Vallie Components - bicycle parts design

Completed Belt Drive Alfine 11 Pugsley

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 02:51:58 +0100

I just saw these on Facebook (via twitter.. i still don't facebook. Seriously). It looks like Mighty Riders finished up the build for me. Is it a first? I have no idea. Either way, I'm so stoked on how this turned out.

Also so stoked on this video from NSMB too. I have no idea why.

Like a surgeon

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 17:43:15 +0100

Brand new Pugsley on the operating table...

The operation lasted a few hours, but thankfully there were no major complications. Should heal up without too much scar tissue.

Blogxing day

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 23:34:49 +0100

Apparently our American friends don't have boxing day. For me, its pretty much the best part of xmas. Unless you're one of the dweebs lined up outside some big retail store at 5am, its incredibly chill. Today I started off with a turkey/bacon/egg bunwich, got out for another bridge ride, and thought I would sort through some of the photos on my shop camera. Here's what I've been up to this past month (click on any photo for hi-rez)..

Finally got that Milwaukee bruiser fork done. I think my hand filed front tab matches the laser cut rear quite nicely:

A weirdo geometry testing tool I'm working on (more on this later):

A quick job for our friends at Gastown Sprints:

And of course, I'm in over my head on another pretty rack again. This one is gonna be so hot come summer:

While I wanted to have that one done for xmas, the guy its going to isn't exactly doing boozy beach rides right now, so its not super urgent.

The latest thing I've been trying to wrap my head around, is making a Surly Pugsley into an Alfine 11, Gates carbon drive sand monster. This may not be the final dropout configuration. So far simulated stress testing has looked promising, but the design is subject to change:

The cold has hit

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 03:10:16 +0100

Whenever I get to my shop, its about 6°C, and it takes my two heaters a little while to get up to a much more reasonable (for metal work) 16°C. This means that its tougher to work. I still managed to turn some stuff out though.

Here's a 1/10th scale model of a Ford F-150 I TIG welded out of spokes:

I'm also working on another rack I'd like to have done before xmas:

In other news I'm managing to get out on my bike quite a bit for the colder weather. I've also got this thing going, where I send out a twitter message every time I cross a bridge. This is in anticipation of Vancouver's Bridge Battle 4 race, coming up in a month.

So hit me up @lylevallie if you care about bridge conditions in Vancouver=D

Belt drive in Action

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:00:00 +0100

I shot this a while ago and had some issues posting it to the blog. Better late than never..

The video doesn't really show much, but I was happy to get the bike back together.

The bike is seeing non-stop foul weather training miles and is holding up quite well. I'm curious as to how worn the belt will look by the end of the winter.

Front ISO mount

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 04:48:23 +0100

I've been a bit sick lately. It didn't stop me completely though. I managed to get into the shop to finally make a front disc brake fixture to match the rear I made a little while back. Here it is on a Milwaukee Bruiser fork.

Not the most elegant placement. After talking with my client, we've decided to put it on the drive side for cleaner mounting, and better position for his polo defense stance.

I also took a day off yesterday to race my bike, after not riding for 4 days..

Shot courtesy of Dale Tidy

Went in circles a bunch, didn't win a Cervelo. It was a pretty fun track though. I would love to spend more time on it.

VCUTBDT!

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 05:28:24 +0100

Introducing the Vallie Components Universal Track Bike Disc Tab. (or VCUTBDT for short)

For all your slotted dropout disc brake needs!

If you follow the blog you'll notice the post preceeding this one rambles on about the complexities of mounting disc brakes on track bikes. Well, I've got the solution. They allow for a full inch of axle movement when installed correctly, and should be able to fit about 99% of the track bikes out there. I only had a handful of them laser cut, but they turned out pretty well. Here I've got a couple of them mounted to two very different styles of frames:

So if you're a frame builder, or are hacking up your current track bike to make a freakish disc SS, contact me for pricing.

If you're local to Vancouver BC, I am of course offering installation.

Disc brakes for all!

