Bike Snob NYC post

I came across an older post by Bike Snob NYC - a brilliant bike review that pokes some fun at the marketing, "innovations" and magazine reviews. Quite funny.

Enjoy:

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2007/08/bsnyc-2008-dream-bike-shootout.html

Facebook page

Hi Everyone,

If you are a Facebook user, you can now follow Caletti Cycles on our new Facebook page.

bike for sale

I'm selling my super cool townie bike. I built this one a while back - as you can see it says "Cloud Nine" on the seat tube, not Caletti. It's been very fun to ride and a treat to do errands and short rides on for the past few years, but it's time for me to say goodbye to it. It has few miles on it, just used for short rides, so it's in great shape. The down tube has a large Pacific Octopus airbrushed on, Spectrum did a great job on that. I'll miss it.

Some specs: Zona tubing with straight gauge 4130 curved top tube, steel fork, custom fillet brazed stem, clearance for 700x32/35 tires, Cane Creek Direct Pull brakes (linear pull/V), Thomson seatpost, Selle Italia Flite Ti saddle, Truvativ crankset, Phil Wood hubs (flip-flop- fixed/free rear) Velocity aerohead rims, butted spokes, Syncros riser bar, no pedals, Paul dropouts with chain tensioner, 130mm stem, 72 head angle, 73 seat angle, 20.5" seat tube (c-top), 23.9" effective top tube. $2000

If you are interested, send me an e mail (john ( at ) caletticycles.com) or give me a call and I can answer any other questions you might have.

Thanks.

Bicycling adventures

It's summer time - warm, long days invite adventures on bicycles, whether in our own back yard or way out there. Cory and I just returned from the Sierra to the Sea bike tour that ran for a week, riding from Bear Valley in the Sierras to San Francisco.

Let's go on tour!

We were fortunate to have great weather to enjoy riding some fantastic roads with our friends.

Cory's been having some trouble with her knee, but it behaved pretty well and she was able to crush us for 450 miles.

Towards the end of the tour, we went "off route" and did a fantastic dirt climb - Willow Creek road, just off the Russian River from Highway 1 up to Coleman Valley Road above Occidental. It's a great one for road bikes - smooth and easy grade.

Cory and James enjoying a car - free climb in the redwoods.

Back out on Highway 1, on our way to Pt. Reyes.

A few months back I made a cross/touring bike for our good friend Elaina. Soon after receiving it, she headed off on an extended adventure overseas.

"So, how light is your bike?...." - Elaina on the road less traveled.

You can follow Elaina's adventures on her blog.

Have fun out there everyone! Enjoy the ride.

"A Woolgathering Exodus" // Benoît Pioulard from Church and Steak on Vimeo.

Phil's tall road bike has been completed and is off to Spectrum for finishing. I'm excited to see it when it gets back - red with black, a carbon fork (with some red decals), and Di2 electronic!
This week Mark's parts have been trickling in - very nice stuff, full pics later when the frame comes back and gets built up. The blue King hubs and headset are a fantastic color, and very striking with the black rims, spokes, and blue nipples. Nice!

This tire is a monster! 29 x 2.55" WTB. Measuring the width, it's more like 55 mm - so not that massive. The tire weighs in at 774g.

New bike

I've been riding my cyclocross bike on the road for months, but I just got my new road frame back from powdercoat and built it up using Campagnolo Chorus 11 speed and had a great ride up Eureka Canyon yesterday.  The large diameter tubing is fantastic!  I really enjoyed the way the bike leaps forward with every acceleration.  Getting out of the saddle and applying power makes the bike leap forward.  Even with this increased level of drivetrain stiffness the ride was very refined.  It feels solid, not harsh.  This is part of the magic feel of a good steel frame.  The fork is an Alpha Q, which has a nice balance of stiffness.  The ride comfort is enhanced by the flex of the titanium Eriksen seatpost, Prologo Scratch saddles composite body and ti rails, and the HED wheels with tubeless tires are really great.  If you haven't tried tubeless yet, I recommend it.  It is possible to convert your road wheels with valve stems, sealant, and rim strips from notubes.com, and you can use Hutchinson tubeless road tires.  After some fast sections on the flats and the climb up the canyon I got to test the bike on the pot hole filled twisting descent on Highland where it carved the corners and held it's line through the bumps, and rolled fast and secure on the high speed sweeping descent down Old San Jose road.  

