I've made some good headway on the 650b project. This bike has been a real learning experience as its designed for the largest tires (2.5") and smallest rider (13" seat tube, 18" cockpit) for me thus far. Well, that does some funky things to the rear triangle! Quite tight back there angle wise, but I've managed a ton of tire clearance, a fair bit of chain ring clearance, and still managed to get a chain and disc caliper to not hit anything.

This bike is designed for approx. 12" BB height with 2.3" tires, and should run fairly well in touring duty with 700c fatties (the joy of disc brakes). It was made for a good sized strong rider who wanted to pull a loaded trailer. I used a mix of mtb and tandem tubing- should he decide to take up urban riding or post nuclear Armageddon Thunderdome events I'll wager he will not be under gunned. Thats an inch and a half .035" down tube for reference.

The real fun (for me) focuses around the seat tube cluster, which is sort of a triple triangle unto itself.Quite the challenge on the old fingers to clean up, but it looks good, helps tube transitions, and really uses that whopper top tube to help stabilize a trailer. I figured out a couple of little tricks to help with fillet transitions as well (some with the initial fillet, some in clean up).



I'm off to celebrate another successful year of life and five blissful years married to the love of my life, so I'll be out of the blog-sphere for a few days. Check back next week for some paint (maybe build) shots and updates on the track bike I'm working on!