bladderhead
Zen MBB Master
Upgrade your mallet? Why bother? I still use an analog mallet. Do not be brainwashed into wasting masses of dough on an iMallet.
It's Mallet Season
- Thread starter ratz
- Start date
ReklinedRider
Zen MBB Master
Hmm i have those Ritchey bars in my garage, mocked up on my repair stand. Just trying to find the time to put them in place of the extant Soma Junebug's.
super slim
Zen MBB Master
Are they ALL Evo Max, but 3 different widths??
Lovely SOLID wooden table!
Is it Ohio wood?
Lovely SOLID wooden table!
Is it Ohio wood?
ratz
Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
4 x WCS VentureMax
2 x Evo Max
There's a fair bit more on the way. They are coming in the various widths so I can figure out which ones fit which body sizes. I suspect 2 or maybe 3 models are going to work better. We'll keep the sizes that work for us; the others will head to e-bay after getting offered up here for people that are smaller or bigger than us.
Goal is to get the hands down for aero, minimum width for safe handling; and comfort... The Ritchey were a late find and seem to be the most promising of course, but we'll look at all of them. Never can tell until you put them on the bike. The e-tap makes that a lot easier to do.
2 x Evo Max
There's a fair bit more on the way. They are coming in the various widths so I can figure out which ones fit which body sizes. I suspect 2 or maybe 3 models are going to work better. We'll keep the sizes that work for us; the others will head to e-bay after getting offered up here for people that are smaller or bigger than us.
Goal is to get the hands down for aero, minimum width for safe handling; and comfort... The Ritchey were a late find and seem to be the most promising of course, but we'll look at all of them. Never can tell until you put them on the bike. The e-tap makes that a lot easier to do.
bladderhead
Zen MBB Master
I agree about the table. You appear to spend as much on your workshop as you do on your bikes. Puts my shed to shame.
super slim
Zen MBB Master
How much does the table weigh???
ratz
Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
Kitchen table.... two parents; 5 kids; + visiting grandma and grandpa and we all fit... wise investment; center of a lot of family activity. Store wanted it gone; I fell over when they accepted my low ball price.
Takes four adults if you want to move it more than 5 feet.....
super slim
Zen MBB Master
Does Ratz work for an TV Advertising Company?
Cruzbike Chris
Well-Known Member
ratz
Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
It's the battle between the wrench, the camera and the keyboard. Still in the mess but here are some snipets to hold people over; The actual installation of this stuff wind up in the build thread, handle bar thread and the yet to be created performance tweaking thread. So consider this behind the scenes stuff i this thread..
First up the changes I can show you so far to the base product.
The seat now comes predrilled with Head rest Adjustment holes.
The Headrest is now slightly shorter. It doesn't look like much but it is dramatically lower on the bike.
The slider clamp now has two cable feed holes, more clearance under the clamp for cables, and a proper two head screw bolt that that replaces the sawed off one that use to flare and jam all the time. Don't underestimate the value of these improvements. IMHO this should be sold as an upgrade part for existing owners. I have to ask Robert about that; It's a worthy upgrade even at $20; I need to get a better photo of it.
Better disc brake mounts thiner and welds that don't add lots of unneeded material. Despite the waving nature of this weld it's actually quits small and clean.
The head rest pad now velcro straps to the pipes rather than sliding over the pipes. It's a little thing but it makes it a whole ton easier to work with. Again if you have to old style and still use it; this would be a worth upgrade just to make you life easier working with the headrest for mounting items. I don't know if there is inventory to support this as an upgrade part but we can ask and see.
The Sizing labels have been repositioned on the boom to provide a more useable range.
The 3 booms here have been cut down. Top one is the max cut down to still have the entire range of the etching useable. Zero becomes the point the boom hits the braze-on water bottle mounts at full insert; and has enough boom to leave 190mm overlap in max position 20. The two shorter boom are the max removal for Pluckblond and I to have 20mm remaining adjustment without compromising the over lap of 180mm.
Total weight savings on the max cutdown for our person bikes (the ones not practical to demo to tall people) is a full quarter lb of weight.
The demo bikes sport 1 cut down boom. That one will support the maximum boom insert where you can't go in any further because it reach the point of trying to insert the curved portion and it would jam. And the other one one with the max of position 20 extension, anymore than that and with a medium chain stay the derailleur hanger would hit the boom and be non functional. Way is the boom too long to start with? well it's not; if you are using the long chain stay or if you need to bring the handle bars way back for a tall person. So it's still a one size all; and cut it to the size that makes sense for you. Not a big deal; DF have done that with seat posts for eons. A piper cuter makes short work of the project; just make sure you think it through and measure twice and cut once.
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ratz
Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
An now for the carbon tailbox. I will have more details on this over the next day or so. But here are my initial thoughts
Now because of 4 I immediately had to make it better for "me". I had purchased 2 years ago some Sugru magnet kits for the bikes. I never used it because I always found better ways to do what I wanted. But the Sugru magnets are perfect for modifying the tail box for our use model. Understand the stuff I have on hand is past it's expiration date so it was drying out and was a bit sloppying to mold. The stuff is still hardening from puddy to rubber (takes 24 hours) once it's rubber I'll sand it down to make it smooth and pretty; right now it looks like messy silly puddy. If it can't be cleaned up; I can just cut it off with a knife and get some fresh stuff; but the following was a perfect proof of concept.
I used total of ten magnets with five being useful for mount something else on top of the tailbox to boot.
So how does it work. Well here you go
- Super thin walls take max benefit of the carbon fiber.
- It could have been bigger but not really smaller; I think bigger would have been a bit heavy; seems to be in the sweet spot to appeal to the most people
- Intersting use of Velcro to make the water bottle slings.
- User removable
- User replaceable
- Light weight
- Simple and functions
- Some people will think it was cheap and sloppy; they will be wrong because 1-4 are very important. Pretty fragile and no-replaceable would be bad
- I don't like the screw on cover; for people that go in and out of the trunk a lot it's sub optimal; I get it that it errors on the side of security but it's definately a version 1 idea. Like everything we gotten over the years; it will meet our needs but I expect in 2 years it will be better; not a reason not to buy
Now because of 4 I immediately had to make it better for "me". I had purchased 2 years ago some Sugru magnet kits for the bikes. I never used it because I always found better ways to do what I wanted. But the Sugru magnets are perfect for modifying the tail box for our use model. Understand the stuff I have on hand is past it's expiration date so it was drying out and was a bit sloppying to mold. The stuff is still hardening from puddy to rubber (takes 24 hours) once it's rubber I'll sand it down to make it smooth and pretty; right now it looks like messy silly puddy. If it can't be cleaned up; I can just cut it off with a knife and get some fresh stuff; but the following was a perfect proof of concept.
I used total of ten magnets with five being useful for mount something else on top of the tailbox to boot.
So how does it work. Well here you go
Rick Youngblood
CarbonCraft Master
Cool that. It's nice to see the cf tailbox come full circle. But the hug surprise is the cost. $285 is just plain ridiculously L O W. I know, because I made one, mine is much more simpler (made) due to obvious reasons. The new CB cf-tailbox has complex curves and corners, which is not easy to do in cf, and beyond me. I would have expected the cost of these to be at least double...at $285, these are a steel. A typical canvas aero seat bag comes in at $130 and up. Good job Cruzbike, thanks Bob for sharing. As a note, I totally get the magnet idea, as I have one thumb screw to deal with on mine.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
I'm pretty sure that tail box lid would go flying off the first time I got launched into the air after one of the many G-outs I hit during most of my rides.
DavidCH
In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
It would need a Jason strap
