Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Stealth Ellis Road Bike

 Stealth!

 This bike has had a bit of an interesting life, it started out as my blue DRB last year, and I had built it with clearance for fat tires and TRP CX9 mini v-brakes (see pic below).  Well, after riding for a good chunk of last season, I decided to explore a rando style build that would also accommodate fat tires along with fenders, lights and a front rack, and I was pleased to have that bike named as "Best Steel Bike" at NAHBS this past spring (see 3rd pic).  I really liked the DRB frame, but now it was searching for a purpose, so I decided to modify it for short reach brakes and this is the finished product.  Along the way, I added a slightly lighter rear triangle since the stays wouldn't need to support canti's or v brakes, and the finished frame tipped the scale at 3.5lbs exactly.  I made sure that the bridge is as high as possible with the short reach brakes, so I could still run 28c tires, and I also built a steel fork similarly, although in the picture above the bike is sporting an ENVE 1.0 fork.  

 The original DRB

"Best Steel Bike" NAHBS 2012
 (This one is handling all the fat tire needs these days, plus it's not a bad road bike with skinny tires mounted up!)


First ride on the Stealth bike tonight, can't wait!

Cheers,
Dave