This is a frameset I just finished for a very nice woman from the Bay Area of California. The rider is not a big person and needed a sporty bike with all day comfort and the ability to mount a rack for light day touring. 

Many lighter riders have a hard time finding a frame that isn’t too stiff. I realize that might sound odd and so many feel that the stiffer the better but it’s just not true. Most smaller frames are built with the same tubing that would be used for a much larger and heavier rider and this coupled with the fact that frames get stiffer as they get smaller means that the light weight rider ends up with a frame much stiffer than than a larger, heavy rider uses. It doesn’t make much sense to me.

This frame, like all my frames, is not only made to measure in size but also in stiffness. It uses smaller tube diameters for the top and down tube which will give a smoother ride and the chainstays are made thinner to reduce weight and add the right amount of flex for the size of the rider and use of the bike. Lastly the Terraplane stays have a more radical bend to work better with this rider’s weight.

The frame ended up being in the low 3 pound range and should last a lifetime. As of this morning it’s off to JB to get a subtle yellow paint scheme. There will be more shots of it when it returns.

Thanks for looking,

Dave

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 7:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.