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The deposit is down. The design process and tubing selection has been started.

What is known:
True mixte frame with the twin laterals, 20 inch chain stays, with Tange/IRD sliding dropouts, seat collar lowered 3 inches for extra seat post flex. Torsional stiffness emphasized.

Lauf Grit 3rd gen fork.

Rohloff hub with the OEM2 axle plate and Gebla shift box. This means a Monkey bone and post mount rear brake. The Gebla shifter system will be operated by GRX810 shifters. The rear hub and SP Dynamo will be laced into We Are One 32 & 28 hole Revive rims.

Compass 29x2.2 Fleecer Ridge tires.

Due date for this baby? A very special birthday in February.

A monster-cross mountain mixte gravel bike? Watch this space.

SoSmellyAir

If I understand correctly, the new bike (i.e., baby) would have the design of the bottom bike with more or less the geometry of the top bike, plus clearance for MTB tires?

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SoSmellyAir Basically, that is the gist of it.

The top bike was made to be especially durable for airline suitcase abuse and carrying very heavy loads. Consequently the oversized and extra thick tandem tubing brings it to 36 pounds. It is very stiff in all planes. The flexible Ti seatpost and Redshift stem are necessities.

The bike on the bottom has it's own thread. It is super comfortable. The design helps immensely with "vertical compliance" and really, really does soak up a lot of ground chatter. (I once took it off a drop off. You could literally feel the frame bow and the handlebars come towards you.) But the trade off, even being the best of non-diamond frame designs for torsional stiffness, was the frame was still too twisty for confident descending of twisty windy switchbacks. I would describe the feeling as vague. Especially when taking a hand off the bar to reach for a few smaller cogs during a steep descent.

The lower bike could definitely benefit from much larger and harder headtube, downtube and chainstays to keep the frame twist in check.

The upper bike could benefit a lot from incorporating additional seatpost flex into the design and keeping chatter of out of the frame to begin with. Especially on 80+ mile days. Hence the lowered seatpost collar, Lauf fork, 29'ers and the decision to move to a mixte configuration.

Trakhak

Would the resulting mixte be the best bike for planing?

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Trakhak

mstateglfr 

If those two bikes had a baby, it would be a baby only a mother could love.

LesterOfPuppets

Hopefully the offspring gets its paint color from the Rodriguez!

Noonievut

The women in the background of photo one is thinking, “what’s this perv doing acting like he’s photographing the bike”

bOsscO

Was thinking it better be some sort of baby-blue, teal, celeste colour...

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I was thinking a PPG 021 Kandy Electric Fuchsia on account of I already have the above teal/seafoam/Celeste/green-ish bikes. And 2 bikes in silver/black. But, honestly the design work is still in progress and I need to review & approve the blueprints first.

Color is probably the last thing I'm going to pick. I need to see the tube proportions to see how they're going to play with the color. I also want to see a real life sample of the color, 'cause on a screen really doesn't tell you much about how it's really going to look in the sunshine. Sometime soon I'll be headed to the automotive paint and body work supply shop to prime the ol' noggin's with some ideas.

The bike is going to be an unusual enough machine to begin with. It might as well have a masculine/bold/badass statement of a paintjob. Something deep and metallic with sparkles/metal flake is where I'm leaning.

Carnation pink, French Lavender, and lemon yellow, although classic don't play well with black components and massive down tubes. Skinny tubes and silver? Sure.

Oh, and thanks for the compliments on the Rodriguez. It is themed on Bessie the Planet Express ship from the show Futurama.

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Status update:
The Lauf fork arrived at home while I was out of state for work. Because I obsess about things and really have a strong lack of understanding in the headset department I hadn't realized the differences between an IS and a ZS headset.

I was hoping for a ZS headset because in my mind a taller cup that presses into a steel head tube and rests on the tubing end would be better than a plain bearing pressed into a bore machined into already thin tubing walls.

After a trip across town to Chris King I was very politely informed that they can not accommodate random customers knocking on the factory door. Even if they could, they do not make a headset with the 45 degree internal chamfer necessary for a Lauf. I thanked the gentleman, noting that, that bit of info was worth the trip & I completely understood. I have had the same situation happen at my own facility. We don't have a cash register available so couldn't even help a customer off the street, even if we wanted to.

I wrote Lauf about the situation and they suggested a Ritchey headset. "Comp Cartridge Semi Integrated ZS Lower Headset 33035337008" I immediatly ordered it and the matching upper from Universal Cycles expecting to pick it up while I was in town.

Well, the job that had me in town got done early. All of our difficulties were worked through and thanks to the support of the shipyard and very helpful ships crew that made sure we were properly fed & coffee-d we picked up some much needed ground. Thursday was a full 17 hour day...As awesome as that was it meant we were done before the headset was available for pickup. Such is life.

