Thank You UPS!

What's the last thing you want to see when your new Ellis arrives? This...

I shipped the show bikes off to their various destinations over the last week, and Wayne dropped me a note on Tues with this picture. All I can ask is, did the UPS guys aim specifically at the "High Claim Item" sticker, or was that just pure irony? As it turns out, the only damage was a bent spoke and Wayne seemed to think that it'd be an easy fix, could have been much worse.

In other news, the "Best Road Bike" rando is on it's way to Bicycle Quarterly for a test and review. http://www.bikequarterly.com/vbqindex.html Since it's a quarterly, the review probably won't show up till fall at the earliest, but I'm really curious to see what Jan thinks of the latest from Ellis. As anyone who reads BQ probably knows, Jan has some very clear preferences when it comes to bike design, so while my bike incorporates some of these, it's very different in other ways, and I hope he keeps and open mind.

Finally, I'm back to work building, and I'm currently working on Jim's light touring bike. He's requested lots of pictures of the progress, so I'm trying to record it as closely as possible on my Picasa page with captions. You can check it out here; https://picasaweb.google.com/elliscycles/JimSLightTourer51##

Chuckles has also been stepping up to his new duties as "Inspector"! He really checks out every last bit of the process, here he's looking over my jig setup, "ALL WRONG"!

Cheers,

Dave

NAHBS 2011 - Ellis Cycles

NAHBS 2011 - Ellis Cycles

Best Road Bike!

I'm honored once again to have one of my bikes picked for an award at the Handbuilt Bike Show. Travis' randonneur took the honors as "Best Road Bike", and I couldn't be happier!

The show was also a huge success from a business standpoint with quite a few orders taken and lots of interest from others. I look forward to working with everyone who's either on the list now, or thinking about sending in a deposit.

2011 "Best Road Bike"

Now to get a good night's sleep and prepare for the 20+ hour drive home, I hope the weather cooperates, I can't wait to get home and see Lisa and the cats!

Cheers,

Dave

Travis' Rando

Well, Travis made the drive over from MN on Saturday, and we managed to get all the lights and wiring dialed in. Then I finished running all the cables and got the bars taped today. It's ready for the show!

I'll just give you a tour of a couple of the highlights! To see it up close, stop by my booth at NAHBS this weekend!

I used the Schmidt SONdelux front hub, it has the contact built into the front drive side dropout, so no plugs to worry about, just install the wheel correctly and your generator is ready to go. The dropouts are stainless plate, so I finished them with slightly raised points and Jason masked the whole dropout.

The custom front rack with internal wire routing and Edelux front light, super bright!

We made all the wiring connections and then slid them up inside the steerer tube. All that's visible is a small wire heading into the frame for the taillight.

That's all for now, I'll see you in Austin!

Cheers,

Dave

NAHBS Rando Sneak Peak

Just picked this one up from Jason's, it's NAHBS's bound and looking pretty fine even without the parts! The future owner, Travis, is driving over from MN this Sat. with the new taillight and to give me a hand getting all the generator and light wiring squared away. I'm excited to get it built!

See ya'll in Austin!

Cheers,

Dave

You Gotta See This!

Last weekend, my friend and customer Chris flew into WI for a couple days to build up his Ellis NAHBS bike and while here, he shot a bunch of photos and video of me working on my "raw" frame for NAHBS. Well, here's the finished product; http://vimeo.com/19928448. I hope I'm not getting too full of myself, but I can't stop watching this, really really cool!

Cheers,
Dave