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 03:10:16 +0100

Out of sheer coincidence, two people asked me within a week to add slotted disc tabs to their track bikes. What are the chances of that? .. and also what are the chances that they've both worked at the same bike shop, though now they live in different cities.

The first bike is a yet to be seen in person, IRO mark V, belonging to a chap named Konrad. He's a true shop guy, dedicated to doing his best, and his bikes are really well executed and awesome, so I'm excited about where this bike is going. I'm not even entirely sure, but I think it may just become a disc equipped SS cyclocross bike.

The next bike is polo-new Milwaukee Bruiser, straight from the polo court to my shop. Srsly. Our friend, (lets just call him Cam) bought a frame at the East Van Crown, and took it straight to my doorstep. how cool is that?

The reason I have photos of their dropouts is for purely scientifical purposes. You see, a long time ago, I took some tracings of some interesting dropouts that were laying about at a certain framebuilder's shop..

At the time I didn't know who made the slotted disc tab, but I was planning on using it on a dedicated SS 29er. That never happened..

Fast forward to today, and I need that tab... or do I?

Well it doesn't matter, as its made by Kirk Pacenti, and he won't have any more in stock for months... so. I guess I'm making my own. I've seen quite a few designs out there, some of them looking cool and some looking hokey. The design constraints I laid out for myself are as follows:

must meet the ISO and Shimano spec for caliper placement for 25mm of axle movement (I chose 25mm as thats a whole chain link)
must have two weld points to the bike, one on the dropout itself and one on the seat stay. This is to clear any possible brazed areas.
must fit bikes with drastically different dropouts and rear triangle geometries.
must not look ugly (to me)
must be intuitive for the framebuilder to mount correctly using a standard ISO jig

Okay I knew it was going to be a challenge when I started it, but it was way bigger than I thought possible.

I basically ended up importing blocks of sketches all into the same model and layering semi transparent scaled about dropout jpegs on each other before sketching on top of them. Eventually, it got pretty messy in my head and on the computer.

Finally it dawned on me. The pictures of brake calipers I had grabbed off the internet were all fronts. I ran out to my shop and ripped the BB5 off my mountain bike's rear end, noting that it had the 160R mount I needed. .. and of course I photographed it.

This of course solved all the problems I was having with having enough room on the slotted tabs for the caliper. Its all pretty much sorted, now.

Oh, and just for fun I re-registered over on frameforum and did a quick search for slotted disc tabs. Interestingly I found a post by Rody of Groovy Cycleworks where he's advising a novice framebuilder to use paper and draw out everything I just did in CAD. Glad to know my design principals are sound.

I'm not going to post the final design just yet, as it may change slightly in the next day or so, and I'm trying to figure out a creative and structurally sound way to add a Vallie Components logo to it. Laser cut dropouts anyone?

Ben's Rack

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 16:06:49 +0100

Ben is an electrician by trade. All of his day's tools fit in a double (or is it 1.5x) milk crate. He wants to be able to bike commute on his sweet Ascente, with the crate essentially locking into place. Since the tools weigh a lot, the rack had to be sturdy enough to reliably hold 100lbs.. also, he's taking the bike to Africa on Sunday. Meaning I had a super tight deadline to work with. ..and he's a bike nerd, with a good idea of what he wants in a rack (stainless, pretty, strong), so I had to work within those constraints. I managed to bang this one out in just over 2 days. Hopefully Ben is stoked on how it turned out.

Dropout Modification

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:37:38 +0100

So this August was all about dropout modification. I have mixed feelings about August every year. The start of the month is when I celebrate my birthday, but quickly after that summer wraps up, depression sets in, and its fall again. This year I tried to make the most of it while working almost daily.. Anyways, here are a few of the results.

First up was Mitchell's Rocky Mountain. This bike is sort of timeless around here. You will see them everywhere from the shore to the bike rack outside of MEC; signature top tube seat stay junction, just begging to be hammered on. Well.. now Mitchell will be able to hammer a little harder thanks to the stopping power of disc brakes:

The ISO mounting jig I made worked like a charm, but I had a small amount of trouble TIG welding so close to brass. Its straight and solid though, so I have no worries about sending Mitchell down a mountain with it.

