A one-off bike design is a labor-intensive endeavour. The tubing must be cut and fishmouthed with sub-millimeter precision so that all the pieces fit snugly together—no small accomplishment considering there are dozens of crazy angles, offsets, and diameters to factor in. All the pieces of the frame must then be held securely by a jig while the joints are tack-welded. The finish welds must be made carefully to minimize twisting and stress buildup caused by uneven heating. To avoid creating an area susceptible to future corrosion, a welder should be as concerned with the appearance of the inside of the joint as well as that of the outside. For this reason, argon gas is used to displace the air inside the frame during the welding process.
Beyond pure craftsmanship, there are plenty of opportunities for artistic touches on a custom frame. My rear dropouts, for example, pay homage to those of a Wright Brothers bicycle at the Henry Ford Museum. The seat tube is reinforced with a hand-carved lug. Above, my frame builder turns a custom seatpost binder bolt on the lathe.
Continued in part 4…
 |
Harpoon Five Miler (June 6). Finally, a race for a cause I can support—two free pints of beer! |
|
The 100th Anniversary of the MIT Radio Society (June 7). I was once the president of this organization. A very unusual crowd! Seated to my right was Gordon from the class of 1948, who was drafted in his sophomore year and sent to Austria to perform SIGINT on Nazi communications. On my left, Clayton, a Harvard grad student studying the role of the Interstate Highway System on the spread of conservativism in rural American neighborhoods. That's just the tip of the iceberg. |
|
The Jimmy Fund Scooper Bowl (June 10). I'm getting my PhD in all-you-can-eat ice cream studies. |
|
Buzz Aldrin and the Boston Pops (June 11). The legendary fighter pilot, orbital mechanics expert, astronaut, and moonwalker, looking sprightly and athletic at 79 years, narrated a Pops performance of Holst’s The Planets synchronized to a stunning large-screen display of scientific imagery from outer space. An unforgettable, staggeringly cool experience. “One small step for man?” This guy was standing right there! On the fucking moon! 239,000 miles away! The Pops really ran with the motif, also playing Also Sprach Zarathustra, themes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek and Star Wars, and a hilarious Moon Medley Sing-Along (featuring everything from “Fly Me to the Moon” to “Moondance” and “Bad Moon Rising”). |
|
Taking pictures while my bicycle gets built. |
|
Sailing in Boston Harbor. Give me a few more weeks and I'll stop it with the accidental jibes. |
 |
Jellyfish. On a recent outing the harbor was full of these critters, including a small swarm that appeared to be chasing a styrofoam coffee cup. (Mommy?) |
|
Chris Piascik at the Chorus Gallery (June 13). An art gallery attached to an urban bike shop? You bet. Too bad this place has a serious hipster infestation. |
|
Narragansett Beer. The new PBR. This is not a good development. |
 |
Darkrooms. Years from now, in a time when children will ask their parents what film is, I will appeal to retro artiste sensibilities by unveiling a cologne scented like ammonium thiosulphate. Mmm, darkroom! |
|
The 6th Annual Printing Arts Fair (June 21). Fantastic live demonstrations of all types of printing. For a small fee one could typeset custom stationery on the Linotype and walk home with paper (and souvenir metal slug) just 20 minutes later. A group of artists printed large-format woodcuts with a steamroller in the parking lot. Papermaking and bookbinding crafts were on display. Dozens of art-house printers from around New England were hawking their wares. Wet ink looks delicious. Type is a beautiful thing. |
The first step in getting a custom bicycle is the fitting process. At the heart of this procedure is a ridiculous-looking stationary bike on which pretty much every length and angle is adjustable. It sounded simple enough. I showed up with bike shorts, shoes, and pedals. We attached an appropriate-looking set of handlebars and adjusted the geometry to closely mimic that of my old bike. From this starting point, we could tune the fit to maximize comfort and efficiency.
Two things surprised me. First, that I could easily tell the difference between seemingly subtle changes. Would I prefer a seat tube angle of 72.0 or 72.5 degrees? Just like an eye exam, when you have the ability to switch back and forth between A and B, you develop surprisingly strong preferences. Secondly, the number of variables involved is overwhelming to the novice. I came in thinking about quantities that are fixed in steel, like seat tube length, seat tube angle, top tube length, and so on, but I hadn’t considered the way things like crank length, saddle position, stem length, stem angle, and handlebar shape and placement would affect my perception of the other things. At least your eye prescription involves only three numbers! (And you don’t have to break a sweat verifying the results.)
One of the most satisfying things about the fitting process was dialing in geometry based purely on biometrics. The top tube height will provide just the right amount of stand-over clearance from my crotch, and the saddle will be positioned so that my patella is directly over the pedal spindle at 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock, maximizing power transfer. The latter is verified with a plumb bob.
As good as the fitting process is, I left with a few big questions. One was crank length. Should I stay with 175 mm or switch to 172.5 mm? The fitting bike offered the ability to change this variable, but while I could tell the difference, I still did not develop a preference. The industry has developed all kinds of “rules” but the biggest factor seems to be cadence. I read a bunch of academic studies on cadence vs. efficiency, but within the range of “reasonable” values the results seem inconclusive. Maybe it’s just a preference?
A more challenging variable was steering geometry. How would I like my bike to steer? Responsive, fast, and twitchy? Relaxed, slow, and self-centering? This is something I had never thought about. Unfortunately there exists no gadget to evaluate all the variables—the fitting bike, being stationary, has no need for steering! My builder proposed some numbers that resulted in a seemingly high amount of trail. Not wanting to come this far and get something I don’t like, I did my research, compiling head tube angles and fork offsets for a variety of bikes. We came to a compromise that achieves a high-side-of-average trail with an unusually steep head tube angle and an unusually small amount of fork offset. (I am getting a handmade fork, so why not?)
One decision proved dramatically more difficult than all the others. The repercussions could be quite serious. On this decision, I waffled well beyond the drawing approval stage. I consulted with friends, toured bike shops, and scoured the Internet for help. I refer, of course, to the choice of color. Color is not a strength of mine, and the complete lack of restrictions made it all the more difficult. One color, two colors, or three? Fades? Flames? Masking? Metallic flecks? Iridescent finishes? Custom graphics under the clearcoat? I spent two weeks with a PPG automotive swatchbook to no avail. I wanted a paint job that was simple, attractive, and not overly flashy. I also wanted a color that was unavailable in a store-bought bike. Finally, inspiration struck in a Ducati motorcycle showroom: I found a Sport 1000 motorcycle painted in a gorgeous 1970’s retro yellow. Incredibly, Ducati lists no aftermarket paint formula for this color, but the painter said he would eyeball it. We’ll see how that turns out.
Continued in part 3…
Today is the last day of NTSC (analog) broadcasting in the U.S.—for real this time. Pictured here is a typical master control room built with 1990s technology. A Grass Valley master control switcher dominates the desk (along with the station log). In the left rack you see a screen with bulletins from network control, the Emergency Alert System console (with a paper tape printer!), a patch panel, and an intercom system. Below the preview monitor are controls for the upconverted HDTV broadcast. Below the program monitor, a pair of timers. In the right rack, we have a remote control console for the Harris transmitters (indicating 100% forward power), oscilloscopes displaying a horizontal video line and Lissajous figures of the stereo audio signal, and a Leitch logo inserter (aka “bug” generator). To the right is the control console for a Sony Betacart, which is a remarkably reliable 40-slot 4-deck robotic tape playback system. This equipment is probably all in a dumpster now.
I took this picture in late 2001, four minutes before the end of my shift.
