San Diego Custom Bicycle Show 2011

I attended the San Diego Custom Bicycle Show in April and unveiled the newest bicycle in my offerings, a very Curvaceous Mixte.

Follow this link to see all the details. More Photos

 The show was great. The venue was moved to downtown San Diego and it felt more alive. It was nice to meet and talk with so many people that had a genuine interest in handmade mixte's and my recent rendition in particular.

It was great catching up with fellow builders and discussing / sharing ideas. If you were there - thanks for stopping by to show your support.

Recent Arrival...

As many of you may know my wife Danielle and I recently had our first child.

Viviana Sophia Harlow arrived a week early - both Danielle and Viviana are happy and healthy.

It has been a great month - and anyone interested can follow Viviana's blog at http://a-grand-adventure-2011.blogspot.com/ 

I have managed to get a little time out in the workshop and hope to have some more pictures of my most recent projects to post here soon.

Fork for Curvy Mixte

Well its basically just a fork... with disc brake tab, eyelets for fender and rack, crown mounted bosses for rack, and crown mounted braze on for fender...

Curvy Mixte

I have been working on this build for a while - spending a few hours here and there, and while I have been taking  some photos along the way - I  haven't spent any time uploading the photos.

It is going to take some time to get caught up....

More photos on the way..

Bar Stem Combo in the works

After the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland, I decided to make a handlebar stem combo for my Retro 29er. The hard lines of the Thomson stem with the Easton carbon bar were not doing it for me.

I spent some time mocking up a handlebar with curves and desired sweep and then rolled one out on the tubing bender.

I really wanted the handlebar stem combo to be curvy to match the lines on the frame, so after a little time with the tubing bender I came up with a curved and ovalized piece of tubing for the stem extension.

The design requires some custom parts and cutting the stem extension on a milling machine. Fortunately I have friends with the required tools. My friend with the lathe made up the custom binder bolt in no time.  Piercing the extension to allow the steerer tube to pass though the stem was a slightly taller order. The tube that the extension was to be made from was now curved and ovalized - which required a bit of thinking on how to go about cutting the hole in the proper plane and also how to go about clamping such a unusually shaped piece of tubing.

With everything that has been going on lately - it took me weeks to setup a time to use the mill. It took about 30 minutes to get the part properly aligned and fixtured in the milling machine and then about 2 minutes to cut the hole.

It is almost ready to weld / braze up.

Hitting the dirt....

Well folks the recent rains in the SB area have brought much needed moisture to the vegetation - and the trails haven't been in this good of condition since sometime last spring.... good riddance to the powdery dust, and hello to the slightly tacky clay!

I finally got the opportunity to get the freshly painted 29ers out on the trail. I am loving the curvy orange Retro Style 29er - nice and quick in the turns and has that characteristic steel frame ride.

Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show in Portland

The trip to Portland was great. There was a great turnout at the show and it appears that there are many interested cyclists in Portland.  I was sharing a booth with Pierre of Blaze Bicycles, our booth was in a great location - right at the entrance to the show and more importantly directly across the isle from the beer bike.

I had ample opportunity to talk with a lot of builders, both old friends and new ones. There was a load of action and interest in the Muse / Blaze booth, it was a blast talking to so many people about bicycles.

On monday morning before heading south - I spent a few hours with Andy of Strawberry Bicycles, he has an impressive shop and had loads of good ideas and contacts.

This show is "Not To Miss" - I hope to return again next year.