The next project up was a little more involved. It was dropped off at Mighty Riders with the instructions 'Whatever it Takes'.

The bike is the Mighty Rider's team captain Savage's winter trainer. An aluminum Fetish Attack frame with a carbon CX fork, front disc brake and heavy ass Specialized tri-spoke on the rear. Savage is a big guy who runs a big gear, and seems to kill bike parts faster than most. He has been laying down miles on this bike every winter for the past 5 years or so. Mighty doesn't do rollers or trainer riding. When I first looked at it, it was caked in a sludge that required a chisel to remove from the powder coat. The chain barely sat on the teeth of the rings, and pretty much every bearing was loose. Gross.

On to the project.. Savage is tired of wearing out chains. I guess he must go through about one a month each winter. He had the bright idea to go to a Gates carbon belt drive. I feel like I tried to talk him out of it. The frame is aluminum, it will never work, you're just going to snap belts blah blah.

He didn't listen. I'll let the photos show how I went about this problem:

Here you can see how his chain ring looks after last winter. click on the image for larger grossness.

Here's what the dropouts look like after clean up with a chisel and stainless track nut plate removal.

After some careful measurements, this is what I came up with. A piece of 1/4" stainless milled to fit the existing dropout recession, using 4 of the holes already in the bike, and having 3 bolts total per stay. My strength analysis modelling shows that this solution is just as stiff as the original aluminum dropout. .. but will it actually work?

Yesterday I hit up DMT and rented the use of his Tormach for a few hours.. One scrapped piece of stainless later (good thing I bought two!) this is what I was left with:

That doesn't show the step at all, but this is what was left after the centre hole drilling.

Next up was hole clean up, drilling to size and tapping. The three M4 bolt holes are tapped in the plate, and the three M5 bolt holes will be tapped in the bike. I bolted it up to the bike, and used the bigger holes as guide holes to drill the frame.

Tangent:

Also in the above picture is a Broakland thread-on to ISO adapter. This thing will be required to mate a Phil Wood Gates cog to the specialized tri spoke. Wacky? Yes. As far as I knew up to a few days ago, there was no such thing as a thread-on Gates cog in existence. None of our suppliers list anything like that. Just 9 splined, or Alfine splined. Then out of sheer coincidence, I was led to baseurban.com, as they've got a new distributing studio/boutiquey thing in town.. and guess what, their bikes have a thread on Gates cog! Dammit! I emailed them about parts availability, and they still haven't replied. I guess they're just getting this thing off the ground and probably only have a couple of the belt bikes in stock. I still can't believe that the part I want exists in my city! I thought this was going to be the first Belt fixie in Vancouver! Oh well..

Here its looking a little softer, sitting in my soft jawz. The corners have all been cut off and chamferred with a hand file, and the M5 holes are counter sunk. Just about there... I'll spare you the gory details of the next step.. but for me, it was the scariest one. Hacking Savage's bike in two. A fetish attack has no chance against a fresh 24 tooth-per-inch blade.

Here's the final result (click for bigger):

Sewn back together wrong?

I'm pretty pleased with the result. Now I'm just waiting (as per usual) for the Gates parts to come in from Mighty.

I wonder what kind of wackiness September will bring?

Its Picnic Time!

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:10:46 +0100

Megan swung by the garden last night to pick up her bike, and was absolutely thrilled with the rack. Super stoked. I think she's going to test it out tonight bringing a dish to a pot luck.

This is summer?

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:52:52 +0100

July is almost over. I have to renew my creepy van's insurance soon, including emissions testing.. and right after that I'll have to turn a year older. Incredible.

Things have been rolling right along at the old Vallie Components shop. Since Maker Faire, I've had a few bikes in the queue. Its sort of tough dividing my time between my own thing, and Mighty Riders.. but I have to eat until this bike stuff starts taking me out to dinner. I'm still basically putting in 7 days a week.

