It’s Thursday morning and Karin and I are getting ready to head to the airport to catch our flight to NAHBS and an internet check of our flight status shows that our flight will leave an hour late. No rush then I guess. The issue is that it will make us miss our connection in Chicago so we’ll be on a later flight into Richmond. We are now scheduled to land at 7:45 pm. I guess it’s a good thing that the booth is simple to set up because it’s supposed to all be done before 10 pm. I have a feeling a few things might slide until Friday morning.

I hope the nasty weather in the north east doesn’t change too many travel plans and that all that wanted to make the trip to the show can.

I look forward to seeing you all there. If you get to my booth and it’s just a bunch of unopened cardboard boxes you’ll know I’m enjoying the hospitality of the Chicago airport.

See you soonish.

Dave

Just a heads up that part two of my interview with Red Kite Prayer has been posted. Much of part two deals with road suspension, the DKS and the Terraplane designs. You can find it here - http://redkiteprayer.com/?p=1772

We leave early tomorrow morning for the show and has long as the weather holds we’ll be in Richmond tomorrow afternoon for show set up. So far the weather looks good in Chicago (which we fly through) and Richmond which puts me at ease. The idea of spending the weekend in the Chicago airport hotel during the blizzard of  2010 doesn’t sound that great to me.

I will be away from the phone from this evening through next Tuesday but you will be able to leave a message on the machine. I will have very limited email access through this period but doubt I’ll have much time to return emails so if you have some kind of emergency I’ll get back to you but otherwise you’ll hear from me after I return to Bozeman.

That’s all I got.

Dave

Just a quick heads up that part I of an interview with me has been posted on the Red KIte Prayer site. It’s a cool site and worth the time to spend surfing. Here’s a link to the interview - http://redkiteprayer.com/?p=1773

Thanks for reading.

Dave

I don’t know if Coppertone is the official color name used on this bike but oh my is it stunning. In the sunlight it’s to die for. This one is going to Arizona so it will see lots of sun.

Along with the frame photos I added one of the infamous “Kirk Frameworks Photo Lab and Image Center” or KFPLIC for short. Rolls right off the tongue doesn’t it? I take all the product photos in my basement in a small space dedicated to it. Lots of lights, a tripod and some photo backdrop paper and away we go. I’ ve had a few people ask where the photos were taken so I thought I’d show the fancy set up.

Thanks to everyone for all the emails and calls about the new logos and website. It seems that nearly everyone likes the new look and that pleases Karin and me immensely. So that you very much for your thoughts and feedback.

More soon.

Dave

As you no doubt have noticed things look different around here. When I formed Kirk Frameworks in 2003 I needed logos for my work and as I tinkered and worked on them I kept coming back to the same theme of the four circles and a sine wave. With time and money being in limited supply I found myself going back to this design I had from when I was 16 years old and making my own skateboard decks. The four circles skate design was one I used back then and with a bit of tweaking it worked on bikes as well.

As time went by I found myself wanting to change the look and feel of my artwork and wanted it to be simpler, cleaner and more modern. There were countless sketches and ideas that were worked on over a few year period and while I liked some of the ideas I didn’t love any of them. My wife Karin then came up with the idea of a negative space design where the colors and shapes of the logo aren’t the letters themselves but the spaces and shapes surrounding those letters. I instantly liked the direction and that started us working on the best way to use the negative space idea. Karin spent countless hours working on them and was very tolerant of my coming in and asking for changes and in time we got to the point where there was nothing let to remove, and we were done. We then picked colors that we felt worked well with the new logos and the artwork went off to the printer for decals to be made.

The decal printing process always takes longer than one would ever expect and by the time we had new decals we were pushing it to get them onto bikes headed for NAHBS. My painter and partner Joe Bell made it happen and the bikes made it back to me in time to hang kits on them, get them boxed and sent off to the show. The bikes shown here are the first ones to incorporate the new look and they will be the ones in the booth at NAHBS.

With the new artwork on the bikes we needed have new T shirts printed, get a new show banner made and of course change the entire look of the website. Getting the shirts and banner done was pretty simple but the website was another matter. Karin does all our website work and she somehow made time to go through the website from tip to tail and get the new artwork and colors integrated into all of it.

I’m excited about the new look and the paint and color schemes it lends itself to and look forward to seeing the new cool ways JB comes up with to work with it all.

