I started work on frame # 01 10 01 yesterday. It’s the first frame of 2010 and it’s a fillet frame that is headed for NAHBS at the end of February. It will be shown as a frameset and in the raw – sans paint. I like to show a frameset without paint so people can run their fingers over it to feel the metal and so they can see how things look before they get painted. I’m just as proud of it before as I am after it gets painted. There are going to be a few special things on this bike and I’ll be sharing those soon. The most important thing about this frameset at the moment is that it doesn’t yet have a home.

Every year I bring a booth full of customer bikes to the show. No special one-off unridable bikes made of leather or cork but just good solid bikes that were designed and built to be ridden hard and put away wet. This year as I sat down to pick the bikes I’d bring to the show I realized I didn’t have an appropriate fillet bike in the queue to bring so I’m doing a very rare thing and building a bike that doesn’t have an owner. Yet.

The frameset will be going to the show unpainted and directly after the show will be headed to Joe Bell’s place to have Joe paint it according to it’s new owner’s wishes. The frame is a mix of Reynolds 853 Pro and 631 made for Kirk Reynolds chain and seat stays. The geometry is below along with a saddle height and a stem length so you can do some basic figuring and scheming to see if this bike might work for you. It’s designed to be a full on sport/race bike with all day comfort. It will use short reach caliper brakes and have room for a 27 mm tire. The design in the image is figured with 15mm of spacers under the stem.

The price for the frameset with single color paint and a Chris King headset is $3000. If you want more elaborate paint that price will be quoted as to the job. The new owner can take the frameset with headset or I can build it up and deliver it ready to ride right out of the box with your choice of components. One advantage to buying this frameset is that you will get it a good bit sooner than if you were to place an order today. At this point I’m delivering new orders in October  - November of 2010 and this frameset will be available approximately early -mid May of 2010 or just at the start of the riding season for most of us.

I’ll be posting a large number of photos of the build of this frame in this space soon so you can see what goes into building a fillet brazed frame. If you are interested in the frame let me know and I’ll be happy to speak with you about it. First come first served and of course there is only one available.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking.

Dave