First up is Megan's rack.

Let me give you a bit of a back story. Meg's husband Andy built her a WICKED single speed mixte. Its a nearly mint Raleigh, with some really nice thoughtful touches, like Dura Ace cranks with an old school 42T ring, Some great condition Campy wheels, with a respaced hub and 16T freewheel. A sprung Brooks, matching Edwin D grips, and Odyssey pedals finish it off.. along with a sturdy front wicker basket.

The issue is that the basket barely holds a bottle of wine and a sweater.. so she wanted a bit more cargo capacity. I guess Megan dragged Andy out to all the home and kitchen stores, and they eventually found a matching wicker picnic basket.

So the design constraints here are:

incorporating both the curves and triangles evoked by the existing bike
platform wide enough for a 28x40cm picnic basket to be strapped on
stainless steel
Mixte specific fit
light weight (0.035" tubing)

Here's what I've got so far:

I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm just over 10 hours into it. Hopefully August's weather will warrant a picnic or two, and I'll get some photos of the lovely Megan modelling with her bike.

Next up is a bit of frame modification. An early 90s Rocky Mountain was recently given a new life as a single speed xc fun bike.. and the owner is looking to have a bit more fun. I'm going to install a rear disc tab, stay brace, and some cable guides. This was the perfect excuse for me to finally get around to making one of these fun little guys:

I actually cannot wait to try it out. Nerdy I know.

As far as hubs go, I guess I'm doing what you would call a 'soft release'. Which sounds kind of gross. No big web hype. No blogspam. Just building up wheels for locals, and starting to ship them out in the mail. If you are interested in a set, please email me. I don't have a webstore up just yet, as my IT department is crunching away on her own projects and deadlines.

One more small piece of news. I've broken down and started twitterating. Seriously. You can follow me @ lylevallie if you care about that sort of thing. I've got it set up so I can text random thoughts from my not-too-smart phone right to the internet! The future really is now. I'll probably just update it every time I hurt myself. Not too sure if I should bother getting into this whole Google+ thing though. I've already got too much information invested in them I think.

Phew. Pretty decent update for just coming off an 11 hour day at the bike shop. I guess this means I've got the next 96 hours to finish off Meg's rack and get on the disc tab welding. (along with all that other life stuff that happens too). I'm out...

Slayed by Maker Faire

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 04:19:46 +0100

I'm still blown away. I just want to thank everyone who came by my booth during this past weekend's mini Maker Faire here in Vancouver. It was good to talk with everyone, and it feels amazing to receive so much positive feedback on my products. That being said, I'm absolutely exhausted. I was trying to talk to my parents about it on the phone recently, and I couldn't even put it into words.

I think some of my favorite things about the event were:

-Paul Fisher's Micro hydro power station in a suitcase

-Grin Technologies electric skateboard, and uni training area

-Metro Diverse Service's Panterragaffe, executing some impressive 3 point turns in all it's shortened strut glory:

-Gerry Martselos' electric converted Nissan 240... 1000 ftlbs of torque!

-Kids mashing on the keyboard of the disaster area truck's pyrotechnic controller.

I wish I could have spent more time checking things out and asking other makers questions.. but I guess thats how these shows go when you're participating.

Over all, this was a really positive experience for me, and I think it it made for a great excuse to have a deadline. So thanks to all who put it on as well. Dallas, Jenny, Emily, Ifny and everyone else. You guys did amazing. Also, thanks to Velocity USA for the rim hookup. I was pretty happy to hype up your products while building wheels all day.

Here's a quick walk around video of my booth, for those who didnt make it.. Its not super exciting, but since we have the technology..

(edit, it appears we don't have the technology. Youtube Embed html has changed a bit and doesn't seem to be compatible with my blog atm..)

Oh well, here are a few photos of my stuff...

I'll be updating the products portion of my site shortly when I go live with sales. Hang tight until then.

