A friend of mine was looking to convert a road bike into a fixed gear. Unfortunately the frame he had was too bulky and the bottom bracket was seized. He therefore came to me and asked me to design and build him a unique bike. He told me I was completely free with the design as long as I painted it the colour he wanted and did not make it too flashy.

Design

    Although I was free to make it as unique as I wanted, the client requested that the bike have a very soft feel, since he was used to mountain biking, while still being stiff and fast to power up hills. Shortening the length of the chain stays and bringing in the wheel is the best way of making a bike that powers up hills, however the tire eventually runs into the frame. To overcome this I came up with a split seat tube design, where the wheel was free to protrude past the seat tube, while still allowing for a relaxed seat tube angle.

Material

The frame was fabricated out of chromoly steel.

Manufacturing

    The headtube was custom made and TIG welded, so were the dropouts. The downtubes were made in such a way that they had to be tube notched along their longitude at a given angle which was challenging to say the least.