I’ve been planning to add a selection of handmade touring framesets to Capricorn’s Online Shop in time for the summer touring season. Right now the plan is to make three stock sizes (54cm, 56cm, 58cm), powdercoat them black, and list them for sale at a very reasonable price (~$1400). However if you’re reading this and you’re in the market for a new touring bike, you can pre-order an El Burro with your choice of seat tube length, top tube length, and color. Pre-ordering will require a $500 non-refundable deposit.

Specs & Features:

• Hand-built, fillet-brazed frame with 35mm down tube for strength and rigidity when fully loaded.
• American-made True Temper Verus tubing
• Lugged fork with over-sized, threadless steerer tube and heavy fork blades.
• Full rack and fender braze-ons, front and rear.
• Kickstand plate{pic}
• Side-tack seat stays{pic}
• Paragon Machine Works dropouts{pic}
• Cantilever brake bosses
• Top-routed rear derailleur cable won’t interfere with kickstand{pic}
• Bottom routed front derailleur cable with stainless cable guide under bottom bracket shell {pic}
• Designed around 700c wheels with room for 35 mm tires. 135mm rear axle spacing.

Full- and partial-build packages are available including Velo-Orange and Honjo fenders, Nitto handlebars, Paul Components brakes, and Chris King headsets. Feel free to direct questions and comments to me via the Contact page. Sizing services and recommendations are also available.

The new Capricorn Bicycles shop, The Business End, is online! Take some time to visit, click on the graphic above.

This is something I’ve been thinking about doing for a few months in order to share my current and future inventory with a wider audience, and make the buying process problem free. I plan on building and keeping a selection of stock racks, bags, and frames available; as well as swag, used but useable parts, complete bicycles and specialty items at some point in the future. Check in often, or connect with me on the Capricorn Blog or Facebook Page, where I’ll update changes in the store.

Spread the word, spread bicycle love. Thanks to Amber and Peter for making this happen.

Down along the Minnesota River is a narrow ribbon of forest and wetlands. At one end a gated road, unassuming and across the street from an airport parking structure, is one of the only access points. A jeep trail leads up-river about four miles where it ends at the overgrown remains of the original Cedar Avenue. From here a smaller path cuts into the woods, across miles of sand, through seas of summertime nettles, and grasses that grow to your shoulders. This is a wild place where plants sting and the threat of getting trampled by white-tail deer is a real danger. Each spring, as the forest awakens from its winter dormancy flood waters fill in the lower topography, severing one half of the trail from the other. Once I got to this point yesterday I thought my forward progress was over. I had crossed over a small rivulet on a log only to find that the trail just a little further on was under water for about a hundred feet.

Now, not just thwarted but properly stopped, I got off my bike and finally looked around. Since going back meant crossing a six-inch wide log that I was lucky to cross once, I was highly reluctant to return. I moped a little, looked around and felt lost. I began noticing the smaller details: the red-bellied woodpeckers in the branches high above, the sound of the wind not in the shelter of the woods but elsewhere, a thrashing of weeds that could only be a deer spooked by something. Since some green was returning to the forest floor I noticed about thirty feet behind me a faint line where no plants grew. It appeared to be a deer-path and though I could tell it lead into a boggy area, I also saw it as my only option.

A little into this trail I came across a pile of goose feathers in the leaves. There were no bones but a still a solemn scene. (What can take out a goose down here? A bobcat? I need to look into this.) One of the feathers attracted my attention. It was the sort with iridescent keratin filaments that transitioned between green, blue, and violet depending on their orientation in the sunlight. I wedged the quill between the cable housing and the bar wrap so that this feather would once again know the sensation of flight; thinking that I could in my own small way connect with the felled goose.

It occurred to me after a couple of moments that sometimes the best part of a bike ride isn’t when you’re riding. It’s an experience that I have all the time: two wheels brought me here but my own two feet (or just sitting on my butt) change the character of a place. On two wheels the tendency is motion and tunnel vision. On two feet the trees become the woods, the forest reveals its story. On two feet a view is taken in and distance is revered.

Further along on the deer-path I come across skunk cabbage and marsh marigolds. A small bog with dogwood just budding and sedges emerging. I feel like I’m miles from anything, like I’ve stumbled upon a personal Eden, when I hear some one on a cell phone and realize there’s a path just up the embankment not twenty feet from this glen. Once on the path I was able to ride again. I stopped at a stream and munched some fresh watercress. A little further on the trail ended at a small park. From there it was asphalt all the way back home, so I showed the feather how we humans try to fly.