The Campagnolo Chorus 11 speed is a fantastic group.  The levers have a great feel to them, both in their ergonomics and shifting action, a bit improved over the 10 speed I think.  The(Record) brakes have a great balance of power and modulation, the crankset spins smooth, shifts wonderfully, and is very stiff.  

Spectrum did a great job as usual, with the finish on the bike.  It is powdercoated white with a pearl clear, the carbon fork has been wet painted with a pearl clear coat.  I did a couple of drawings in the line art style drawings of the Natives of the Pacific Northwest, which are on the down tube and seat tube.

Recent projects.

Hey Everyone.  Ok, Kelly's bike has been assembled and delivered - watch for it at Hellyer Park velodrome in San Jose, CA this summer - it'll be going really fast, so look closely!  The white saddle and bar tape look great, as does the Alpha Q fork painted to match.

I've finished Paul's road bike and it will leave for paint very soon.  Paul and I have spent a lot of time going over the fit, geometry, and tube selection to get this bike dialed in for him.  I might be as excited for him to ride it as he is.  Hang in there Paul, it won't be long now!  :)

Phil's a tall guy getting a tall bike.  His road frame is most of the way through fabrication.  I have already put an S-bend in the seatstays and mitered them up, so now the joints will get cleaned and the stays welded in.  Then put in the bridges and silver-braze on the cable guides and bottle bosses.

When it comes back from Spectrum it will get a Dura Ace electronic group.  The group is quite amazing.  I particularly like the refined look and feel of the electronic levers.  They are quite lightweight as there isn't much inside of them.  This could be a bit of an advantage, as there is less weight hanging out on the front end of the bike, but mostly they look very cool and have a nice feel in the hand.  Another amazing thing is the way the front derailleur automatically trims as you shift through the cassette!

Kelly's track bike

Kelly's track bike just got back from powdercoat and will be built up soon.

Done in a cobalt blue (which doesn't translate well in my poor pictures, as you can see how different it looks against the two different backgrounds) with a pearl clear coat.  

Mark's 29er belt drive production

I've finished up Mark's belt drive one speed 29er and it's ready to go to Spectrum for powdercoat.  I modified a Paragon slider to split at the seat stay to get the belt off and on.  The slider is a great dropout for one speeds, and this way it can be used with the belt drive and/or a chain drive.

A stainless steel plug is machined and silver brazed into the end of the seat stay.  Not pictured is the bolt that will fix the two together.

Mark's frame and fork midway through:

below: beginning to machine the plug for the split dropout

Re-CYCLE

I went to the dump last Friday to drop off my collection of scrap metal for recycling.  Mostly little bits that get cut off the end of tubes when mitering, all very good steel.  I had a few buckets full of this stuff and I show up at the metal recycling to find this mountain of metal castoffs.

Whoah!  I was amazed at the mountain of junk.  All kinds of stuff, and it sure made my 3 buckets of scrap seem insignificant.  This sight was a good reminder of the value of durable goods.  Perhaps I'll find a better means to recycle the high quality and uncontaminated scrap I have, so the niobium alloyed steel scrap I've got doesn't get melted down in a vat of bed springs, wal mart cookware gone bad, and painted shelving.  

My recycling was not complete.  I actually ended bringing home more mass than I dropped off.  I found this bike in the pile.

There was a selection of Huffmasters and the like in there, but this is an older handmade English bike made of Reynods 531.  The fork is badly bent, and it looks like the rear triangle is out, as it probably got an old bathtub loaded on top of it, so I'll see if I can align the frame.  It does have Campagnolo Nuovo Record Crankset, shifters, derailleurs, headset, 3TTT stem, bars, seatpost, and Suntour Superbe brakeset.  There is some rust on the steel bits, but the rings aren't even worn - what a tragedy that this would be in the scrap pile!  One of these days I'll strip it down and clean up the parts, see what I can do with aligning the frame and hopefully make it into a one speed bike for around town.  Okay kids, so the lessons for today are:  buy durable goods, reuse before recycle, and for the love of Tullio - Don't throw away good bike parts!