Go!
It's time for somethign new and after having taken a short spin on this bike
Reader's Ride(s) ~ Jeroen's Custom FatTi BR | FAT-BIKE.COM I asked the owner to help design one and have it built in the Far East. As luck would have it he was about to kick off with his own company to supply bike design services and help with the outsourcing of actually getting it build
Ti22 Bike Design I had the pleasure of tbeing the first customer of sorts
The design brief calls for fat bike, suitable for multi-day bike-packing tours in remote areas. Having power on-board to keep the GPS charged and run a light is for me a necessity. The thought of being independent of battery run times is very appealing, but solar panels don't quite cut it for me and the areas I ride in. At around this time Son (the German dynamo hub builders) came out with a 15mm thru-axle disc-compatible version
https://www.nabendynamo.de/produkte/son_28_15.html]Schmidt Maschinenbau Produkte SON 28 An order was soon placed. A nice detail is that the Son hubs are color-matched with Rohloff
Teh choice for drivetrain is Rohloff. It does impose a limit on tire-width (a 3.8" Larry fits and I hope a 3.8" Knard will too), but the pro's of low maintenance and reliability for me outweigh the tire limitations.
A Gates centre track belt will be used to drive the thing forward on a 39*24 ratio. Tensioning will done with a EBB by Idworx. I have used the same in my regular 26" MTB and the quality of that EBB and the bracket itself is very good.
A rear rack is required to keep 8-10kg of camping gear in a dry bag. I am not yet sold on the framebags that seem so popular on your side of the pond. One of the be4st designs that I know of is by a local builder, the well-used item looks like this:
Using this as inspiration, Jeroen came up with a new design in Ti and with a few small additional touches.
Front suspension is on order with German A, they'll hopefully deliver a Flame in January.
Quite a story, alltogether (but without the rack) it should look something like this:
5 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr]
Fast forward 6 weeks after submitting the final drawings to the factory in China and 圣诞老人 was early this year and delivered a nice package
, the contents of which actually resembles what was commissioned
IMG_2674 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
Double hoseguides in case I decide to mount a dropper post
IMG_2675 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
Rear rack, a piece of art if you ask me
IMG_2676 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
IMG_2677 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
IMG_2680 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
Nooit meer een ketting smeren (op deze fiets dan)!
IMG_2681 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
Enough clearance for a 3.8" and still Rohloff compatible
IMG_2682 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
IMG_2683 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
IMG_2684 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
IMG_2686 by
Michiel Kuit, on Flickr
Wheels are not yet done, the wheelsmith (sp?) is taking his time, and the German-A fork will only be delivered in January. Then we still have the 100mm Son dynamo with 15mm akle to a 110mm fork with 20mm axle, but that should be doable
Big compliments to Jeroen for his design work and his communication with the builders in China to ensure they delivered what was expected. Thumbs up!
Ride-report in a month or so