There’s three things that I’ll claim to collect: my stable of bicycles, a growing list of crafted beers, and wool Pendleton shirts. The last Pendleton flannel I had I bought used from Savers. By then it was probably in somebody’s closet for around 20 years, once I bought it the earth-toned Umatilla wool was on my body a solid 7 months out of each year that I had it– even rode across the country one autumn with it layered against the strong headwinds of Montana{pic}. When the elbows began to disintegrate I sewed on patches and got another year out of it before the rest of it turned into a Tibetan prayer flag.

Yesterday I found this one at a store here in Eugene. It’s woodsy, rugged, and makes me think I should own a hatchet again. Like all Pendleton flannels of this vintage it was made in Portland and made there before outdoorsy became kitsch. The wool is from sheep raised and sheered in the ranges around Pendleton’s original mill in eastern Oregon since the 1800′s, woven tightly, and brilliantly dyed. This is more than just a shirt: it’s history, a local economy, it’s natural resources, one of the most fundamental and ancient relationships between man and beast that civilization has known, and a garment made to represent the best of each of those. Not bad for $20.

Diana contacted me last fall, shortly after I moved to Eugene, looking for a handmade bicycle that is distinctive, comfortable, utilitarian, and could serve as her daily commuter throughout the four distinctive seasons experienced in Bemidji, MN. This is what we eventually came up with: Nitto Moustache bars way up high, a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed hub, Paul Components brakes, Brooks saddle, and a set of Velo Orange fenders, among other nice details. The frame also includes braze-ons for derailleurs should she ever decide to outfit her Wilder for more extensive touring.

I make frames because I love bikes and love to ride. While I exist on a fence between using a bicycle as a simple conveyance, or enjoying a bicycle as a covetous material object, the fact remains that a bicycle is rarely more than the labor and materials that go into its making. It’s these qualities that imbue a collection of joined steel tubes and pieces into a work worth a second look.

This frame is built with Italian steel joined together with investment-cast lugs and silver. It takes time, patience, experience, and sometimes advice to make a frame this way. The end result is something one-of-a-kind, something with tradition and elegance built into the design.

This 52cm frame weighs in at 3.75 pounds. The fork is 1.5 pounds. While this might be considered heavy by today’s standards it’s not made to be disposable and it’s not made from plastics like many of the higher-end frames manufactured today. This bicycle is going to ride great, it’s going to get some compliments, and it’s going to be in use for a couple of decades.

A proper city bike deserves a proper chainguard. Unfortunately most of what’s available out there is flimsy, plastic, ugly, looks cheap, or isn’t available in the chainring profile I need. Pictured above is my first stab at making a chainguard that looks good enough to attach to a Capricorn. This prototype was made with the intention of testing out the design and technique, but since it’s made from 1/8″ steel angle it’s too heavy for use (hence all the removed material). I still have to figure out how to mount it to the frame and how to shave some weight from it without all the drilling and hacksawing. But I’ll get it there eventually.

I fancy myself a bit of a tinkerer. Whether it’s a blessing or a curse I can’t honestly say, but to me it’s a luxury to follow through on new ideas or tweaks to old ones out in the workshop. Over the past week I had the chance to ride a bike that I built specifically to test steering geometry, components, rack/bag combo, and a three-piece top tube design. As the builder, I can’t make the claim that this is an objective review but I’ll do my best to explain my hopes for each of the features as well as how I feel about each after riding 100-miles.

Mixte Top Tube: I built my first frame like this last summer, then three more over the winter. It’s a distinctive look, and the first thing that people notice. The impetus for the design was to build into the frame something of a leaf spring– a passive form of suspension that would allow the front end a little more wiggle. My main concern for this frame was that it would be too flexible during hard, out-of-the-saddle climbs, or that the weight in the front bag could initiate a wobbly feel. I did notice a little of each of these concerns while riding but nothing that felt excessive or uncontrollable. Even in fast descents over broken asphalt with a couple hairpin turns thrown in the bike still goes where you point it. There are understandably trade-offs of having a more flexible frame– it’s not built for sprinters or racing, for example. And while I don’t have a weight for the frame I’m almost positive that a little more steel goes into it, so it’s not for ounce-counters either. What it does do is take the edge of vibration, and it seemed to do that about as well I could’ve expected. 

