FRANK BIKES.

S&S Coupler Retrofit

2010-02-07T19:17:00.002-05:00

The meat and potatoes behind an S&S Coupler retrofit on Mike's Lemond Zurich. Ran out of time for polishing today. These couplers allow you to seperate the frame in two so that you can place an entire bike in a 26" case. The couplers, made by S&S machine are more rigid than a frame tube. Why pay oversize luggage fees, when you can pay for this modification in 2 or 3 round trip flights? My next personal frame is definitely going to have a set of these.

Winter T-Shirt Sale

2010-01-24T11:39:00.003-05:00

We are blowing out the remaining stock of our "Logo-Tread" t-shirts from 2009. These are locally screen printed on U.S. made, 100% cotton tees from American Apparel. We still have S, M, L, and XL, but quantities are very limited in some sizes. $10 includes shipping anywhere in the U.S. Just email me, chris@youarefrank.com, let me know what size you want, and we can arrange payment via PayPal! We'll be rolling out our next t-shirt design in the Spring.

Ted's Two-Tone Road Frame

2009-12-12T07:49:00.004-05:00

Ted's road frame is back from paint. This one features another set of Paragon Machine Works track dropouts with a rear derailleur hanger, so it's ready to ride as a fixed gear, single speed, or twenty speed. It has an over sized head tube to fit an Alpha Q carbon fork, which is painted to match the front. The scalloped seat stays are the most labor intensive part of the build but well worth the look, light weight, and strength. Columbus Zona tubing all around. Enjoy the ride, Ted!

Andrew's Cross Frame

2009-09-03T07:30:00.004-04:00

Andrew's cross bike is back from paint, check it out at Bikesenjava on Main St. in Rockland! Ready to be built up as a fixed gear/single speed or fully geared.

Five more steps...

2009-05-24T15:22:00.004-04:00

More steps ...

2009-05-10T17:05:00.003-04:00

The First Steps

2009-05-06T07:32:00.003-04:00

Track Dropouts, Etc.

2009-04-02T08:13:00.002-04:00

Just a handful of recent pics, all from a fixed gear road bike. I'm now offering track dropouts as an option on your next road or cross bike, and I'll be updating the two bike pages on this site to say so. Also coming to the site, interactive details on build kit and upgrade options.

Still hot from brazing. These are Henry James plate style dropouts. They give you a nice bit of real estate to carve and make a smooth transition into the stays. I choose to do this after adding the brass. The next pair of track dropouts that I use will be from Paragon Machine works. They are beautifully machined and come plain or with your choice of a derailleur hanger or bottle opener, should your legs get soft and your mouth dry.

The seatstay joint will be carved to match the profile of the chainstay joint after brazing.

Inside and outside the BB. The extra seat tube makes it easy to pull the silver all the way down and around. It will be quickly removed with a die grinder and an abrasive drum, leaving a perfect fit around the downtube, which is brazed in next.

Pencil style seatstays, fastback style. Just enough room for the binder bolt. That's all for today. First races for New Englanders this weekend. I'll be at Scarborough Industrial Park criteriums next weekend, and then it's down to Battenkill with the local Belfast Racing Team. Enjoy, and sign up to be a fan of the new facebook page while your at it.

Seat Tube Sleeve

2009-02-13T15:54:00.004-05:00

I have a fillet brazed cross bike in the works right now, and thought I'd share a look as things progress. I made the seat tube reinforcement today. When fillet brazing with a standard sized seat tube, it's a good idea to add this piece. The walls at the top of the tube are thin to make way for a 27.2 mm seatpost, and this sleeve will make it quite a bit more substantial without adding extra weight to other parts of the tube. It starts with straight gauge 4130...

... and ends looking something like this. The tube used to cut this out of has an inner diameter that is near perfect for silver brazing clearances. This will be brazed on to the seat tube, and a breather hole will be drilled in where the top tube intersects. Locating off of that hole, I'll then make the down tube/bottom bracket miter on the lathe.

Belfast Time Trials

2009-02-03T15:41:00.003-05:00

For three years now our local club has hosted a time trial as part of the Maine Time Trial Series. They have been well attended and well regarded, and this year we are hosting the race twice, on May 23rd and June 7th.

Registration for each day is now open on BikeReg.com:

http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=7780

http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=7782

More info can be found here:

http://www.belfastbicycleclub.org

The course actually starts and ends in Searsport, the next town up the coast from Belfast. It runs 8 miles out to the Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Observatory (well worth checking out on its own) and 8 miles back to the start along one of the best kept stretches of Route 1.

Don't miss these events. They are friendly to first timers, and the competition is top notch.

