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

shamelessly stolen form the VC-Moulin guys.

Currently playing in iTunes: Ed is Dead by Frank Black

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 some of the flickr sets.

the quote from the photo:

Andy from Scotland, winner of a trick blue Raleigh singlespeed for bringing the ugliest klunker to the race.

Nice one.

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 start building again towards the end of next year, maybe October or November.

Drop me a line if you want to be notified when I start taking orders again and I’ll make sure to send you an email when I do.

For those of you who have paid a deposit, your frame will come as agreed. There are a couple of you who have asked to be on the build list but haven’t paid a deposit yet, you need to contact me pretty soon if you still want to get a frame when we agreed.

I’ll still be taking on repairs and it looks like I’ve found a good powdercoater to work with so I’ll be offering a refinishing service pretty soon too.

Currently playing in iTunes: If You Don’t Want My Love by Kenny Roby & Neal Casal

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 years ago. Well the shittiest news is that she passed away last month after a very long hard struggle. I’m not going to go into any detail on here but it was an important enough event that has impacted on my day to day life, so I don’t think I could carry on writing here without mentioning it.

Well that’s that bit done.

I’ve had limited time in the workshop but things are slowly getting back to normal in that respect. I totally took my eye off the ball over the last couple of months and as well as dumb mistakes I made in the workshop that cost me little more than time, blood and skin, a couple of things happened that meant other folks were inconvenienced. I owe a big apology to Pete who’s peddling off to China as I write. Al, your frame’s here for repair but I haven’t even opened the box yet! That’s almost at the top of the list along with your repair too Gaz. It’ll get done ASAP.

I have managed to get some things out but almost everything’s been late.

James your frame is almost done and will go to the painters next week. Robyn, yours is together and only needs chainstays and seatstays!

Emma, you need to contact me with a decision on wheel size.

Here’s some random pics:

Seattube slot. Robyn’s or James’ not sure which….

Using the lathe to miter a seattube for the bb.

I’ve built 4 Rohloff wheels this month already. Here’s some hanging up.

This is James’s frame from behind. Nice curvy s-bend stays.

Testing the macro on my camera! This is the seatstay/seattube mitre. I do this one by hand.

Think this is James’ bike again. Probably checking clearances.

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 want to be added to the mailing list add your email to the box below and submit it to me. I’m not sure how often I’ll do a mail out but given it’ll be less than my posts here, you’ll probably get an email about once every 3 years!

Currently playing in iTunes: House Carpenter by Natalie Merchant

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 also got pretty limited slots available in the build diary so if you’ve been thinking about a 29er let me know.

Currently playing in iTunes: Uniforms by Ken Stringfellow

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 to finalise the designs for a couple of Rohloff off-road tourers for Robyn and James. I’d hoped to get the designs for these done about a month ago but they’ll get sorted now I’m back. Honest!

The next build coming up is a rigid singlespeed 26er for Tim and then a Rohloff all-rounder 700 (or maybe 650B, hint hint) for Emma. It’s all good.

Currently playing in iTunes: Where The Wild Roses Grow by Nick Cave & Leonard Cohen