Paul Racer M Brakes: I dig Paul Components, especially like the cantilever brakes that I bought from them for my mountain bike. The Racer bakes sit on posts above the wheel making them ideal mounts for a front rack, which is one reason that I used them. Performance-wise these are about as good as rim brakes get. They have tons of power and a “smooth” feel that I’m sure is a combination of modulation, precisely-made parts, and fresh all-season brake pads.

Rack/Bag Combo: Amber and I had an idea for this combination when we went to the post office last fall. Their carts have a metal frame that holds up a large canvas mail bag, which folds over the top. Amber’s bag is made from waxed canvas, with a lid that covers the top completely so there’s no issue with your stuff falling out or rain getting in. Unlike conventional randonnee bags which are prone to flying off unexpectedly, this bag is 100% secure. Four snaps hold the bag onto the rack, leather straps hold the lid to the bag over the rails. The rack fully supports the weight in the bag on all four sides and bottom. The trade-off is that the rack isn’t too useful for much else. It doesn’t even look that great without the bag in place. But the idea is that you’ll always be riding with the bag anyway, the way your car always has a trunk whether you’re using it or not. I’ve suggested different hardware for the lid to Amber and she’s in agreement. The buckles are a bit cumbersome but we’re working on a solution.

Steering Geometry: The physics of bicycle steering is inherently complicated. The way the front wheel holds it’s line, say, while riding no handed is because it contacts the ground behind the steering axis. Friction is essentially pulling it straight. The further that contact point is behind the steering axis the less the steering is affected by small movements in the handlebars– some refer to this as “stability.” This stability doesn’t necessarily work when weight is carried over the front wheel because these bikes lean into turns; the weight falls into the lean and suddenly the front wheel seems to be fighting against you. Bicycles carrying cargo above the front wheel counter this “diving” by narrowing the distance between steering axis and contact point. This “low trail” steering decreases the bicycle’s tendency to lean into turns, thus creating “stability” by preventing the cargo from dominating the input from the rider. I hope that makes sense.

There is, however, an issue that arises when low-trail steering is incorporated: high-speed wobble, or death shimmy. This occurs when the force of the spinning front wheel overcomes the frames ability to restrain it (which decreases as trail is lowered) and the whole frame begins to oscillate. Since this occurs at 35-40 mph, it can be very disconcerting– even dangerous. “Neutral” handling has a sweet spot of 56-58mm of trail (contact point to steering axis), I have frames with as little as 40mm of trail, which seems to be average among other builders these days for randonnee bicycles (and I have heard are plenty vulnerable to the shimmy). With this frame I sought to split the difference between “neutral steering” and “low-trail” steering and settled on an even 50mm of trail to see if that would negate the high-speed wobble.  I also used a headset with needle bearings, which are also said to help. I’ve now climbed and descended several big hills. I hit 40 mph yesterday without worry. On another hill I did notice a little of the shimmy while pedaling, so I coasted and it immediately went away.

Complete Bicycle: This bicycle handles better than I expected it would and feels completely stable, even with the bag full of gear. There’s nothing high-tech or high-concept about it. Most of the parts date from at least the 1980′s. Objectively speaking, I can’t be sure that I made something better– but I can say that I made something differently. And it turned out pretty great.

While Amber was waiting for her frame to come back from Spectrum Powder Works I threw these tires onto my own 650B singlespeed townie for a test run– they are after all more expensive, much lighter,with a minimal tread pattern so I expected a significant difference in the ride compared to the Fatty Rumpkins that were on there prior. There was little difference.

There’s a lot of talk about lightweight tires and rotational mass and threads per inch, and I’m pretty sure that that it’s all intended to get suckers like me to spend a little extra on lighter tires. Light tires don’t do you much good when you’re stranded somewhere or fixing a flat on the shoulder of a highway.

The moral if there is one lies in that I tried to put up with patching and repatching these tires; searching and digging out the tiniest pieces of glass, quartz, wire, or thorns from the tire each time; wanting each flat to be the last, but it never was. Finally fed up with these tissue-thin Pari-Motos I got a set of Schwalbe Marathons today. They’re a little bit heavier, a little bit cheaper, will take a broken wine bottle in stride, and Amber probably won’t notice any difference in the ride quality.

In defense of Panaracer, the manufacturer of Pari-Motos– they also made the Fatty-Rumpkins on my own bike. I’ve been riding them for over two years now and have sustained only a flat tire or two. There is still enough tread on either tire that I can foresee riding them for another two years. Amber’s tires are coming off after six months. In this context weight seems like a silly thing to fuss over.