And now a brief word of apology. When I started the company and adapted my old skate logos for bike use I had no idea that anyone out there might have a similar logo. But it’s a small world and a builder named Jim Kish did have artwork that was very similar to mine. His work of course predated mine and had I known of his I would have taken a different direction. But I didn’t and by the time I saw his logos I was too far down the path to change my artwork. Over the years I had a few people walk into my show booth and look confused and wonder where the Kish Ti bikes were and I’ll bet he’s had a similar thing happen on his end. So I want to apologize to Jim Kish for any confusion the artwork has caused and I wish him all the best. I don’t know Mr. Kish but I have respect for his work and if you are in the market for a titanium bike you should check him out. http://www.kishbike.com/

And now for a few words of thanks. The first and biggest thanks goes to Karin Kirk for making this all happen. Her computer skills, her uncompromising ‘it’s not done until it’s right’ attitude, and her dedication made this possible and without her hard work it would just be a rough sketch. I also want to thank Gary Prange of Screen Specialty Shop for the kick ass job he did on not only getting the decals to look just right but also for guiding us along the way. Thank you to Joe Bell for his input on the design and of course the application of it. His paintwork is the world’s best and I’m proud to have him as my painter and friend. Thank you to Ed Cristman, my old high school friend and graphic artist of the highest order, for his input and feedback on the designs. Without your thoughts I would not have had the confidence to move forward. Last but not least a big thank you to all the Kirk customers out there. Thank you for your trust and your business. Without you all I’d just be standing at my bench with nothing to do.

See you at the show.

Dave

As some of you may know I’m one of the eight founding members of a group called The Framebuilders’ Collective. The group was formed over a year ago to promote the handmade bicycle and to encourage and guide builders that are new to the business to use sound building and ethical business practices.

I’m pleased to say that we have added a number of new members to the Collective and look forward to working with them toward our goal. The new members are -

A.N.T.

Anvil Bikeworks

Coconino Cycles

Crisp Titanium

DeSalvo Custom Cycles

Inglis/Retrotech

Spectrum Cycles

You can read more about the new members as well at the Collective in general at –   http://framebuilders.org/   These builders are the best of the best and I’m proud to be associated with them. Please check out their websites and booths at the upcoming show. You won’t be dissappointed.

More soon.

Dave

Ok. This isn’t really that big but I have to say that I feel a good bit lighter. In fact I feel about 260 pounds lighter because that’s how much stuff I shipped off to Richmond today for the upcoming NAHBS. The bulk of my time over the past month has been spent building frames and assembling them into bikes as well as designing and building display fixtures and lighting, designing new T shirts and having them printed, designing a new banner and having it printed as well as dealing with all the stuff for travel like shipping details, lodging and flights. The number of details that Karin and I need to attend to for a show is always surprising and without her help I’d be screwed. Now all that stuff is done and I have a few days of ‘normal’ work before we head east to the show.

I’m proud of the work I’m bringing and think it will give a good idea of the type of bikes and workmanship I offer. I’ve decided to not try to bring a wide selection of my work but instead just bring bikes that were in the queue and going out to customers after the show. There will be a JK Special built up with Campy Record 11, a fillet brazed frame in the raw sans paint, and a JK Cross built with Shimano Dura-Ace. We’ll have new shirt designs and the ever popular brass cable adjusters for sale in the booth. Trust me, you need a lot of the adjusters.

Many The Framebuilders’ Collective members will be showing in the same part of the hall and I’m especially pleased to be next to Mr. Dario Pegoretti. I enjoy his company as everyone does and he just gives a good feeling. Mr. Sachs will be across the isle and Darrel Llewellyn will be right behind me. For the first time ever Carl Strong and I won’t be showing next door to each other so now I’ll have to walk down the isle to give him a hard time. Good company.

Well I’m rambling at this point so that’s my sign that it’s time to shut this down for the day.

Thanks for reading,

Dave

This just came back from JB today and I was able to get it turned around and out to it’s owner this afternoon. The owner already has one Kirk nicknamed the “Kit Kat Kirk’ for it’s color scheme and this MGM will look good next to it in the living room.

The frameset is designed to be an all round, all weather commuter with room for big tires and fenders and all one needs to get around in the nasty stuff. It’s should make for a fun ride……… sort of like a BMW M5 wagon where you can get to work in a hurry and have a change of clothes with you at the same time.

Have fun with the new bike D-man.

Dave

I participate on a number of online cycling forums and a conversation on one recently has me thinking. The conversation was about road bikes that incorporate some sort of rear suspension and since I’ve done much work and research in this area I decided to put my 2 cents in. I found the conversation and reactions of the others on the forum to be both fascinating and a bit puzzling.

I think one could take most of the posts from that thread and put them into one of three piles – those that think it is good idea, those that are skeptical but open to the idea, and finally those that feel that this type of thing is unneeded and should not be considered or discussed. The first two reactions were no surprise but the last one has me scratching my head.

I don’t want to use this space to talk about suspension on road bikes and whether it’s a good idea or not but rather I’d like to talk about new ideas in cycling and how they are met in the marketplace. I think one could substitute electronic shifting, indexed shifting, carbon wheels, clipless pedals, aero handlebars, or countless other things in for the suspension idea in this conversation and the results would be much the same.

I’ll date myself and say that I remember very well the reaction in the bike shop where I worked to the change from 5 speed freewheels to 6 speed freewheels. Some of the older and more experienced guys in the shop thought it was a great idea and some thought it was the beginning of the end and that we were looking for a bike that would pedal itself and one that would not require skill or strength of the rider. I think in this case history has shown that races were still won by the strongest and smartest riders and that the addition of that 6^th cog wasn’t the end of everything that was good. In time even the naysayers got on board and installed 6 speed freewheels onto their bikes. In the 5 to 6 speed case it was proven through use that it was better because it allowed riders to have more fun and go faster and further.

