First up is Carl's multi purpose cross frame. I went with an old school Columbus SLX tube set and a set of Long Shen's Cinelli copy lugs. We're going for as much functionality as possible, so I used some of my old Campy 1010a dropouts so he can run it single speed or geared and I added a bunch of braze ons to hopefully cover any eventuality!
Here's a shot of those nice Long Shen head lugs, very clean and nice.
The seat cluster area, lots of stuff going on here. You can see the top tube cable routing, (which I don't normally do), a beefy canti brake bridge, and the hidden rack mounts on the inside of the seat stays. What you can't see here is the internal routing for the front derailleur cable. Since Carl was only going to run a front changer infrequently, I routed it under the top tube internally. This way, when it's not being used, you don't have open cable guides except the one on the back of the seat tube. The seat stays are the only non SLX tubes, I upsized a bit and ran some double tapered 16mm's instead of the 14's that come with an SLX set to better handle the canti brakes and a potential rear rack. I really tapered the caps as well so the stays don't look quite so beefy where they meet the seat lug.
I bumped the chainstays pretty deep for lots of extra tire and fender clearance. You can just spot the boss in the bridge for mounting a fender and the 3rd set of water bottle bosses under the down tube.
Oh yeah, the vintage Campy dropouts. If you look close you can see the pitting from some years of rusting away at the Paramount and later Waterford shop. Saved a pile of these from the dumpster during my Waterford days. A little vinegar and salt soak and they're ready for action!
Cheers!
4 comments:
Nice dumpster diving save Dave. Glad to see you're putting those Campy dropouts to a good use. Another nice frame.
Maybe NAHBS should have a "best unpainted frame" category. Exhibitors could show a frame prior to being painted. I don't know if you had one this year, but I remember you had on in your booth in 2009. Another category you could win. It would be nice for potential customers to really see what they're getting for their money. And I'd bet there would be a few frame builders that wouldn't show an unpainted frame. It'd be too embarrassing.
Doug,
I had a raw frame this year as well, and I don't bring it along to embarass other builders or win an award. It's simply so folks can see how much effort goes into the frames before Jason ever sees them. The 953 is almost another way to see this, all the lug work is on display with no paint to over up flaws. Part of the reason why I charge so much for them!
If there's ever going to be another Ellis in the stable, it's going to be something like this one. Love the idea of a jack-of-all-trades machine.
I'm a firm believer that every bike should have a minimum of rear eyelets and brazeons for a rack (which Dave naturally accomodated). This doesn't add much weight, adds a ton of function and doesn't take away from racing, style, speed or other pursuits than can be done on the same bike.
I got a lot of functionality and more riding in the early 80s with my Raleigh Rapide 10 speed merely because it had a rack on it. And the parents didn't have to drive me somewhere just because I had something to carry!
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