlespeed with sliding dropouts. The colour was RAL 8015 (Chestnut Brown). I expected this to be darker and more chocolately but it’s much more reddish than I thought. It’s really nice. I like it a lot. I’m pretty sure I’ll…  read the rest

I’ve had a few enquiries recently asking if I can build Rohloff equipped frames. Well, yes I can. I’ll also happily supply the hubs and build the wheels. There’s a few options to consider, but you can go for a standard bottom bracket with adjustable sliding dropouts, standard (sort of) dropouts with an eccentric bottom…  read the rest

…whenever see a nice bike, the first thing I look at is the dropouts. Actually what I look at is the dropout/stay junction. I’m obsessed. Unfortunately, because of this I spend waaaayyyy too much time on getting my dropouts to look just the way I want.
Here’s some pics of some dropout goodness. These are…  read the rest

Michael, you called but the number you left must have been written down wrong ’cause it no worky. Give me another call or drop me an email.
Sorry about that.

There’s some discussions on framebuilding mailing lists and forums at the moment concerned with mitering tubes and what the best set-up is.
A couple of people have asked me how I do mine and if I use a fancy jig or not, so I thought I’d post a quick run down on how I miter…  read the rest

view from the workshop backdoor

Currently playing in iTunes: State Of The Nation by Deltron

Wow, things have been very slow in the workshop this past few days. It’s been about -68° out there, Jane’s now 11 months pregnant and Jack (our 3 year old) has chickenpox. Hopefully this weekend will see more progress.
Currently playing in iTunes: Blow Wind Blow by Kenny Roby

Now that we’ve got some slotted chainstays, I’m fitting them up in the jig with the dropouts in place to make sure everything fits nice and snug.

Since the stays are at an angle to the centerline of the frame, they come away from the dropouts at an angle. Normally you can achieve this by either…  read the rest

From back in the day when it was ok to use the term ‘roost’ without being ironic.
Currently playing in iTunes: Louie Louie by Motörhead

Sometimes I slot my stays by hand and sometimes I use the lathe. I’ve got a pretty good setup for the lathe that’s quick and repeatable so I do more that way although doing them by hand (hacksaw and file) isn’t much slower.

I find a get a more accurate cut on the lathe and…  read the rest

Seattube/toptube cluster. This is immediately after brazing and still has a load of flux residue on it. The flux is applied before brazing as a paste and hardens to a crusty crystalised coating during the brazing process. I use water soluble flux so a couple of hours of soaking in the dunk tank and it…  read the rest

One of the problems with running disk brakes is that it’s really difficult to get a neat solution to installing a rear rack. If the mounts are positioned in the right place, they almost always place the rack in a position to foul the caliper. There are a few solutions to this and probably the…  read the rest

This made me laugh. You can buy these top caps and support Shaggy in his entry into Iditarod by clicking on the pic above.
Currently playing in iTunes: We Rule the School by Belle & Sebastian

Here’s a pic of Toms 29er Singlespeed in the jig. Front triangle only. This is going to have some nice swoopy s-bend stays and Paragon sliding dropouts.
What colour Tom??

Currently playing in iTunes: The Goat (Instrumental) by The High Llamas

Things are hotting up for the 1st European Handmade Bicycle Expo. I guess partly inspired by the North American Handmade Bike Show, Indra from 2SoulsCycles has worked pretty hard to put on a show in Europe.
Running over the weekend of 8-10 May, some of Europes finest builders will exhibit their wares in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Southern…  read the rest

Another long time between posts…..
Things have been pretty busy. Good festive period but got dragged down by a horrible flu thing that seemed to last for ever. Spent Christmas in Braemar with the family. Very nice. Jack managed to find some snow to do some sledging.

Been pretty busy in the workshop. Felt like I…  read the rest

For the framebuilders out there following my blog, I should let you know that I have a ton of ISCG05 mounts to sell.
I was doing these by hand but got pretty bored so had a bunch waterjet cut for me. They’re designed for the Paragon Machine Works bottom brackets so have an internal ID of…  read the rest

Not mine, these are from Dave Bohm. Me likey.

shamelessly stolen form the VC-Moulin guys.

