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This past weekend was the 2011 Oregon Manifest. The goal of the show was to build the ultimate utility bike for modern living. And unlike any other frame-builders show you actually get out and ride the bikes you designed and built. I’m going to put up a few posts about this show, but this one goes through a few of the development pics.
Above is one of our initial sketches made back in April. Right at the beginning of this process I went to the main engineer I work with on special projects, Aarn Panone. Aarn wrote a little bit of our design process on his blog here. The design was born from a mix of classic french utility bikes, with a modern flair added.
Once we signed off on a final design, Aarn did some CAD drawings of the frame and individual tubes. We sent the tube designs to Greg Melms, who’s another fabricator that helps on special Geekhouse projects. Greg has all the proper rollers, bends, and dies and was able to make the tubes exactly to our spec.
Mitering the tubes and aligning this frame was far beyond anything I’ve done in the past. Many of the cuts of the curved tubing were hand filed, a process far different from using milling machines (I don’t know how all you brazen young gentlemen do it!). Once the frame was mitered I went through a thorough aligning process to make sure every tube was a dialed as possible. This whole process took about 10 times longer than a normal build. Actually everything on this bike took about 10 times longer!
Once we finished tacking the frame, I sent if over to Aarn at Fringe. Aarn was then able to make both the front and rear fenders as well as the chain guard and check for fit.
While the planning of this bike was over 9 months in the works, it seemed like everything came down to the last couple weeks before it all came together. When the frame was finally finished Aarn, Brad and I were at the shop til 4:30am the night before the show finishing up the lights and assembly.
We had a couple technical problems with the lights right before the final check in. But after a little luck, we had them working no problem and they were totally fine through out the field test. Anyway, just wanted to post a little up on this process, there’s more posts to come. Also for more detail pics of the entire process, event, and bike check out the Geekhouse Flickr page. I can’t thank Bradford Smith and Aaron Panone enough for all their help on this project, I couldn’t have done it without them!
If anyone is seriously interested in purchasing this bicycle, please contact me directly at [email protected] . Please keep in mind that this is a special one of a kind Geekhouse with all of the bells and whistles, and not something we will be putting into production. Thanks!
-Marty
