porteur | Ocean Air Cycles

57 Sunflower Porteur

This past week I built up a 57cm Sunflower Rambler as a Portuer. What is commonly referred to as a “city bike” these days, the Porteur has deep roots as a French newspaper delivery bike. Optimized for getting stacks of newspapers out to the stands around Paris, the Porteur is optimized for speed and all day comfort in the urban environment, yet still able to handle well with exceptional front loads, i.e. a stack of newspapers. THis translates into an excellent bike for most people who carry a varying load throughout the day, have a stop and go radius under 10 miles and prefer the comfort and added visibility of an upright position, think commuter.

This build has been well received on our social media channels with requests for more info on some of the details. The build was a mix of price points, focused on a safe and transportational ride that will see daily use in Santa Clarita as well as longer weekend explorations. Pictures tell the rest of the story…

PB Crown with Rack Bosses

I have been working with Kirk Pacenti of bikelugs.com fame to get the Paris Brest fork crown made with M5 rack bosses built into the shoulder of the crown during casting. I Samples are here and I am very excited for these.

Until now if you were working on a Porteur / Randonneur style of bike you options were limited to bosses that were hand brazed into the top of the fork. Having the bosses as an integral part of the casting will shave man hours and result in a stronger more consistent product. These crowns will make this style of front rack mount more approachable for builders and designers.

There are a couple of strong benefits to having crown mounted rack bosses. Foremost is the added stiffness you will get from a rack with two well spaced upper mounting points as opposed to the more common single point in the center. Running a close second is having redundancy of upper mounting points, two is better than one. If a bolt were to come loose or a rack strut fail, the loaded rack is less likely to immediately drop into the rider’s front wheel. I believe this mode of failure is more common than thought if the number CPSC recall notices on production front racks is any indicator.

I hope that by pushing this fork to market we will see an increase in the number of well designed front loading bikes and front racks on the market in the coming years. The crown specs are the same to the existing Paris Brest in every way other than the added rack bosses. Spacing between holes is 80mm. If we as designers and builders were to adopt this as a standard it will help with the proliferation of the niche. bringing a level of consistency across brands.

After talking with Kirk today, these crowns will be available through Bikelugs.com in 6-8 weeks.

Sneak Peak Number 2

I am guessing is you have followed my story you may be looking to get a bike that bridges transportation and sport, i.e transportation does not have to be a mini van. You like bikes that have a traditional look and styling. Possibly a preference for traditional french styling from the 40’s and 50’s, with your daily load up front where you can keep an eye on it and get to it without climbing off the bike. Your previous attempts at this with the commonly available bikes may have left you with a less than optimal handling experience. Either a bike that was heavier than it needed to be, if it was a light weight had no provisions to carry the load on the bike or if it did the handling was compromised when loaded.

With years of personal research and design study I have addressed these issues with a bike steeped in the lineage of the traditional french touring bikes. Using modern production techniques and partnering with a U.S. fabrication team to deliver the look and function you are after with a few bells and whistles thrown in. The ride will be light and sporty, yet stable with loads for you commute, day rides or the occasional quick load of groceries up front. It goes without saying there will be provisions for full coverage fenders to keep you and the bike clean during year round riding. This is the bike you will want for rambles through the countryside, distance rides and randonees, and still able to be your daily steed. All of this at a price that is competitive in the current market.

The sport touring frame set project is moving along as planned. The Design spec and engineering is settled in at to 95% point and I am comfortable releasing my Geometry and Tubing Spec:

The line has a range of even sizes from 50 through 62 measures Center of bottom bracket to the center of the intersection with the top tube. When comparing this to traditional road frames or the size you may ride in your regular bike, consider that the size in the chart will be about 1 to 2 cm smaller due to the distance from the center of the top tube to the top and the generous bottom bracket drop. For example I ride a 63 or 64 on my Roadeo and Eisentraut, but the 62 above is designed around my needs.

Other things to consider with the spec:

Clearance for42mm tires and fenders on all sizes
These are designed with the provision for Paul Racer brakes mounted with Brazed on bosses. These provide ample clearance while retaining outstanding performance. The bridges and brake holes will be located such that a 68-70mm reach brake could be used if the brake bosses were omitted by customer choice.
Frame construction will be Tig welded double butted 4130 steel.
The fork will have an investment cast crown and braze-on provisions for small upper and low rider racks as well as lighting wires.
Down tube shifter bosses
Double water bottle with reenforcing star mounts on all sizes
Columbine Quickchainger brazed on for clean and easy rear wheel changes.
Brazed on fender mounting points placed such that installation will be easy and result in even fender line.
130mm rear spacing to work easily with modern road bike components.
Color options of American flag blue and red. (and possibly a sunflower yellow or orange still up in the air).

