I noticed that many of the low volume frame builders featured customer bikes this year. Sometimes explaining options, like internal vs external cable routing. While I am not a fan, wireless shifting does free the design and finishing of a frame. Particularly the new pinion drive for touring, cargo and fat bike frames.
The matte silver of my old campy groupset looked great. An additional plus was that unlike my black cranks today, there was no finish for my pants and shoes to rub off the crank.
Hey, love your videos, after watching all of them in one go, this is now one of my favorite channels. The first few videos where you explained how to design a frame and its parts in CAD where my favorites so far. You do it in a nice calm way. That is pretty unique content on TH-cam. I study mechanical engineering and was always a little bit intimidated by bike design, because it seemed so distant to what I learned somehow. Watching your videos showed me that it's really not. Because I love riding and tinkering with bikes, I want to build my own frame one day. Although I'd like to say I'm quite good with CAD and engineering design in general, I lack the bike specific knowledge and fabrication skills. Can you share how you learned all this stuff and maybe show us more about bike design and fabrication in future videos?
Thanks for the kind words! I was exactly in your position 4 years ago (CAD and engineering skills, no framebuilding-specific knowledge). I was lucky to meet Nick where we worked together to develop the current fabrication process and CAD workflow. I will definitely make the more nerdy videos, that is my real specialty! Right now I am focusing on more general topics to grow the channel, but I like to sprinkle in some design and engineering discussions. In the mean time, you can check out the custom frame forum: forum.customframeforum.com/
Agreed. Astral does limited edition silver rims sometimes. They are really cool! Maybe we need to darken the silver anodizing so it matches better with black components.
I'd love if Shimano would release silver groupset parts again. I've been trying to find the mechanical 105 levers in silver to replace the Sensah shifters I use to shift a GRX derailleur, but they're impossible to find these days.
Can you expand on "internal cable routing is easier to build and more profitable"? I'm guessing you're saying lack of ports equates to much less production time and therefore profit? I guess many stem/headset companies have paid for the R&D to route the cables for you already, so reduction of labor is gravy?
@@whiteryanc shhhh, can’t let out the secrets. Full internal cable routing involves drilling a single large hole in the headtube and one exit port for the brake. That only works well for wireless drivetrains. To do clean external routing, you need atleast 5 zip tie guides and 3 bosses for cable clips. Fully internal does look nice though!
great video, but I'd disagree on what people want to see on bikes, even show bikes. While I can appreciate the aesthetics of slick full internal show bikes, I find the excessive focus on aesthetics at the cost of maintainability (external housing) to be a turnoff. Also the video of your rutted fireroad is smoother gravel than pretty much anything I've seen in my home state of New Mexico... 😭 man I miss how good riding in the bay area was. Perhaps I've just become infected with theradavist brainworms however. Also SHIMANO PLS GIVE SILVER
I couldn’t one-handed film the rutted parts 😂. But I totally get your point, in most places people don’t have “gravel riding”. industry just likes to push it as the next best thing. When I go mountain biking I always run into miserable gravel bikers 😂
My favorite bikes are from le Concours de Machines. It's a competition for all-road bikes where the judges not only look at aesthetics, but the machine much survive a race with nothing coming loose, let alone failing. The beasts that come out of that are reliable, complete (usually with built-in lighting and racks), and some weigh 10kg with pedals and racks and cages and lighting and mudguards. Pretty baller, actually.
After watching this video and commenting/following some of your other posts on the socials.... I'm wondering and watching for what you want to build in steel. I am currently riding an All City Macho Man Disc, and while I enjoy the bike for my puposes (gravel & bike path rides). I'm interested in what geometry changes (more BB drop) and high end tubing would be like to ride. I've always wanted a Ti gravel bike. But...could a boutique steel bike serve me just as well?....maybe.
@@chrisvejnovich116 quality materials certainly helps, but geometry is free! I think you are right, the macho man seems to have inherited its geometry from cross bikes, so it has a higher BB.