Currently playing in iTunes: Ed is Dead by Frank Black

I’m off on holiday for a wee while so if you’re trying to get in touch, be patient, normal service will resume in a couple of weeks.
Currently playing in iTunes: Fixin’ To Die by Bob Dylan

The last frame with the star & SC logo has been finished and sent out. Frames from now on will have a new headbadge design. The new design is the logo on the banner at the top of the page. I liked the star but after doing a couple of stainless and copper headbadges, it…  read the rest

more here
Currently playing in iTunes: Ballad Of The Broken Seas by Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

more here
Currently playing in iTunes: Give Judy My Notice by Ben Folds

this just in from Keith Anderson Cycles

Currently playing in iTunes: God Damn Lonesome Blues by Pete Molinari

So, Andy was heading out to Napa (California) for the Single Speed World Champs but his trusty old Kona had snapped a drop-out. He gave me a call and I cut out his old drops and fitted some tasty sliding dropouts just in time for him to fly out.
I stumbled across this while looking through…  read the rest

Just a quick note to say I’m not taking any new orders for frames at the moment. This has been a pretty crappy year so far I’m way behind on things. My intention is to finish my last build around March and take about 6 months out to catch up on some other projects and…  read the rest

Well it’s nearly 2 months since I posted and it’s been a shitty 2 months too. All sorts of stuff is happening and none of it good.
I don’t normally post personal or non-bike related stuff here but there’s a first for everything! Some of you may know that my mum was diagnosed with cancer 3…  read the rest

from the Giro

here’s his response.

As a result of my last post (29er deals), someone asked if I had a mailing list. With the advent of being able to subscribe to posts using RSS I hadn’t given much thought to creating a mailing list. However since it won’t take much time to do, I figured I’ll create one anyway.
If you…  read the rest

I’ve got a limited number of tubesets available for 29er builds. I got these tubesets really cheap and I’d like to turn them over ASAP so it looks like I can do a 29er frame, fillet brazed, full custom geometry, breezer drop-outs (or ss), single colour powdercoat for about £500.
As well as limited tubesets I’ve…  read the rest

Things have been pretty busy. Just back from a week in tenerife.

Pete’s bike is finally done, lots of things conspired to make this build late so thanks for the patience Pete. It’s off to China. To see the kind of riding Pete will be doing check out his fotopic site here.

More fotos here.
Next up is…  read the rest

Here we go with some more pics of Petes frame. I’ve taken my eye off the ball with photos of the build sequence for this one. Since the workshop flooded and I fell a bit behind, I’ve been concentrating on getting things done and have forgotten to photo and document stuff as much as I’d…  read the rest

I don’t normally just link to other posts out in blogland but this makes very good reading.

The North American Handmade Bike Show is this weekend in Portland Oregon.
This has become THE show for handmade framebuilders and although it’s obviously oriented towards builders on the other side of the pond, there’s a few European folks exhibiting.
I’ll probably post quite a few pics over the next few days of what I like from…  read the rest

I hate this shit weather.
So last week we had some crazy mad weather, wind and rain like I’ve never seen before. Upshot was the workshop got flooded. Water got in through the roof and through one of the ill fitting windows. Also managed to pool up on the outside of one of the brick…  read the rest

Apparently Sheldon Brown had a massive heart attack yesterday and sadly passed away. Although he’s been suffering with MS recently, I’m led to believe this was unexpected.
A sad day indeed.

Apparently Mario Cipollini has some pretty hefty tax bills to pay so he’s coming out of retirement at age 40. He’s signed to the controversial (some say) Rock Racing team.

Currently playing in iTunes: Fable of the Brown Age by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

Here’s a pic of a fat boy riding his Shand at the Single Speed World Champs in Aviemore in 2007.

Many thanks to Simon Barnes for the image. More of his excellent photography can be found on his flickr site.
I especially like

This is quite interesting….

Which reminded me of this poster I noticed the last time I was at the Transport Museum in Glasgow.

Currently playing in iTunes: The Drunken Sailor by Jim Eldon

Here’s the toptube/headtube join just out of the soak tank.

Clean up the flux residue with a wire brush. Short time with some files and we’ll have a nice smooth fillet.

Pictures of the finished joint coming up next.
Currently playing in iTunes: Play Me Something by Roddy Woomble

I’ve put a couple of new posts up on the build page.
You can get to them by clicking the build link at the top of the page or by clicking here
Currently playing in iTunes: Four Strong Winds by Neil Young

Main tubes cut, mitred, cleaned and set up in the jig. A small amount of flux is added to each joint (the red stuff) and small ‘tack’ brazes are laid down to hold the frame together. Normally I tack at 6, 12, 3 and 9 o’clock. The order of these tacks are quite important. When…  read the rest

A mountain bike based on the geo of Petes existing bike, a Trek 8500.
35mm seattube with internal sleeve (31.6 seatpost). Columbus Life tubing mostly but with a Reynolds downtube.
Although bike will be built with rigid forks, they’re suspension corrected. The frame is a pretty big and with the long forks, the downtube length was bigger…  read the rest

I’ll have some pics and stuff up here soon…..