If one goes much further back and reads articles written in during the time that Mr. Tullio Campagnolo invented the quick release we will see the same reaction. At the time the naysayers said it would ruin cycling and that it reduced the skill and strength needed to be a top shelf rider. It seems silly today to think that riders would be sitting by the side of the road, trying in vein to remove their wheel to fix a flat while the wingnut was frozen in place but that’s the way it was. And some were afraid of a change away from that.

There have been other innovations that were met with a similar reaction in the shop where I worked that proved in the end to be bad ideas. Biopace ovalized chainrings are a good example. They were released and sold and the public decided they sucked and they then went away. A pretty good system we have in place that takes care of such things. If you are an early adopter type of guy you might have invested in those rings only to be disappointed but you switched back to round rings and can now laugh about how bad those Biopace rings were. No one was hurt. No one had any reason to be afraid. It took care of itself. We learned something. I could list a hundred things like this that have come and gone and that we are happy to forget. In all of these cases the marketplace spoke and was listened to and yet at the time there were loud and fearful voices saying this was the beginning of the end and that cycling would be changed permanently for the worse.

I give the above examples to illustrate my point. Designers are constantly coming up with new ideas and concepts and they are released into the marketplace and the marketplace decides if they have merit. Some of the ideas are good and others not so much but anyway you look at it they are just ideas and nothing to be afraid of. No one ever suggested that all bikes would be mandated to have Biopace rings and that Shimano would break into your garage at night and take your round chainrings and force you to ride Biopace. No one said if you want to race you’d have to use them. No one said they were going to stop making round rings and when yours wore out that there would be no new round rings to replace them. There was nothing to be afraid of. It was just an idea. A bad idea in this case but in the end just an idea that you could choose to adopt or not.

This brings me back to the forum conversation about road bikes with rear suspension I spoke of at the beginning. There were some folks that said they think it’s a great idea and about time. There were some that while skeptical were still interested and open to the idea if it proved to work well over time and there were some that to me just sounded afraid of the idea. The last group is the one that really has me thinking. Why such fear of an idea? Where is the threat? There were many posts from members of this last group that said things like ‘no one needs suspension’. There were many posts by people who said it does not work but would only reluctantly admit that they had in fact never actually tried it. There were others still that would pick the worst possible example of a road suspension design and hold it out as proof that the concept will not work while passing over designs that have much more merit. It was as if they were saying ‘this design sucks, so all designs suck.’ There were others that said things like ‘where will this stop?’ and they would then suggest that something like this opens the door to the slippery slope to things like electronic braking or bikes that pedal themselves. It was even suggested by a select few that if you were cool you wouldn’t even consider or talk of such things. It appears that they were trying to censor the conversation by saying “you are a dork if you even think of this and you’ll have to eat your lunch alone.’ Others said that the cool hardmen of the sport don’t need this crap to be good. While that might be true it’s hardly the point. I’m sure LeMond could drop me at will regardless of how many cogs we each have in back or whether I have rear suspension or not. At the core of it one could feel the fear and anger from some of the posters. It appears that they felt threatened by this idea and the change it could bring and so much so that they felt it shouldn’t even be talked about. It was as if they felt that someone (me?) would be coming to their homes in the dark of the night and taking away their Colnago C50 and leaving a Terraplane in it’s place. Trust me. I won’t do this. I don’t even know where you live! There is no need to be afraid.

It might seem odd that someone like myself who favors a frame construction technique that is over 100 years old would be touting innovation and an open mind but I like new ideas and new stuff and at the same time I like ideas that have been proven by the test of time. Most of the new ideas will come and go without ever grabbing much attention let alone market share. But a few of them will stick and improve and add value to the experience of cycling, making it more fun for more people. In my opinion things like this take care of themselves and there is nothing to be afraid of. Change is for the most part good and one can never know for sure if it will be or not and only time will tell. If nothing else the attempt at change is a learning experience and I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from further knowledge. Change and knowledge is nothing to fear.

Thank you for reading,

Dave

So it’s show season. That means bright lights and travel and cool new bikes. For the builder it also means doing a lot of the not so exciting stuff……… which is what I’ve spent that past few days doing. How to get power into the both for the lights and where and how to ship the bikes and how in the hell do you get them back home again type stuff. It should be easy and maybe it is for some but it’s not for me. I can do it but I’m way out of my element with this type of stuff. It’s part of the whole ‘one man shop’ thing though so you do your best and hope it all works out.

Tomorrow will be spent working on a way to have something other that teal and silver high sheen fabric as a back drop. Nothing says quality like high sheen teal.

I should have bikes back from JB in a few days and it will feel good to dip into those and to turn some wrenches instead of sending emails. I’ll get some photos of the ASAP and share them here. I’m excited by the new look.

More soon.

Dave