Bicycle Valentines #1
{Cover photo & Other Clayton’s Bike photos: Thad Quinn}
I want to introduce a new series, Bicycle Valentines, that Claire and I will be contributing to, but also that we’re inviting everyone in the MEATengines community, yes, all tens of you, to participate* in as well. It’s an all-positive, all-the-time, bicycle be-mine. Any questions? Drop me a message.
It could be your bike, your friend’s bike, a customer’s bike, or even a bike that you’ve never seen in person that’s taken residence in your hippocampus. Will the series end up being a one-hundred-Honzo-huddle, an unlimited-Unit-unite, a several-Stooge-swarm, a crap-ton-of-Chromag-convergence, or even a shed-load-of-Starling-simple-single-pivot-sexiness?
For the purpose of this feature, all that matters about the bike is what matters to you. Maybe it’s related to the spec or geometry or paint or application, maybe it’s something more sentimental, lost passions found, etc. And, as per my example, the mountain bicycle doesn’t even have to be yours.
If you have a human-powered love for some particular example of two-wheeled joy, then fire me a photo or two & fire me a paragraph or two, and we’ll work at publishing it on MEATengines. It can be flowery; it can be to the point. Every writing style is welcome. Just remember, kids read this sh*t.
*{Mr Lungtastic, we’ve saved the BV#2 spot for you and your Exie.}
I write about my own bikes all the time, so I wanted to lead off with something different. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never met Clayton, and I’d remember if I’d caught so much as a glance of this rig at any point. No, the closest I’ve come to this Cascadian creation was Thad’s forum post on NSMB.com on September 13th, 2013.
“This is my friend, Clayton’s homemade bike. It’s the third bike he’s built. It originally had a different swingarm, beefy, rectangular. The truss swingarm lightened and stiffened it. It’s not too heavy. Maybe 40 lbs? 4130, with [True Temper] DT and TT, 7075 main axle, 4 big f-off bearings. He does have a kinda heavy build: og saints, big seat, cable brakes, bark busters!” – Thad
That beam-and-truss swing-arm build, those super clean slotted IS-disc mounts. One has to assume the fork and shock are both coil-sprung. Heck, even the cable-actuated disc brakes don’t look out of place despite the big-brake use case. It’s easy to imagine some Magura MT5 brakes with Kool-Stop sintered pads and big rotors on it today.
Anywho, what a one-of-a-kind beauty!
{Image above: Cy Whitling X NSMB.com}
Yeah, so. I’m going to keep it shortish, but hopefully some folks want to play and Bicycle Valentines and it will have some staying power. We already have a few started and if you’d like to contribute that would be rad.
Cheers!
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