Articles – Page 25 – Seven Cycles

The Finisher’s Dance

Gritty Nylox bristles whip over the titanium tube and brush off the discoloration left behind from welding. The sound isn’t deafening, but with three other frames being wheeled at the same time, it is pretty loud this afternoon. The final stage, before frames get wrapped up and shipped out, or in my case handed off, is my favorite to watch. Unlike a welder, whose hands move slowly and steadily, frame builders move about like dancers. Twirling around the stand as they flip, twist, and rotate the bike, their performance looks choreographed. Dan C. is working on my bike, but his recital isn’t a dance at all, in fact it’s one of the most arduous parts of fabrication. We call it “FINISHING.”

Before I caught up to him, Dan had already run my frame through the CNC machine where the bottom bracket was threaded, faced, and chamfered. In machining, the bottom bracket starts as a thick walled, round tube. When the down tube, seat tube, and chain stays are all welded on to it, the heat distorts the metal, microscopically, but enough that it’s no longer perfectly round. The thick tube wall is important because our CNC machine will bore through it, expanding the inner diameter to leave a perfectly round hole, which it can then thread. You can see the difference in wall thickness.

Dan had also faced and reamed the 44mm head tube so my Chris King InSet 7 headset will press in evenly. As an aside, the lathe that faces and reams head tubes is my favorite machine in the building. Who knows what it did before it came to Seven, but it looks old and tank like. I bet it weighs several tons. Head tube after head tube, it keeps working, just like new. Spin the crank and it goes round and round like a Record square taper bottom bracket. So cool.

When those two steps were finished, Dan bonded in the seat tube insert, cut the seat top binder notch, and checked the frame’s alignment, making improvements where necessary.

By the time I got back to see how it was coming along, my bike was half way through the wheeling process.

Once the main tubes have been wheeled, and the natural sheen of titanium comes through, he’ll exchange his drill for a ruddy strip of Scotch-Brite. The Scotch-Brite pad gives a uniform finish to the frame that can be replicated at home, at the end of the season, or whenever I want it to look like new.

When the frame passes Dan’s final, grueling, inspection, he’ll attach all of the small parts. The last step is to wipe down the frame with a light furniture polish.

Pretty soon my frame will be ready to build, and I will be bouncing off the walls.

John S’s 622 SLX

Even in the coldest of winters, a new bike can bring about a warm smile and a sense of humor. At least that’s what it seems like based on feedback and photos, from John S., and the good folks at Get a Grip Cycles in Chicago, IL.

John says:

Thanks again for helping make my dream come true! No champagne on the bow, but I hope to tip a beer with you all at some point. Better still – RIDE. Now if spring would come… Argggg… It seems I will have to go south for the maiden voyage. For now, all I can do is look.

Underway

When we receive a signed confirmation form for a new bike, the designer staples the pages together, slips them in a folder with all the accumulated paperwork, and clicks it off in the database as “confirmed.” That designation alerts Matt O’Keefe, the head of production, who nabs the folder and walks it back to the machining area where he files it neatly and squarely in the back of the build queue. The last spot in the queue can be found all the way to the right of the vertical file.

If thinking about your new, one-of-a-kind, hand built Seven Sola SL gets you excited, well then, you want that folder to be all the way to the left. Until it’s the very first one on the left, it won’t be started. The wait can be agonizing.

So I couldn’t believe what happened this morning. All alone in pole position, my folder finally sat on the far left.

From there, right in the sweet spot, Mike Salvatore plucked it out of the queue, then invited me into his office to show me the build sheet he was creating for my bike. I glowed.

The first task is to take the information from the confirmation form, and turn it into a build sheet that specifies every detail of the work to be done. Every single detail, big and small. Tube lengths, diameters, wall thicknesses specified to thousandths of an inch, cable stop styles and locations, where the tubes will be cut, butted, coped and many, many other pieces of information are all included on the drawing so that it can flow through the fabrication process without being held up.

Mike has drafted several thousand build sheets, but I could tell by the confident clicking of his mouse, this one was extra special.

