Checking out Lance’s bike a little while ago reminded me that Paragon Machine Works are folks you should definitely know about – they’re probably the most innovative and best known US manufacturer of titanium frame parts. Famous for their sliding dropouts, that let you control chain tension on a singlespeed, they also produce Read more
As I mentioned in the previous post, here’s a quick review of the Victorian engineer’s classic ‘Bicycles & Tricycles’ by Archibald Sharp: There are two distinct elements, on the one hand you’ve got a detailed mechanical engineering textbook, and on the other, a fascinating insight into the Read more
OK, two things came together this week in a very interesting way: Firstly I’d been going through a list of peoples favourite books on bicycle design from a thread over on SingletrackWorld. I’d ordered up a copy of the most excellently titled ‘Bicycles and Tricycles: A Classic Treatise on Their Read more
Here we go, I promised myself I’d dig some numbers up to prove this… Bigger or thicker? One of the common things people do to increase the stiffness of a frame is to increase the wall thickness of the tubing, typically going up from 0.9mm to 1.2mm. Now most commercial Read more
And number two rolls off the production line: Based on this drawing: This time I’d been reading up about the latest hardtail thinking around geometry and tube sizes. It’s got a much more contemporary spec to it which has sorted the handling. Compared to Ti-Bride the top and down tubes Read more
The one that started it all; Ti-Bride looks like this: And was spawned from this drawing: As I’ve mentioned elsewhere this was my first attempt at a titanium frame and while it turned out OK there were a couple of issues which made me want to have another go Read more
So – here are the built-up pics at last. I did build her up and go for a test ride not long after the frame arrived, but that reminded me that the front end felt really high, so I wanted to get it set up properly before taking any pictures! I’ve seen Read more