The Belfast Criterium may feature a new course this year, and we're ironing out the details now. You didn't read it here, but this years event may be USA Cycling sanctioned, making this race New England's best alternative to the Fitchburg Longsjo Classic. We're still aiming for July 4th, and the new course will be one of the best for racers and spectators alike, so plan on bringing the family.

Sign up for the time trials now, and pencil the criterium in for Independance Day. If all goes according to plan, registration will be open before March 1.

The Right Tools

2009-01-23T08:08:00.003-05:00

I read a quote in a magazine not so long ago from one of the folks at Independent Fabrication. It rang true to me as someone who enjoys the bike as much as the ride. To paraphrase, riding is just more fun with the right tool for the job.

As my own shop grows, piece by piece, I get to live the reverse of this analogy. When a new tool finds its place, or when I take the time to put down what I'm doing, walk over to the lathe and make something that will yield the same result that I'm looking for every time, work feels like riding with a clean chain, newly worn in cables and the perfect tire pressure. On paper, it should require less of your attention, but the beauty is that you'll actually start pouring it all into having fun and pushing ahead.

That being said, there's nothing like a little grunt work with the files to remind me how much I enjoy a mouthful of grit on a rainy training ride. It can't all be sunshine after all - we need the balance.

Fact

2009-01-16T08:03:00.005-05:00

It is -20˚F (feels like -20˚F) in Belfast, Maine right now. It is 9˚F (Feels like -5˚) in Novosibirsk, Russia, the largest city in Siberia.

That's the head of the Passagassawakeag River. And yes, it's salt water.

Hour-a-Day

2009-01-12T16:51:00.009-05:00

We had a good deal of snow yesterday - enough to knock me back to reality after enjoying a few days outside on the bike. Between the shoveling (which has been great therapy for the elbow that I fractured in October), the short days, and the time spent waiting for my hands and head to warm up for work in the shop, everything moves slower.

I don't mind so much, in fact I like the chance to take in what each part of the day offers. It gives me a chance to find the right music for finish filing, to enjoy beating the snow plow to my morning walk with our beagle pup, and to pay a little more attention to what's happening locally - we don't have a lot of chances to get out up here, so it pays to enjoy the ones you get.

I am signed up to race the Tour of the Battenkill for the first time this year. I've wanted to do this race in the past, when I didn't realize that being committed by the end of February wasn't an option. To even enter, you need to have your mind made up by the day registration opens. I raced only twice last year, again quashing my half-hearted goal to move up to Cat 3. This year I won't make that goal, and instead I'll prepare for races. Being signed up for Battenkill right now gives me a time each day when I don't think about anything else.

Even if for only an hour, its as refreshing as any other part of these winter days. I finally feel like I'm training without any stress. I know I will be there on April 18th, and I know exactly how I want to feel on that day. Sure, I'll have to add in the suffering, but I look forward to it for now. I'll probably even sign up for Turtle Pond too, just to get the miles. Look, that's two races right there, and then a summer's worth of gorgeous rides ahead. But for now, I'm enjoying my hour-a-day, and everything that falls in around it.

Cap's Repair, Part II

2008-12-06T12:09:00.011-05:00

Yesterday I finished up the repair on the rear triangle of Cap's Emiliani road/touring bike. After reattaching the non-drive seatstay, rebrazing the opposite stay and non-drive dropout, and cleaning off the flux to inspect, I began finish filing, braze-on removal, and final cleanup. All is proper once again, and it's off to Hot Tubes on Monday!

Cap's Repair

2008-12-04T15:28:00.014-05:00

Cap from Orono brought an interesting frame to the shop recently. A car accident (Cap was not seriously hurt), jarred the rear end of the bike pretty hard; hard enough to pull apart the silver fillet that held the non-drive seatstay to the seat tube. The frame was built in the 70's with Reynolds 531, Campy dropouts, and what appear to be Henry James castings by Cap's college roommate, Mario Emiliani. Cap rode the frame eastward across the country years ago and had converted it to a fixed-gear before his accident. Besides the repair, Cap requested a handful of braze-on removals and a respacing to better fit his track hub. When all is said and done, this bike will have a fresh coat of paint and will live again.

Because the seatstay became completely separated from the seattube, leaving two hard-to-clean surfaces, the first step in the repair was to remove the remainder of the fillet. Most of the material was carefully roughed off with the die grinder. After finish filing and sanding, we're left with steel on both sides, ready to be thoroughly cleaned to make way for a new fillet.

During the alignment process, two more problems showed up in the rear triangle. Both non-drive dropout and the drive-side seatstay developed partial cracks near the base metal. These will be solved with heavy cleaning, plenty of silver flux, and a little bit of work with the torch to fill the cracks.

The whole repair should be done by the weekend. The last step will be taking some post brazing pics, careful packaging, and then it's off to paint!