Reading my enthusiasm, he pointed out a few details and explained why they were important. The chain stays, for example, when designed around my single 32-tooth chain ring and 2.4″ tires have to be curved to avoid running into the crank, squished to create tire clearance, angled back to avoid hitting my heels, flared to miss the 180mm rear disc rotor, and finally spread to reach the drop outs. A lot of thought goes into each chain stay, a lot of engineering. After plugging in a few more numbers, every last specification was accounted for and the fabrication of the frame could begin.

For one lucky individual, this will happen in a matter of moments.

Getting Closer

Riding past horse pastures and state parks in and around Hamilton, MA, last weekend, I found myself daydreaming once more about riding off road. I chuckled to myself remembering the wise old proverb, “if all you have is a mountain bike, everything looks like a trail.” Now I am finally understanding the truth of it. In fact, ever since ordering a Sola SL, I have scoured the countryside for trails, parks, and recreation areas. I stare at the woods and drift off, longing for the day I can roll through those very trees.

A few weekends ago, I was hiking the Ledge Hill Trail at Ravenswood Park. High up on a rocky outcropping, the view of Gloucester Harbor, blanketed in winter colors, was Instagram worthy – but instead of taking a snapshot, I pulled out my phone to search “Ravenswood Mountain Biking.” I had to know if bikes were allowed in the park.

What I learned was nothing short of incredible. Not only were bikes allowed, but Ravenswood was just a small piece of about twenty-five thousand acres of parks, forests, and free trails in Massachusetts managed and maintained by the Trustees of Reservations. Many of these parks welcome mountain biking, and just like that, my mountain biking schedule is set.

The timing couldn’t be working out any better, either. Nearly every component for my new bike has arrived. I’m only waiting on the wheels and brakes. Once it’s built, Spring will be knocking on the door. My restless legs bounce just thinking about it.

Because no one in the office wants to hear me talk about it any more (two years of discussion prior to ordering will do that) and because I’m not done yet, I’ll spell out the details in this forum instead.

I have had a soft spot for the Sola SL, since 2004, so I didn’t think twice about the model choice. I knew that a double-butted tube set would be beneficial for at least two reasons: my frame will be big, and I love the look of over-sized titanium tubes. Without butting those tubes, my lanky build would take a beating during the course of a ride. By thinning the tube walls down, I can have a bike that rides like a dream, and meets my oh-so-discerning aesthetic.

Choosing a wheel size ended up being simple as well. I have only ever ridden 26″ wheels, and I wanted to try one of the larger sizes, 27.5″ or 29″. I knew either one would be fun and new, but beyond that, I couldn’t see any overwhelming evidence to suggest one would be better for me than the other. As luck would have it, the fork I wanted was only available in 27.5″ , so the decision was made.

The only real oddity with my bike, or maybe with me, is that I wanted a 150mm travel fork. Surely a 150mm fork is overkill, especially for the relatively mellow riding I’ll use it for. No downhill, no huge drops, and nothing that could be considered extreme to anyone other than my parents. In fact, it will mostly be a cross country rig, with a huge fork. I proposed the idea to the design team, and while they had questions at first, they started to see my vision, and designed a frame that will accommodate the extra travel without hindering its handling. It is amazing what they can do once your measurements, component spec, and vision are in front of them.

Below is the drawing of my very own Sola SL. I think it’s going to be awesome.

And yes, that is a ton of slope and post exposure, two more style requirements.

Matt O’s Festive 500

On a more positive note than recent posts, we have just collected some of the photos Matt O’Keefe took during the Rapha Festive 500 at the end of the year.

When you ask Matt why he rides the Festive 500, he’ll laugh and say, “I don’t know,” but then all the reasons come tumbling out. And it’s pretty clear peer pressure got him out the door to begin with, at the end of 2012.

“I had just signed up for Strava,” he says, “and then Rapha put out the challenge, ride 500km in the week between Christmas and New Years, and I mentioned to John Bayley that it was a cool idea, but that I didn’t have a Garmin. So John gave me a Garmin, and I was out of excuses.”

Despite some untimely snow and a day off for family commitments, he managed to complete last year’s challenge and enjoyed it. This year, the weather was better. The snow held out (until just after the holiday), and Matt managed to get 7,000 miles in his legs over the 2013 season, so the kilometers piled up more easily.

“I don’t know why I do it, but it definitely ends the season with a bang,” he says.

Here are some more of his photos, and for even more of Matt’s cycling adventures, follow him on Instagram.