I’ve added a new section to the site called ‘builds’. You should see it up there on the top alongside the other navigation stuff. You can also get to it by clicking here.
It’s an attempt to get better at documenting the builds that I do. We’ll see how it goes. Ideally I’d like to make…  read the rest

check this out!

Currently playing in iTunes: Rudderless by The Lemonheads

I’ve entered the 2008 Etape Caledonia which is a closed road Audax style event that takes place in the Scottish Highlands. Entering serves a number of purposes, namely the enjoyment of the ride itself, a driving force to help get me out there on the bike on horrible wet and windy mornings and lastly the…  read the rest

So, the longest (slowest?) frame build in the world is done. For full history of this build check back in the archives, I think the first post was in about 1975. Anyway here’s some pics of it in its raw unfinished state, some of the frame just back from the painters and a couple of…  read the rest

Things have been pretty busy round here recently. In an effort to lessen my workload, I’ve taken on a quality control officer. He’s pretty cheap and doesn’t take up much room.
Here he is inspecting a seattube.

One of the selling point of my frames is that they double up as brass instruments. Here’s Jack checking the…  read the rest

This is pretty good. I’ve seen loads of these kind of videos around and most of them induce nowt much more than a yawn but for some reason I can’t stop watching this one!

I originally saw this on Craig Hardie’s blog but came across it again on youtube so everyone’s probably already seen it.

Further to the 650B discussion we’ve been having, there’s an interview with Kirk Pacenti (the man behind the current 650B movement) filmed at Interbike this year where he goes into a bit of detail behind his rationale of this wheel size.
You can see the interview on the Dirt Rag site. As well as that clip,…  read the rest

me likey this:

Currently playing in iTunes: At the W.A.L by King Creosote

Ok, so after my next to last post was, erm, posted, I got 2 emails from readers asking what the hell I was talking about. So here goes with a little bit of explanation of what 650B is.
First we need to do a little refresher course on wheel sizes. For this I’m going to stick…  read the rest

I’ve put together a wee collection of framebuilding videos from youtube over the past few months and thought I might make a link to them form here. Some are quite interesting and some are shite. I’ll let you work out what’s what. Anyway, you can see them here or click on the image above.
Currently playing…  read the rest

Wow, no posts since the start of August!!
I need to get back on the case with this thing. Well, what’s happening? A few builds currently underway and in the pipeline. Some pretty interesting stuff that I’ll try and get some pictures of.
I’ve been toying with the idea of offering a 650B mountain bike frame but…  read the rest

Solitude Cycles have announced that they’ve ceased trading.
I think it’s sad that a small, obviously popular, independent bike company has closed it’s doors.
To be honest I’ve never really understood how Solitude worked and it’s existence puzzled me. For those that didn’t know, Solitude was a design shop. You got Alex to design and spec your…  read the rest

The stays are tacked and I’m doing a sanity check to make sure the clearances are ok. This is a Conti 2.2 2.3 and all looks good.

Tags: garysBike

Another short post. Main triangle tacked and in the workstand ready to be brazed.

Short post this one. Main triangle, In the jig, cut and mitered ready for tacking.

I was going through my site stats and found some interesting reading regarding the terms that people have typed into search engines and arrived at my site. I like the fact that Robin Mather comes second but in front of Shand Cycles!
Here’s the list, in order of hits.

shand bikes
robin mather
shand cycles
ritchey tubing dropouts
steven shand
shandcycles
robin mather…  read the rest

Bottle Bosses
Here’s a few pics of the bottle bosses on Gary’s bike. No bosses on the seattube to make it easier to slide the seatpost all the way down. Bosses on the down tube nearer the bottom bracket to enable easy use of a big bottle. 2nd set of bosses placed on the bottom of…  read the rest

Brazing the drop outs to the chainstays.
Dropouts on Gary’s bike are Ritchey socket dropouts. I like these and they’re pretty easy to work with. They do require a bit of work to remove the casting marks but clean up pretty well. I like their compact size. They’re pretty similar to the Breezer socket dropouts but…  read the rest

Had a surprise visitor to the workshop last night. Was filing away in the vice when something moving on the bench caught my eye. Looked up to see a little fella answering this description looking up at me.

