Yesterday I had the opportunity to hang out at Fast Boy Cycles shop in Harlem, and pick his brain on bike building, while he brazed together a fork.
A little back story: Fast Boy Cycles is one guy. Ezra Caldwell. I met him in the summer here, and his life took a turn for the strange shortly after, when he was diagnosed with cancer. He's got a blog about it HERE. Long story short, he's doing great, and working against his doctors orders amidst chemo treatment cycles.
It was really interesting to see him work, and discuss frame building techniques.
"The one thing I like about brazing, is... its just... so quiet." He said while flowing brass into the crown of the fork. His voice is scratchy from a cold, and its still easy to hear him over the torch. "Its just glorified soldering, really."
A bit about the fork. It was a 1" threaded steerer with Pacenti crown, straight blades, stainless dropouts AND a disc tab! I thought this was a strange combination at first and wondered if it was at the customer's request. Ezra assured me that the customer had given him free reign to do whatever he wanted with the frame. Must be nice to get to do whatever you want knowing that someone is looking forward to the end result.
I was most impressed with the choice of tooling Ezra had set up in his little space. Most of his fixtures were from Anvil, apart from a home made fender forming jig, and small milling machine. The Anvil stuff looks really user friendly, and probably makes his work a whole lot easier.
Here's the Anvil 'Phrunt Shui' disc tab fixture. Seeing that, along with the fork fixture gave me some good insight into how one would go about creating strange custom 5 piece forks.
At the end of my visit, the straight blade fork was complete, save for a touch of filing. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished bike on his Flickr.
I'm really glad I went to see Ezra work, as he is a pretty inspiring guy. He got me really stoked to work on my tallbike today over at les shop du WMD.
So as I'm gearing up to go over to Leanne's and eat all of her food, Morgan "Drift King" Tsaylor rings me, and he's all hepped up on some n+1 business because he bought a new BMX, and I think he's trying to offer up his old tank as some kind of compensation for getting scooped on the GT. He sounds like he's been into the tall cans:
"Dude, do you realize that there are people who actually just get on these bikes and do jumps and shit? Like, they're not breaking any parts or hurting themselves or anything - they just ride the fucking things?"
Damn, son. If I even look at a bike with 3-piece cranks these days, my body involuntarily shuts down and I wake up rocking back and forth in a corner muttering to myself about bottom bracket shell standards. So yeah, the ol' wrist ain't doing so well. It's been a rough couple of weeks, and having a veiled offer of an indestructible 20" hackmobile (with pegs!) waved under your nose after losing out on a $300 track bike isn't making it any easier.
It's a rugged life, son. It's war out here in these streets. Burrard St at full chat dropping down northbound past triple-seis last week. Nitwit pedestrian steps out into the bike lane between two parked trucks. Car in the lane to my left, nothing but door on the right. Of course, when you ride with a bunch of random hoons, one learns to watch for the quick leg-twitch and react accordingly: quick metal-on-metal bark up front to scare the shit out of him and set up the weight transfer for a full lock on the rear. Hip-drift onto the grease strip, breaking traction for just the sweetest, neatest little Scandinavian Flick six inches into the left-hand lane and another flick back to the inside because if the juice is flowing, I am coming down that hill like a wolf on the fold. Like fucking plague. Captain Trips, son. M-O-O-N spells "Get money."
Sunday, though, we were all Tom Boonen. And B-O-O-N-E-N spells "owned." Sure, maybe you didn't get to bring home the Queen of les Classiques, but it was mos def one hell of a dance, and everybody got to come home bloody, dirty, and drunk. And on Sunday, Mr. Boonen rocked quietly back and forth on the Grandview Park polo grounds, and tried to piece together just how it all went down. Something about taking a moment to compliment Mr. Luciano (the hardest-working man in show business) re: a fine last-minute wheelbuild from Rob, and then borking it not five minutes later via a kamikaze derby run at Kelly. And making her cry. Work bike vs. polo bike. Comedy wins. Mavic Open Sport and short-term memory lose.
Except that out sur la pave, Tommy Boy is getting the first ever custom-molded bicycle frame to accommodate 13mm worth of back discomfort, and out on these streets, kids can't even get a muthafuckin' dental plan. Shit, some of the hardest female riders in this city are wrecking themselves because they can't even get a frame that fits.
How can you be bitter, though, when guys like The Artist Formerly Known as Nagasawa Mike are screaming "PACK-A-GESSSSS" at you in the elevator; or when Bun Guy appears out of nowhere just as the bonk is coming down; or when you get stopped out of the blue to show off your Midnight Mass emo-button for a Momentum Magazine photo shoot; or when Skylar gets screamed "EYYY! FUCK-A YOU, AH!" on him within seven minutes of leaving the house for a breakfast hoon run out to the Drive?
Or when you're three knuckles deep into the smoothest, juiciest run ever, and the Asian chick smoking a blunt in the black AMG is checking you out and bumping this shit as you lock up:
My roof back, my money rides I'm on the pedal, show you what I'm runnin' like
Steady on that grind, son.
More shit from the B-Tionary:
Pick-n-roll:
Timing your turns so as to keep a vehicle or pedestrian as a barrier against oncoming traffic. Shields up, Mr. Sulu!
Pump-n-dump:
BK1 cheque delivery to a junior mining firm of dubious credibility. Cashout-n-dashout. A good 30% of these offices are shuttered by the time I get there, and I can only hope that their officers and directors had the good sense to break out like Stuart O'Grady to a non-extraditable country before the hammer drops. I suspect that in some instances, I've made it mere moments in advance of the process servers.
HOT BIEK RACE ACTION THIS SATURDAY. BRING INTERNET MEEPING AND A TALL CAN TO CRAB PARK AT 4:20PM. For the record, my race strategy is "Don't fucking hang out with Wendell, Skylar, Leanne, Tara, or Kelly the night before, you fucking degenerate, and maybe you won't be dry-heaving at the starting line this time around."
MORE HOT RACE RIOTS SATURDAY SATURDAY SATURDAY APRIL 5TH! BURNABY VELODROME 3-DAY! BEER GARDEN, CHEAP EATS, HOON SHIT, KASEY SPINS ELECTROQUEER MAKEOUT, SOME OTHER DOODS SPIN HIP-HOP AND FUNK!
Stay tuned for more sporadic alcohol-fuelled updates: the long-procrastinated Project-B winter gear review wrap-up; gettin' dirty with MEC, Park Tool and Filzer; the unkindest words we've pretty much ever had to say about a cycling product since fucking BioPace; and the finest in girl-girl makeout action that the internet cycling press has to offer. As always, somebody gonna get-a hurt real bad.
Oh yeah, we're kicking in a beer prime to the first one in to the first Operation M.E.O.W checkpoint because we love Midnight Simon, K8T-J, and unsanctioned bicycle racing in all of its wheel diameters. Something on the order of a dozen or so, maybe a Pil cube if we're feeling flush. Pin it out of the gate, kids, because Morgan likes to take beer primes, and if he wins it, I'll just end up stealing them back out of his Chrome. Pretty much a win-win situation all round.
Shoutouts to Gordon "Prayer Warrior" on Velolove, and Adam/Jackie/Tara/Rob for further scandalizing the local cycling community last weekend. On that note, please do take a moment to vote for Donald's Lawn Chopper on the Feeg.
A journey into the mindset of four multi-disciplinary bike nerds. Riding dirty, breaking shit, fixing it, nerding it out, styling it up, passing it on, and arguing about it on the Internet.