When I got home I found the Grit 3 to be everything I expected. It was black with a glossy finish. I didn't really expect that, though. In fact, I didn't give the color any thought at all. Mechanically it "met requirements." No subjective qualities really entered my mind. Nevertheless the finish is/was impressively high quality with no faults and the fork came with it's very own 45/45 degree 52mm external diameter IS bearing. (Sorry, I didn't take any pictures.)

I took the Lauf fork to the good folks at R&E and after a bit of discussion concerning the headset situation and with fork in hand they went in search of a suitable head tube.

While they were searching, the conversation turned to paint color. I wasn't really a fan of the standard ROY G BIV "standard issue" offerings. So, I was invited downstairs to the paint shop to look through their paint locker of left-overs. Eventually we came across a nearly full can of House of Kolor gold lime pearl. I've never seen a bike this color and judging by the nearly full can neither did they. It was probably used for an accent or touchup or a repair or something. Either way, the choice had been made.


https://www.houseofkolor.com/kolors/detail/?id=S2-PBC53

Around the time the paint was decided a head tube that met all the criteria was found. They'd have to order it, obviously. But such a thing exists, they found it and it is going on my bike! Hooray!

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Base2_Gravel_Mixte by Richard Mozzarella, on Flickr

...And Taylor Swift glitter sparkles have been added.

All systems are Go.

mstateglfr 

510mm chainstays? Wow.
Some measurement at the bottom of 463.4mm that isnt reach since it measured to the bottom headset cup...is that a meaningful measurement for the builder?
Water in tubes will be cooked out? It has to be specified that there wont be water left in the tubes after brazing is cleaned up?

Well regardless- your unique dream is one step closer to reality. It can soon be added to your Varsity and other bikes that make up your proverbial island of misfit toys.

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Yes. This is one page of the builders build sheet, complete with various QC checks and all. I have another sheet with stack, reach and other miscellaneous information.

The seat tube is also 50cm. Where as otherwise it would be closer to 57-58. So the additional 7-8cm of seatpost can flex for addition compliance.

I have high hopes for the 72.5/73 HTA/STA will lend a racy feel. 66mm trail with the largest 622-55 tires ought to be as neutral-ish as a gravel bike could be.

mstateglfr 

Yeah, those frame angles certainly lean towards the 'racy' side of feel. The front half of the bike feel racy and the back half with 510mm chainstays can eventually catch up. Quite the combo.

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The twin top tubes, "Lats" as they are known in mixte speak are 16mm (⅝ inch) diameter. They are either seat stays or chain stays...I'm not sure. Probably seat stays. But I do know they are 0.8mm straight gauge 4130 cro-mo. To my understanding they will be spliced with round s-bend seat stays to achieve the proper length. These should do wonders in the torsional stiffness department.

Also present in the above photograph are the newly machined (today) head tube reinforcement collars, a 73mm Birmingham Small Arms "British Standard" bottom bracket and the seat tube/twin lats lug that needs some minor modification to accommodate the larger than usual lats.


It is hard to tell but that's the head tube over there on the left. The first piece is in the jig!

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Last week, I received a phone call from R&E to inform me that the metal work on the frame was done and to clarify some oof the paint details. It's a good thing they did. With any custom job communication is key. Confirmed: I did want the braze on Trillium headbadge. I did not want the paint on trillium logo on the seat tube. I wanted the "Rodriguez" script painted in black, no glitter. The Lime Yellow with glitter base color & a clear to seal it all up. All in all, a 4 step process.

This week, work had me down Reedsport in the Oregon Dunes area for a few days. On the return drive to North of Seattle I figured it would be worth a visit to R&E Cycles to pay a visit.

Down in the paint booth, we found this: We're on step 2, white primer over the black primer with the "Rodriguez" script masked off.

downtube42

Nice. Picture is worth 1000 words. I approve of everything, and by approve I mean aligns with my tastes.

Ever since building up a mixte for my daughter, I've wanted one for myself. At 6'3", custom is about the only way.

If a picture is worth 1000, the resulting ride is worth 1M. Looking forward to hearing about that.

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I got an email with a picture of the painted bike from the bike shop today. Silly me, I expected that to mean the frame was done. So, I raced down to the shop after work. Nope, not done yet; That's on me. The picture in the email was meant to signify that the final coat of clear was done this morning and it'll "be ready soon." Tomorrow there is still some buffing to do after everything cures in the climate cabinet. The buffing will smooth out some of the sharp edges from the masking and other miscellaneous artifacts of the painting process. Until then, this is where we stand:





















I'm getting a very 1970's vinyl vibe. Groovy, man.

veganbikes

Electric baby poop...LOL. It is a nice bike and R+E make some really good stuff. I cannot wait to see it adorned in Rohloff goodies. Love me some Rohloff.

mstateglfr 

Lauf fork too?
Really testing the phrase 'a face only a mother could love' on this one.

Your creativity never ceases when it comes to bike creations.

justin1138

absolutely wild looking frame!