i hung out this weekend with the owner of royal h #1. hard to believe it’s been five years! back then it was just ian (on brass), marty (lead welder), and me (silver) against the world, holed up in the shack shop in allston fighting the good fight. i’m glad we’re all still fighting the good fight, albeit not all together and with a lot less rats. at least i still have marty! anyway, i really like this build.
this time it’s personal. literally. a personal bike for me. i’ve been wanting to build this for some time- perfect for weekend romps. marty and brad had already built up their geekhouse and bRad versions of this bike, and i knew i’d be left in the lurch if i didn’t get on it. i like the look of the new graphics as well. let’s do some light touring! thanks to eric for shooting the newest addition to the fleet.
short fade.
a road bike’s road bike- light and agile. 17.0 lbs. without pedals. i’ve never weighed any of my frames until now… maybe not the best path to go down, but pleased at the lack of mass on this one (probably all the holes). thanks to eric baumann for braving 5 degree temperatures to come over and shoot the bike. more of the set at his tumblr, RIDE METAL. great name.
ultimate commuter! when it comes time to get to work, some of us prefer to swing a leg over our re-painted trash picked bikes if the weather is anything less than perfect. but when you see a transport machine like this roll by, you can see how commuting can be done right- three speeds for the topography, fenders for the rain, disc brakes for consistent, rim sparing stopping, front basket for keeping the loads off your back, comfortable bars for posture promotion. feel good, look good. i want one of these. thanks to the bike’s owner, mary flatley, for following me to the bowels of south boston for some empty lot shots.
some golden hour shots of the newest royal h. unfortunately, this is now happening at 4:30.
all built up- the pride of the royal h booth! john watson of prollyisnotprobably took some great shots of the bike before it was hastily rushed back to boston, narrowly avoiding a swamping by sandy. check out the rest of his shots here. despite being cut a bit short by a superstorm, this year’s expo was a blast. i shared a booth and small station wagon ride with the boys from geekhouse, and it was great to have a stag framebuilder weekend. looking forward to the next one! thanks to bina bilenky for organizing and for john for documenting everything so goddamn well.
another year already! gearing up for the best damn east coast bike show of the year!
here’s a sneak peak of the royal h show bike-
so many more awesome parts are going on this bike tonight. it’s the perfect home for that chrome twin plate fork i made a few months ago! see it in person this weekend!
a hard fought end to the summer of distance. boston to nyc- 220 miles, one flat, and 19 hours door to door on, oddly enough, only 17.5 hours worth of five hour energy.
look at these two- not a cast part between them. it’s like the last 100 years never happened.
yep, still kicking. this summer’s projects have had me on the ropes a few times, this twin plate fork being one such opponent. these little motherlovers are deceptively hard to make! also, i did a 24 hour race in june. that one gets its own post. i’m just now recovering and getting ready to go back into the pain cave for a 1 day ride to nyc. seventeen hours in the saddle. i am beginning to see how this type of thing becomes a lifestyle. keep it tuned as my summer mystery months are slowly revealed.
let’s talk about bikes! a great evening of doing just that with all the greatest from the boston area. hats off to mark and keith for putting on a great show. the bsa space was just the place to enjoy some white wine and really talk about why we all got into this business (for the white wine).
building some stems! the removable faceplate stem uses hardware from paragon machine works, the traditional threadless one uses hardware made by my friend jon at seven cycles. both are steel. both are real.
it’s coming…