Apparently discovered my stash of winter nuts for the birds and was settling down for a nice evening…  read the rest

I’ve decided to start putting a lot of the tools I use online. Most of these tools I’ve written to help with common tasks like unit conversion and so on. I’ll be working through them and making sure they’re in a worthy state to publish. I’ll link to them from here as I make them…  read the rest

I found this kinda funny.
Currently playing in iTunes: Watching Xanadu by Mull Historical Society

Facing the head-tube and bottom bracket shell.
The frame jig holds the head-tube and bb-shell centered between cones so it’s pretty important that both of these parts have parallel faces. Both are faced in the lathe. I add a small chamfer to the inside of the tube that matches the taper of the cones on the…  read the rest

There’s a really nice little short film about Sacha White of Vanilla Bicycles available here. It’s worth a look. Nice music too.

taken from the inspirational bikerodnkustom
Currently playing in iTunes: Pick Up The Change by Wilco

Another non-bike related post.

My wife Jane’s doing a wee run soon with the aim of raising some money for Cancer Research UK. It’s a cause that some of you might know is pretty close to us.
Anyway, you can donate online here: Race for Life.

Just back from a couple of weeks in Northern Michigan
We stayed in this cabin….

.. which is near the small town of Grayling.
(seems like everyone needs a flag over there)
A good time was had despite the -11ºC weather! We got a little bit of walking done but we were badly prepared and didn’t really come with…  read the rest

It’s pretty important when building a frame that you know where where the butts are.
A frame tube normally has a thicker part at each end. Although the outside of the tube looks the same along it’s length, the internal diameter varies. This essentially allows you to make a tube which is very light (thin in…  read the rest

I’m sure there was a “Gary’s Bike (part 4)” post. It had a drawing of the frame with wheels and bars etc. It was sort of minty green. It’s not here no more. Weird.
UPDATE: thanks to the google cache it’s back

Got all the parts for Gary’s bike gathered together.
Ready to be cut mitred and prepped.
Here’s a sneak preview!

In my day job (programmer), we’re pretty ok about diving into something and ’spiking’ something out to see if an idea’s got wings or if it’s just dumb. It’s easy to do this with something like programming as the cost of change is really low. In other words if you spend a couple of hours…  read the rest

Somebody asked me if I had a way of visualising a full bike when designing a frame. The answer is yes. The drawing I posted earlier was a stripped down drawing that makes it easy to read dimensions. It’s also possible to produce the drawing with more detail. Even including a view with a rider…  read the rest

THIS FRAME IS NOW SOLD
More stuff from the clear out. This time it’s an 18.5″ 2002 Rocky Mountain Hammer frame. Very good condition, again usual scratches and chips you’d expect. No dents or dings. Braze ons for disk or cantis.
You can see it here. You can see all my ebay items here.
Here’s a piccy of…  read the rest

THIS FRAME IS NOW SOLD
I’m doing a clear out so I’m putting some stuff up on ebay. First to go is a 58cm(c-t) 2000 Lemond Tourmalet frame. It’s in good condition, usual scratches and chips you’d expect on a used frame but certainly doesn’t look 7 years old.
You can see it here. I’ve got other…  read the rest

Checking fork crown clearance.
The CAD tool I use for drawing frames lets you enter dimensions of the fork crown itself, and when combined with the stack height of the lower head-set race, lets you check if the adjusters on your fork are likely to ding the down-tube or not.
You can see here that with the…  read the rest

The seat-tube
Garys bike’s going to have 35mm seat-tube. That’s pretty big. Most steel frames have 28.6 or 31.8 seat-tubes but this is going to be much bigger. There are a few other steel bikes out there that use seat-tubes this big, possibly the most well known is the WTB Phoenix. Gary has a lovely Phoenix…  read the rest

I’m about to start a new frame for my friend Gary. He’s asked if I can document it’s progress so I figured I’d write about it here. There’s also a flickr set with the images for the build.
The design of the frame is mostly Gary’s with some input from me as we went along. Not…  read the rest

These are weird!

I think it’s mostly targeted at the recumbent and chair market.
This is an example of something that my head tells me is dumb but somehow I can’t help liking it!
Currently playing in iTunes: Conspiracy Theory by Steve Earle

There’s now loads of pics out there from NAHBS so I’m going to post one last mini set here that came from flickr. Click on the images to take you to that pic amongst others.

