November 17th, 2010 scottk
We’re chugging along steadily here at True North, turning out several bikes a week. I just finished assembling Eva’s Hunter Green S and S coupler equipped flat-bar road bike. This bike features long reach road brakes, handbuilt wheels with Ultegra hubs and Ambrosio rims, a Brooks B17S perched upon a Eriksen Ti Sweetpost and a 105 30 speed drivetrain. A beautiful bike that will travel easily, whether through an airport or down the road.
Kane’s singlespeed 29er mtb is beginning to take shape.
I thought I might include a few photos from September. It was quite the busy month and we didn’t get to update the website. Here is Russel with his new Campy equipped road bike.
Handbuilt wheels, Campy shifting, a Brooks saddle. All the finer things in life.
Rob’s singlespeed 29er turned out stunning.
Mike’s singlespeed cross frame and fork ended up looking great. Lots of tire clearance for fun in the mud. Hopefully Mike will send us some photos when it’s all built up.
We built this road bike for Gary in California. Noah at Velocolour handled the paint duties on this one. It features a carbon rear end and full Sram Red. We think it turned out amazing.
Remember to check out our Framebuilder’s Garage Sale page. I just recently put up a really nice long reach brake equipped singlespeed road bike.
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October 28th, 2010 scottk
Anne’s mixte is finished and it looks amazing. The bi-laminate lugs turned out really nice and subtle details like the chain guard, polished Paul racer brakes, Nitto front rack and matching Brooks saddle and bar tape really bring this bike together.
Christine’s bike got finished just in time for her and Hugh’s trip to New Zealand. This S&S coupling bike features Old Man Mountain racks, a complete SLX 10 speed drive train and Avid BB5 disc brakes. We were playing around with decal colours when I took this photo; rest assured she has some nice True North decals on it now.
Hugh’s bike really turned out nice. Hugh makes a point to attend the Single Speed World Championships every year and this year he decided that since he was going to travel all the way to New Zealand, he should probably get some bike touring in at the same time. Here is his bike in touring guise. Strip off the racks and gears and adjust the chain with the EBB and all of sudden you have a 29er singlespeed mountain bike. Like Christine’s it also includes S&S couplings to save on dreaded excess baggage fees at the airport.
The new SRAM Apex group is really something. Mountain bike gearing in the rear (11-32), a compact crank up front (50-34) and clearance to run 28c tires. Perfect for road riding, gravel roads and light touring. We just built up our demo frame with the Apex group and it’s headed over to Pedal Magazine for a product test.
We built up this large cross bike for Trevor. When you’re this big you definitely need disc brakes to slow you down.
Finally, here is Scott’s new cross bike. We had this frame on display in it’s unpainted form at the Toronto bike show this spring. I especially like the falling leaf motif on the seat tube. Cyclo-cross, Fall, Falling Leaves…this bike make look pretty, but make no mistake, with a dedicated 1×10 drive train and lack of water bottle bosses; it’s a pure race bike.
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August 26th, 2010 Hugh
I just finished welding up the head gusset on Rob’s 29er. While it cools down I thought I could throw up some of the lastest builds.
Last week I started work on Anne’s Mixte. I have done of few of these in the past but never with lugs. Lugs are hard to come by for Mixte style frames so I had to make my own. This is a very tedious and labour intensive way to get the lugged look. Basically you have to cut two similar lugs and then weld the desired pieces together at the correct angle. Here are some shots of a few of the joints mid cleanup.
Don drove from BC to pick up his new coupled touring bike. It is outfitted with the new Shimano Dynasys SLX grouppo. The 10 speed shifting worked flawlessly and was really easy to set up. He also had a full set of the Arkel Dolphin panniers installed on the bike. There is a complete set of pictures on my flickr page with the full packing sequence into the S+S soft case. This is one of the more complicated bikes to shoehorn into one of the cases. We actually got both racks and fenders in the case which is hard to do.
Here are a few customer shots. John is showing off his belt buckle after completing the Leadville 100. Leo is leaving Pommard on his coupled TN sport tourer. He also climbed Mont Ventoux on this trip.
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August 6th, 2010 Hugh
There are lots of interesting bikes on the go at the shop I just delivered a number of Columbus Spirit tubed road bikes. This tubing makes a really sweet riding bike. It is stiff enough to be race worthy and also compliant enough for day long rides. Looks sharp too!
I almost have Mike’s SS crosser ready for paint. It is set up to run with an EBB and also has the hanger and guides for a 1X9/10 system. The fork is built around a Pacenti mtb fork crown. It is relatively light and the clearance is great. This bike will be able to run up to a 44C tire.
Here is another project that has been on the go for a bit. One of the TN racers will be trying out the Ventana 29er rear end. The frame is almost ready for some powder.
I got a few new red powder colours in recently. The matt red anodized powder is one of the more unique powder paints I have seen.
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