Current rack and custom fab orders have me booked until August. If you would like to be in the queue for racks, please email me.

Once again, thanks everyone=]

Lyle

Maker Faire is coming up fast!

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 15:24:54 +0100

Wow. I've been super busy. Long hours at the machine shop dialing in on minute operations.

I've basically given myself the goal of having hubs for sale at Maker Faire. This initially didn't seem possible, but I'm intent on making it happen. Tracking every stage of production down to the minute is allowing me to fit time in where I didn't originally think possible.. and manage to get everything lined up. I'm sort of banking on the hubs being done.

Here's a grainy phone shot of what the fronts look like right now:

..and some parts for the rears hot from the lathe:

^Interesting side note, the cutting inserts used on the 4140 axle are called 'Purple Haze', and come in packaging that reminds me of drug paraphernalia. They do produce a beautiful clean blue/purple chip when run at the right speed however.

While I still feel like I'm flailing, I've made a lot of progress in the past month. I've got my prototype stainless universal front rack up and running on a bike, and it holds a tonne of weight. I've also got my hubs at about 90% completion right now. Its crazy.

A couple of rack shots:

^VCR05 (FLITE4) is powdercoated and will be for sale at Maker Faire

^Testing out new mounting systems for the universal mount

Anyways, come check me out at Maker Faire Vancouver on June 25th and 26th. I'll be hanging out and building wheels with my soon to be completed hubs, while quilt making robots shoot fire around me.

Not Dead

Sat, 16 Apr 2011 03:37:53 +0100

Really, I'm not.

I've been avoiding blogging however. I guess I'm nervous to say anything, because so much goes wrong every time I open my mouth. I'll just give a brief update on the state of Vallie Components.

1. Patent - I spent the past month polishing a document to submit to the USPTO. I'm fairly certain I followed all their rules, and my device is novel and patentable. I've cited references, dotted my eyes, crossed my Ts, checked my line thicknesses, PDF versions, etc. I'm sort of playing the waiting game on that.

2. Right after I got that in, everything flooded to the forefront of my brain immediately, and it is forming some kind of bottleneck at the bridge of my nose. Vancouver is hosting its first 'Maker Faire' soon, and I have signed up. I guess they don't have enough cycling people there, because they've accepted me. Now I just need to figure out what to do for it. Its exactly 10 weeks away, giving me a possible 300ish hours with my current schedule. I also need to figure out how to make it interactive. This isn't a standard trade show.

3.Racks. I'm working on a batch of 10ish stainless racks.. well, starting to do some calculations for stainless racks. I want to have a universal fork design buttoned down and simulated before I cut any metal. I'm going to do it all in batch operations and try to make these things in under 10 hours per rack.

4. Cargo bike. I've been studying bakfiets geometry between the different types I've been able to reverse engineer. Phil over at Metrofiets was even kind enough to help me out! I basically want to do a one off, using an existing mtb frame I've got. I was inspired by THIS a long time ago. Ideally, this would be a grocery getter for the wife and I to share, so its got to be stable and rideable by anyone. Its an experiment that I want to work WELL.

5. Back on to hubs. I spent a few hours yesterday at DMT, hacking a pneumatic foot switch into Dennis's lathe. Today, I'm spinning rear shells again! It felt pretty good to have them up and running. Quantities are going to be very limited. But I'm measuring EVERY part at EVERY step to ensure that we don't waste another single shell.

6. Cogs. I've got all the cogs done. They actually came back from the Coaters before this whole patent kerfuffle.. but I'm hesitant to sell them, because right now I think I have enough of each size for each hub. What if EVERYONE who buys a hub wants a 15T? exactly. They look nice though.

7.Bikes. I'm not riding enough. Still. always. My commutes are too short to get my cardio on, so I've resorted to going out of my way across the north shore to get into town. I'm sadly not MTBing up there lately. I've got to get back on that... gradually to avoid hurting myself.

Thats about it. I guess I should edit some pictures into this, and add links. Thanks internet. You are being kinder than I expect you to.