Currently playing in iTunes: Pristina by Faith No More

someone has an obsession…..
platedforkcrown

there’s some great stuff on there.

Courtesy of flickr

Currently playing in iTunes: Farewell My Love by Seth Lakeman

This time courtesy of Steve @ Coconino Cycles

Currently playing in iTunes: Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You by Rilo Kiley

It’s The North American Handmade Bicycle Show at the moment (well it’s just finished actually). I thought I’d post some pics and links of what I’ve liked that’s come out of the show so far
First batch courtesy of cylofiend.

I feel pretty bad about posting this as I’m sure it works for some and the guy’s just trying to make a living but, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?”
The bit I like best is the instructions:

Place the saddle in a level position.
Position the seat area of the saddle at the same height as your original…  read the rest

I’ve been getting loads of requests recently for retro-fitting disc brake mounts to older steel frames. People don’t seem quite sure what’s involved and how to go about it. The good news is that on most frames it’s a pretty simple (and cheap) process that involves brazing on a disk tab and in almost all…  read the rest

Seems like not much has ben happening lately. Bike stuff in the workshop has been pretty low key. Frame repairs mostly and I got to finish (braze-ons, cable guides, alignment, reaming and facing) a bunch of road/touring frames that had been built a few years ago by another builder and never finished.
Almost done on the…  read the rest

I’ve gone Pink For October.
UPDATE:it’s november now so it’s not pink no more!

You could too.
Currently playing in iTunes: Johnny Too Bad by Steve Earle

A friend of mine, Phil Williamson died last Sunday. Even as I’m typing this it seems unreal. Phil was 44 years old. I met Phil about 16 or 17 years ago when I wnt to work for his brother in what was then Williamson Cycles, a bike shop in Stockbridge, Edinburgh. I was into bikes…  read the rest

I think it must have been a joke, but my request for someone to show me something nice from Eurobike spawned this monstrosity.

That should be against the law.
Currently playing in iTunes: Bridal Train (Studio Version) by The Waifs

Not sure if I like this or not. I think I do.

Currently playing in iTunes: Tank Park Salute by Billy Bragg

Yawn

I’m sure it’s way better if you’re actually there but I can’t believe how uninspired I am by all the pics coming out of Germany this year. It’s so bad that this Kona Paddywagon is about the best thing I’ve seen so far and it’s boring now too. Please someone show me something nice!
Currently…  read the rest

Don’t ask why but I’ve just bought this:

I’m going to strip it down and rebuild it. As if I don’t have any other projects on the go!
It’s a Myford ML4 (I think) which they stopped making in about 1946 so I guess that makes it something like 60 years old. I know pretty much diddly-squat…  read the rest

I’m liking this! Robin Mather’s new site is up on-line and this section caught my eye:
Bikes make pretty good transport. They are even better if you can carry stuff easily and not get covered in muck if the roads are wet. If you buy a frame from me with provision for fitting a rack and…  read the rest

NOW SOLD!

UPDATE:now on ebay.
I’m selling my Surly Crosscheck frame and forks. According to the computer that’s on it at the moment it’s done less than 600 miles. It’s in excellent condition
It’s really a great bike and I’ve no complaints about it at all but it’s just not being used enough to justify keeping.
It’ll go on…  read the rest

I’m sure bikely has been around for a while but i’ve only just come across it.
I tried it by entering a little route we did last week on holiday. It’s pretty short but we had Jack in the trailer so it felt much longer!
Duntelchaig Loop
Currently playing in iTunes: Can’t Con an Honest John by The…  read the rest

I’m, like, totally digging this!
Currently playing in iTunes: It Covers the Hillside by Midlake

Here’s something I’m struggling with a little bit…. In the past I’ve always pretty much agreed with Grant Peterson of Rivendell when he talks about the madness of bikes not having rack-mounts or clearance or eyes for mudguards. It seemed to make sense to me. For the additional cost/weight/whatever, why not just bung ‘em on….  read the rest

I’ve moved the site over to use a new backend so things will probably look a bit different. This is also the last post that will appear on the old blog rss-feed url (http://www.shandcycles.com/blog/rss.xml). If you’re seeing this page through a browser you can subscribe to the new feed using the ‘rss’ link above. If…  read the rest

