It's not the most cost-efficient way to get a new bike, certainly not the easiest and it might be an expression of my IKEA syndrome, but I can't help it - if I like something, I want to know what makes it tick and I want to make my own. Scratching this itch led me to brazing up my first bike frame, and I finally have the satisfaction of being able to ride my own creation (and see others ride it).
Because I am a pragmatic perfectionist, the bike I want for myself is more complicated then a first frame should be - a foldable travel bike, with unnecessarily clever cable routing and odd tubing choices, that kind of thing. So instead, I decided to build a frame for a prolific rider who had a different problem to solve: the market doesn't make many bikes that are small enough for her. She also wanted something light to ease the rolling hills around her home, a comfortable ride and enough space above the tire to mount a seat pack.
Because I am a pragmatic perfectionist, the bike I want for myself is more complicated then a first frame should be - a foldable travel bike, with unnecessarily clever cable routing and odd tubing choices, that kind of thing. So instead, I decided to build a frame for a prolific rider who had a different problem to solve: the market doesn't make many bikes that are small enough for her. She also wanted something light to ease the rolling hills around her home, a comfortable ride and enough space above the tire to mount a seat pack.
I opted for the skinniest tubes in Columbus' catalogue (a mix of Life and SL), both to keep the weight down and to make the frame a little springy under the weight of a lighter rider. I was suprised to find that even under the strain of my 75-ish kg bulk the bike doesn't feel noodly, but noticably smooths the bumps in the road.
For the geometry I aimed at the halfway point between a modern road bike and a gravel bike. This steed will mostly see a mix of tarmac in all shades of (dis)repair, cobbles and smooth gravel and I suspect the shorter trail will be helpful in dodging the all-too-common potholes in a peleton.
To make the bike feel proportional in such a small size and make space for the desired seat pack, I chose to build the frame around ETRTO 584 wheels (AKA 650b or 27.5") with 45 mm wide tires. I love that rim size for so many reasons - please, please, please let's keep it alive!
The componentry was curated around a Campagnolo Ekar GT group (with the wonderful OG Ekar crank in 165 mm length) and DT Swiss GRC 1400 wheels (chosen because they're good and because they're among the few light and relatively affordable wheelsets still available in that size).
I am quite pleased that I managed to integrate fully guided cable routing through the down tube as well as the chainstays - no poking around for the outer or brake hose in a port as well as a nice steam-punky easter-egg under the bottom bracket.
The total mass of the painted frame came out to 1832 g, with 9.3 kg for the whole bike, bolts and pedals and all - not true weight weenie material, but not too bad for a steel bike either.
Before I build my next frame, I'll braze a few more practice fillets - the ones one this bike are functional enough, but I want to have them look as neat as Cjell Monē's - Ambitious? Yes. But I like to tell myself that shooting for the moon repeatedly means that I'll eventually learn how to build a rocket.
Behind the scenes
My partner Léa Mvondo was kind enough to allow me to share her fittingly analogue photos of my tacking the chainstays to the bottom bracket shell (incl. a cameo of my dummy axle holder).
License
The photos of me building the bike are © Léa Mvondo.
The photos of the bike are © Jan Hettenkofer
They are all licensed as usual 👇
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
When sharing the photos, I would like to ask you to credit either Léa or me as the photographer as well as me as the builder of this bike.
I built this frame following the the online class with Robert Piontek from Big Forest Frameworks.