Production samples will be complete in a few weeks, the pre-orders system will be available by the end of February and a final availability date projected for early Spring 2012. Pricing will be settled in the coming week as we move through our final production costing and design. As always I appreciate you continued readership and support. Project news will be updated here as soon as it is available.

Oh, and the name is still leaning towards “Rambler”, although I like fish names

Trek 613 650b Conversion Complete

This is the most beautiful bike I have built up yet. I would even go as far as saying it is nicer than my roadeo from Rivendell. After years of reading on the web and doing multiple 650b conversions on my own, this one went together perfectly the first time. With some careful planning, part procurement and patience this bike went together as if it were always meant to be this way.

This Trek 613 started its life as a 27″ wheeled touring bike back in 1981, and by the looks of it once in my garage, it was barely ever ridden. There are a few scuffs in the paint, but most of the damage appears to have happened while in storage. The visible portions of the frame’s interior were pristine. I treated the inside with a liberal coating of T9 to keep it rust free as long as possible. For this build I was able to reuse much of the drive train, replacing only the wheels, cassette, and bottom bracket. The headset was preserved, and rebuilt with loose balls and phil grease.

The cockpit was built up with a Nitto Technomic Delux stem, Albatross bars and Shimano brake levers. The brass bell is from Crane in Japan. The grips are blue Neubaums cloth tape over a layer of cork tape. Three layers of garnet shellac brought the final color to a fantastic dark patinaed coppery green that is a perfect contrast to the copper color of the bike. Te saddle is a Brooks B17 Special Select.

The front rack is a Bruce Gordon MTN rack that used to reside on my bike and will be the temporary support system for the Wald basket. While the basket provides incredible versatility, the stock hardware is not up to the task at hand. In the long run this will be set up with a rack that will allow for panniers in a low mount with a high mount to support the basket. The fork dropout only has a single eyelet to support both the rack and fender. My work around for this is to thread in a hex bolt from the inside, providing a stud to mount both. The whole assembly is then held on with a lock nut. In theory if the nut ever came loose, it should all still be able to be held in place with a zip tie until you could get to a hardware store.

I utilised Dia-Compe 750 centerpull brakes to get the required reach to the smaller rims. The stock pads were replaced with KoolStop Cross Pads. The wheel set is Shimano Tiagra laced to Velocity Synergy rims. I opted to use an 8spd rear cassette to hopefully be a bit more forgiving with the Suntour Symmetric DT shifters. The downside to this is that the shifters only move the chain across 7 of the 8 cogs due to the limited throw.

Now for the part that everybody cares about. I opted to use Panaracer Col De La Vie tires on this bike to ensure adequate tire clearance at the chain stays. These older Trek frames, pre 82, will generally have room for a tire up to 38mm wide without needing to dimple the stays for more space. Spreading the rear from 126 to 130 mm at the dropouts while adding tire space in theory did not make a noticeable difference in reality. The fenders are Berthoud 650b x 50 mm. These were fairly simple to install, only requires minor re-shaping to accommodate the horizontal stays, leave plenty of room to install wider tires in the future and resulted in near perfect fender line around the tire. I did make a wooden mandrel to help shape indents for better fender clearance at the fork and chain stays. The rear brake bridge attachment was made with Honjo hardware. The connection at the chain stay bridge was made with a long bold and spacer. While a spacer is not ideal, it seemed a better option than moving the bridge on a bike in this condition.

Rear wheel at mid-dropout.

Rear wheel all the way back in the dropouts.

I would like to thank a whole bunch of people for sharing their knowledge on the web. If not for the collective knowledge provided by old Rivendell Readers, the iBoB and 650b email lists and the Bicycle Quarterly publication I likely would not have been able to work through this build in a single pass. It is the knowledge shared by those who have gone this way before that helped me to build such a wonderful bike.

Likewise, online vendors such as Universal Cycles, Rene Herse Cycles, Wallingford Bike, and Ben’s Cycle all made it possible to source the needed components.

This bike is going to have a new lease on life. Its owner is going to pick her up tonight. The planned maiden voyage will be a 90 mile ride home from Jalama state park. I wish I was along for the ride, it is going to be a good day tomorrow. Thanks to Mike for giving me the chance to build this bike up as a blue-collar constructeur.

Off to cleain it up for delivery, thanks for taking a look.