I’ve added a new set of pics to the gallery.
This is a mountain bike that was built for a friend. As sometimes happens with these things, doing stuff for mates is sometimes harder than doing stuff for people you don’t know. As a result, Al’s had a long wait for this bike. It took me…  read the rest

Since the arrival of our son Jack, I’ve been pondering some different ideas for getting some riding done while he’s around. I like the idea of a trailer but most trailers suggest that the kids need to be anywhere from 12-18 months before they can get in the trailer.
Since Jack’s only just turned a month…  read the rest

Guitar Ted’s written up a little bit on setup of Midge bars. You can find it here.
I still haven’t done any more on adjusting my setup. I’ve probably only done about 100 miles on that bike since I last wrote about it.
Currently playing in iTunes: Up To My Neck In You by Mark Kozelek

Things have been a bit mad here recently. We have a new addition to the family.
Meet jack.

Currently playing in iTunes: White Men In The Black Suits by Everclear

Someone asked me for some pics of how I put together some sliding dropouts I got a while ago. I’ve added some pics to the gallery. Pics are of a mountain bike frame with 16mm constant diameter stays. Silver brazed to the stainless drops.
Currently playing in iTunes: It’s You by PJ Harvey

I’ve added a new resources section to the website. I’ll be adding to this over the next few days and weeks as I sort through my existing (lack of) filing system.
Currently playing in iTunes: Living In The Country by Martin Stephenson & Friends

In a previous life when I worked in a bike-shop in Edinburgh (sometime around 1990/91 I think), top end drool-worthy bikes came mostly from small independent US brands. We didn’t get a lot of these bikes in and we sold even less, most to staff at discount prices. There were 3 frames that stick in…  read the rest

Seems like Campagnolo have re-entered the mountain bike market for 2006. Their product range now include Linear Pull Brakes (v-brakes to me and you) and flat-bar shifters/levers.
The brakes kinda remind me of cheap Tektro but I guess they must be nicer than that. The blurb describes the levers as having aluminium blades but they look…  read the rest

I was in the process of updating the site using a new simpler design but had a couple of problems, so the site at the moment is in a bit of a mess. Everything worked as planned on my non-live site but I’m having some problems with the blog server I use so the blog…  read the rest

I’m afraid I made a real amateurs mistake of not checking this website on other browsers before it went live.
When I was building this website, I never really thought I was doing anything complicated and made a real mistake by never checking it in IE on Windows. I’m a Mac user and use either Omniweb…  read the rest

Pretty good essay on geometry for 29ers. Look back in his archive and there’s some other interesting pieces discussing bike geometry.
Guitar Ted Productions
Currently playing in iTunes: Goddess On A Hiway by Mercury Rev

I’m in the process of moving shandcycles.com over to a new server. If you’re reading this then I’m pretty sure it’s done.
Next on the hitlist is moving the mail server too. Since that just seems to work using some kind of smtp/imap black magic, I’m anticipating more problems than just moving the webserver and blogserver.
If…  read the rest

This comes via bikebiz and makes me laugh…
Even Lance looks confused…what I’m I doing here???
UPDATE: the drongos in question have realized their error and the pic has now been replaced.
I suspected they’d realize, so I’ve taken a screenshot of it and you can see the original here.

my mate Gaz put me on to this. Some of the fotos are awesome!
http://www.mountainbikeroots.com/

picked up a new jig/fixture this week. It was built for me a really nice guy called Joe Bringheli. Joe’s in Ohio and has been really helpful with getting me sorted with this new jig. I’m still undecided on the best way to mount it but so far I’ve got it on my roof hanging…  read the rest

Someone on the on-one forum asked about the Midge bars on my cross bike (really feel like a fraud since I don’t race cross, what else can I call it??) and how they compared to WTB dirt drops.
my response:
I’ve never ridden with the WTBs but believe they’re very similar to my usual bar (Specialized Rock…  read the rest

I won’t be around for the next week. We’re heading up North to Contin for break. If anything’s urgent, leave a message on my mobile number and I’ll get back to you. I won’t have internet access so I won’t be picking up email for a week. Back in the land of the connected on…  read the rest

OK, so I got the gallery thing working and have posted some images of a recently finished 700c cross type thing. Built primarily for day rides, on and off road, quick handling but comfy in the saddle all day.
Fillet brazed with a mix of Columbus Zona/Life tubes. Disk only, no canti mounts.
I wanted to see…  read the rest