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Vision
Vision
I wanted to design a fast bike with road geometry that could also accept wider, gravel style tires. I'd ridden more gravel focused bikes before, and I didn't think that the more relaxed geometry was necessary for functionality on dirt roads. I like more aggressive road bike geometry, but I also want to ride dirt roads.
Design
Design
I did my initial design in a program called BikeCAD. This allowed me to input dimensions that are familiar to me like fork rake, stack height, reach, etc. and have them translated into tube lengths and angles.
BikeCAD is only two dimensional software, however. In order to get a good understanding of chainring and tire clearance, I modeled the bike in SolidWorks. I also ended up learning a lot of new CAD, which is a bonus.
I’m particularly proud of the rear triangle of this bike. Even with my super short chainstays, I managed to fit a 30mm tire and a 50 tooth chainring. The stays themselves were the most challenging parts to model.
Fabrication
Fabrication
Front Triangle
Front Triangle
The first step is to cut and miter tubes. I chose to use a tapered headtube, mostly for aesthetic reasons. Because the down tube mates to the tapered surface, I mitered that joint by hand.
Main tubes and downtube miter.
Rear Triangle
Rear Triangle
Chainstay Mitering
Welding
Welding
Welds!
Riding
Riding
The bike rides better than I could have hoped. I built up a gravel wheelset with smaller diameter rims and wider tires. I can race in a crit one day and do a gravel bike packing trip the next on the same bike.
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