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT Yup.. Jeff from Wilde designed the bike while he worked for All City, and I remember it being marketed as a cross bike that can be used for all sorts of riding. For that time in my life and my budget the bike fit. As I have gotten older and resources are more abundant, I find myself looking for a custom gravel/all road frame. I have a custom steel MTB full susser and it is amazing to ride. So, my questions to you if your interested in answering here. 1. Can you compare high end steel tubing to moderate level Ti tubing. 2. How serious are you about producing a high quality steel gravel/all road frame? 3. Will the bike have a steel fork? I'm not as worried about the weight of the bike as the feel. I owned a Kona Jake the Snake (rim brake) that was rough, but also amazing to ride as it just seemed to jump up the road. But the carbon fork was stiff and chattery....and that put me off the bike. I love metal bikes, and I find what you are doing with 3D printing to be very cool and innovative. Thanks for your responses to my ramblings!
@@chrisvejnovich116 Sorry, it took me FOREVER to find this comment. 1) Tubing: Grade 9 Titanium does not really come in different grades or qualities, only different tempers. High end steels have more flexibility in tuning ride quality with different alloys, butting profiles, and heat treatment. To generalize, a steel bike will be less stiff, but also more comfortable. Durability between steel and titanium depends on design rather than the inherent material properties. 2) Steel production allroad (SYLEX): This fall I will invest some serious research, design, and building time to figure it out. 3) Steel forks: I have gone back and forth on this. Weight aside, I think carbon is a better match for the stiffness of modern components on drop bar bikes. Inorder for a steel fork to pass ISO testing, it becomes extremely stiff and heavy. Steel fork manufacturers are understandably reluctant to push the limits of construction. That being said, I would love to design a beautiful, contemporary, lugged fork crown for a modern road bike!
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT Thank you for your complete reply. Like most topics...it seems the more into the weeds you get the more intricate the answer becomes. Like a lot of cyclists...I want it all...I want a bike that jumps when I pedal hard, but doesn't beat me up. And I want it to look traditional cuz I like steel and Ti. Ha ha ha....I suppose I should just believe the marketing hype...you know...."snappy, compliant, springy, and playful"...ha ha...Thank you again for your thoughtful response. I look forward to seeing what you produce in the future.
@@chrisvejnovich116 +1 for steel forks. This is the primary reason why I'm sticking with rim brakes. I was able to find a nice compliant lugged fork (Thorn bicycles in UK) for my mid-reach brake Seven ti bike. It was like adding a suspension fork. There is no carbon fork that has ever given me such a nice ride quality. To be fair, I think the fork is on the thinner side of the tube wall thickness spectrum, especially for liability purposes, but it convinced me to have custom built steel forks built for me in the future. I wonder if such a fork can be built for disc brakes.
@@michaelmechex yup, as a high performance bike, I would rather ride my road or hardtail. But for a “lifestyle” or “social” bike it makes a lot of sense. It just depends what phase you are at in your cycling career. I’m lucky to own multiple bikes, but I had to pick one, it would probably be a road bike for fitness reasons!
Yup, as a high performance bike, allroad kinda suck. But if it were a lower price point, you could justify using it as a commuter or a second bike. That’s why I’m going to develop a steel version to see how it rides.
SHIMANO, GIVE US SILVER GROUPSETS! Comment below if you agree
Silver, and gold, and a few other colors -- as long as it's not just black on black on black.
Silver 🎉
just put a new altus rear mech on my bike because it was cheap and silver-it’s an ugly shape, but at least it’s silver!
Bring back 6600
Silver groupset please, mechanical shifting and brakes!
I got a fever! And the only prescription... is more silver on our groupsets! Seriously, silver is better than matte black everytime.
Tell Willy we need silver
SHIMANO, GIVE US SILVER GROUPSETS!
Hell yeah... we want silver Shimano!
I thought you hand polished the GRX cranks…deep custom! 😂
Yeah Shimano, a polished silver option would be sweet!
I noticed that many of the low volume frame builders featured customer bikes this year. Sometimes explaining options, like internal vs external cable routing. While I am not a fan, wireless shifting does free the design and finishing of a frame. Particularly the new pinion drive for touring, cargo and fat bike frames.
The matte silver of my old campy groupset looked great. An additional plus was that unlike my black cranks today, there was no finish for my pants and shoes to rub off the crank.
Silver is the way
Hey,
love your videos, after watching all of them in one go, this is now one of my favorite channels.
The first few videos where you explained how to design a frame and its parts in CAD where my favorites so far. You do it in a nice calm way. That is pretty unique content on TH-cam.
I study mechanical engineering and was always a little bit intimidated by bike design, because it seemed so distant to what I learned somehow. Watching your videos showed me that it's really not.
Because I love riding and tinkering with bikes, I want to build my own frame one day. Although I'd like to say I'm quite good with CAD and engineering design in general, I lack the bike specific knowledge and fabrication skills.
Can you share how you learned all this stuff and maybe show us more about bike design and fabrication in future videos?
Thanks for the kind words! I was exactly in your position 4 years ago (CAD and engineering skills, no framebuilding-specific knowledge). I was lucky to meet Nick where we worked together to develop the current fabrication process and CAD workflow. I will definitely make the more nerdy videos, that is my real specialty! Right now I am focusing on more general topics to grow the channel, but I like to sprinkle in some design and engineering discussions. In the mean time, you can check out the custom frame forum: forum.customframeforum.com/
SHIMANO, GIVE US SILVER GROUPSETS
Yeah, more silver, less black. That goes for all parts of the wheels too, including rims, but i may be on my own on that opinion. : )
Agreed. Astral does limited edition silver rims sometimes. They are really cool! Maybe we need to darken the silver anodizing so it matches better with black components.
Silver Shimano for the road too! I've been running a silver 105 5800 for years. A silver 105 mechanical with hydraulic discs would tic a lot of boxes
I'd love if Shimano would release silver groupset parts again. I've been trying to find the mechanical 105 levers in silver to replace the Sensah shifters I use to shift a GRX derailleur, but they're impossible to find these days.
Silver Shimano! Hey ho silver!
Yes please. Silver!
“Real bikes are meant to be ridden” …on the beach.
Interesting thoughts! Shimano hook it up with some more silver
Can you expand on "internal cable routing is easier to build and more profitable"? I'm guessing you're saying lack of ports equates to much less production time and therefore profit? I guess many stem/headset companies have paid for the R&D to route the cables for you already, so reduction of labor is gravy?
@@whiteryanc shhhh, can’t let out the secrets. Full internal cable routing involves drilling a single large hole in the headtube and one exit port for the brake. That only works well for wireless drivetrains. To do clean external routing, you need atleast 5 zip tie guides and 3 bosses for cable clips. Fully internal does look nice though!
Silver mechanical please.
great video, but I'd disagree on what people want to see on bikes, even show bikes. While I can appreciate the aesthetics of slick full internal show bikes, I find the excessive focus on aesthetics at the cost of maintainability (external housing) to be a turnoff. Also the video of your rutted fireroad is smoother gravel than pretty much anything I've seen in my home state of New Mexico... 😭 man I miss how good riding in the bay area was. Perhaps I've just become infected with theradavist brainworms however.
Also SHIMANO PLS GIVE SILVER
I couldn’t one-handed film the rutted parts 😂. But I totally get your point, in most places people don’t have “gravel riding”. industry just likes to push it as the next best thing. When I go mountain biking I always run into miserable gravel bikers 😂
My favorite bikes are from le Concours de Machines. It's a competition for all-road bikes where the judges not only look at aesthetics, but the machine much survive a race with nothing coming loose, let alone failing. The beasts that come out of that are reliable, complete (usually with built-in lighting and racks), and some weigh 10kg with pedals and racks and cages and lighting and mudguards. Pretty baller, actually.
@@ericpmossI wish they had something like that in North America. Could be fun!
After watching this video and commenting/following some of your other posts on the socials.... I'm wondering and watching for what you want to build in steel. I am currently riding an All City Macho Man Disc, and while I enjoy the bike for my puposes (gravel & bike path rides). I'm interested in what geometry changes (more BB drop) and high end tubing would be like to ride. I've always wanted a Ti gravel bike. But...could a boutique steel bike serve me just as well?....maybe.
@@chrisvejnovich116 quality materials certainly helps, but geometry is free! I think you are right, the macho man seems to have inherited its geometry from cross bikes, so it has a higher BB.
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT Yup.. Jeff from Wilde designed the bike while he worked for All City, and I remember it being marketed as a cross bike that can be used for all sorts of riding. For that time in my life and my budget the bike fit. As I have gotten older and resources are more abundant, I find myself looking for a custom gravel/all road frame. I have a custom steel MTB full susser and it is amazing to ride. So, my questions to you if your interested in answering here.
1. Can you compare high end steel tubing to moderate level Ti tubing.
2. How serious are you about producing a high quality steel gravel/all road frame?
3. Will the bike have a steel fork?
I'm not as worried about the weight of the bike as the feel. I owned a Kona Jake the Snake (rim brake) that was rough, but also amazing to ride as it just seemed to jump up the road. But the carbon fork was stiff and chattery....and that put me off the bike. I love metal bikes, and I find what you are doing with 3D printing to be very cool and innovative.
Thanks for your responses to my ramblings!
@@chrisvejnovich116 Sorry, it took me FOREVER to find this comment.
1) Tubing: Grade 9 Titanium does not really come in different grades or qualities, only different tempers. High end steels have more flexibility in tuning ride quality with different alloys, butting profiles, and heat treatment. To generalize, a steel bike will be less stiff, but also more comfortable. Durability between steel and titanium depends on design rather than the inherent material properties.
2) Steel production allroad (SYLEX): This fall I will invest some serious research, design, and building time to figure it out.
3) Steel forks: I have gone back and forth on this. Weight aside, I think carbon is a better match for the stiffness of modern components on drop bar bikes. Inorder for a steel fork to pass ISO testing, it becomes extremely stiff and heavy. Steel fork manufacturers are understandably reluctant to push the limits of construction. That being said, I would love to design a beautiful, contemporary, lugged fork crown for a modern road bike!
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT Thank you for your complete reply. Like most topics...it seems the more into the weeds you get the more intricate the answer becomes. Like a lot of cyclists...I want it all...I want a bike that jumps when I pedal hard, but doesn't beat me up. And I want it to look traditional cuz I like steel and Ti. Ha ha ha....I suppose I should just believe the marketing hype...you know...."snappy, compliant, springy, and playful"...ha ha...Thank you again for your thoughtful response. I look forward to seeing what you produce in the future.
@@chrisvejnovich116 +1 for steel forks. This is the primary reason why I'm sticking with rim brakes. I was able to find a nice compliant lugged fork (Thorn bicycles in UK) for my mid-reach brake Seven ti bike. It was like adding a suspension fork. There is no carbon fork that has ever given me such a nice ride quality. To be fair, I think the fork is on the thinner side of the tube wall thickness spectrum, especially for liability purposes, but it convinced me to have custom built steel forks built for me in the future. I wonder if such a fork can be built for disc brakes.
Shimano, don't make me take Easy Off to my cranks, just give me what I need.
Silver GRX? C'mon Willy, that'd be sick
Dear Shimano, please give us all the silver and while we’re here please bring back a rapid rise rear derailleur. Thanks! xoxo
Cool.
Silver shimano parts is only logical - do it shimano!!
silver!
shimano, keep making group sets for 9-speed chains!
Silver please.
WIllie, please, give us the silver. Thank you.
Silver? No, I prefer everything to look as cheap and plasticy as possible. Please make sure my Dura Ace components are indistinguishable from Sora!
Sooo... the bike is annoyingly slow on tarmac and annoyingly incapable offroad? Sounds like a fail to me 😅
@@michaelmechex yup, as a high performance bike, I would rather ride my road or hardtail. But for a “lifestyle” or “social” bike it makes a lot of sense. It just depends what phase you are at in your cycling career. I’m lucky to own multiple bikes, but I had to pick one, it would probably be a road bike for fitness reasons!
Shimano silver mechanical forever
Shimano, if silver is more expensive, then charge more, I'll gladly pay it.
The crazy thing is, the silver grx was cheaper! That’s because the normal rx800 has a carbon lever blade.
silver pls
Shimano: More silver components, less electronics.
Shimano give us silver components
🤷🏼♂️ you say that all road kind of sucks and is master of none, and says it is great in SF then you conclude that your next bike is a steel all road?
@@_MattyG_ Not exactly, it's a more nuanced analysis than that. Go back and watch again.
Yup, as a high performance bike, allroad kinda suck. But if it were a lower price point, you could justify using it as a commuter or a second bike. That’s why I’m going to develop a steel version to see how it rides.
@@Daniel_Yang_ARTEFACT Do you follow le Concours de Machines at all? They winnow out all the mediocrity pretty ruthlessly.