Scotts fixed gear

Just shipped this off to Scott today:





Scott was one of those rare customers that knew exactly what he wanted. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the indecisive clients as that's expected and comes with the territory. Working with clients to come up with a frame is actually fun. Scott however knew everything, right down the the paintcode (House of Kolor #kF02 Cyan to Purple). Normally I resist the shade shifting paints, in fact I even say it here: http://jonnycycles.com/misc/Paint%20info.pdf but I decided what the heck, don't know until you try it right? I suggested yellow hightlights, Scott agreed, and the final result was better than I expected. Don't expect to see a bunch or shade shifting Jonny Cycles frames anytime soon....but with the right graphics and colors I can be convinced.

Enough about the aesthetics, what about the function? Its pretty basic. A nice fixed gear for the road. Bottle mounts, and front and rear brakes. Due to the rear brake we opted for the much more practical forward facing slanted horizontal frame ends. Geometry is fairly standard road, but with an elevated bottom bracket for cornering clearance.

When FedEx delevers it in a few days it will be the first Jonny Cycles in Wyoming! Build process photos can be seen here: http://flickr.com/photos/jonnycycles/sets/72157607886828178/
The official gallery photos are here: http://jonnycycles.com/trackPhotos.php#id=album-119&num=1

yay! Jonny Cycles is back!!!!

I know you were all worried, but no the economy hasn't claimed me yet! Just some really frustrating domain name registration issues that took awhile to resolve with the holidays and an international call to Australia. Morale of the story: Don't slack when it comes to domain names.

e-mail (jonny@jonnycycles.com) also works again, so resume your correspondence!
If you send me an e-mail that was returned, please re-send it. Thanks!

Madison Bike swap, Jan 10th

I'll be going...and you should too as its usually huge.






http://www.brazendropouts.org/swap09.shtml

Jonny Hunters bike...

... is *finally* finished!

Jonny has been a friend of mine for awhile. Not sure how we met. SCRAM!? Mark the Spark? The Catacombs? He's probably just one of those ubiquitous Madison people.

Jonny signed up on my waiting list way back in Feb 2006. I finished building the frame about 1 year ago which was right about the time that Jason (Sanchez Paintshop) was starting work on building a new shop. Jonny is also friends with Jason and was pretty insistent that Jason painted his frame since he was really into having people he knew be involved with the project. Jonny was pretty patient waiting Jason to get his shop up and running but when he learned that one of his bike polo friends from Milwaukee had moved out to Portland, OR and was painting for Vanilla's shop Coat he couldn't resist and got the ants in his pants. I was curious to see what sort of work they were doing my self so we sent the frame out to Coat for some paint. Jonny told them he liked green and to do what they want. The base (green color) is powdercoat and the graphics were done with wet paint. The graphics are a little busier than my normal designs, but its a nice change. The quality is excellent (as expected), but don't expect to see me offering them as an option for my paint as Sanchez Paint shop and Keith Anderson do equally as excellent of work and I have no reason to switch (other than this special project for a friend).








More photos here - http://jonnycycles.com/roadPhotos.php#id=album-118&num=1

Revolution Cycles Bike Swap

Revolution Cycles Annual December Bike Swap

December 6th
10am - 1pm
$2 donation towards the Goodman Center bike program

NOTE THE NEW ADDRESS, WE HAVE CHANGED LOCATION AGAIN TO ACCOMMODATE MORE REQUESTS TO SELL!!!
New address!!! - 2425 Atwood

Our annual bike swap has grown too large to be held in the bike shop so for the day we are moving up the street

Lots of vintage and modern bikes and bike parts available. Everything from clothing to Campy, Avocet to Zipp.

There are some tables still available please reply to this add if you are interested.

There will be a community table available for those who only have a thing or two for sale, again reply to this add for more info.

Just finished: Khai's road bike

I just shipped out Khai's road bike today and I'm very happy with how it all turned out (of course I say the same thing about every bike I finish, but it's true!).



Khai wanted a "Classic stage race type bike. Good for all round use, long and short distance rides." In other words, the perfect road bike. Since he also wanted to be able to easily travel with the bike I added S & S couplers.

The design pretty typical for road: 73 degree head tube angle, 45mm rake, and long(ish) chainstays at 425mm resulting in a bike that will meet the above expectations.

The excellent paint work was supplied by Keith Anderson. Khai wanted something orange and noted he liked bold color schemes and patterns. I translated this request to a downtube banner with "Ruby Red" and "Chrome Yellow" resulting in a bold but classy look. Top it all off with a Campagnolo Chorus build kit mixture of black and silver and the result is one hot bike!

The official gallery photos are here: http://jonnycycles.com/roadPhotos.php#id=album-117&num=1
Build photos are here: http://flickr.com/photos/jonnycycles/sets/72157606968475200/

Now playing on the Discovery Channel.....

...Birth of a Hammerhead.

Another party @ Revolution Cycles

.....................................OPEN INVITATION..........ROCK THE VOTE!!!!!!!! :)........................................


Revolution Cycles will be hosting music next week

Monday, November 3rd

8:30pm 'til 11:30ish

SCEAMIN' CYN CYN & THE PONS,

PRIZZY PRIZZY PLEASE,

and

PUSH-PULL

This is an ALL-AGES show (but heads up...it will be loud 'cause it's rock n' roll)
.............................................................................................................................................................
The show is free, but please drop something in the bucket for the bands;)

BYOB


LOCATION: REVOLUTION CYCLES
2330 ATWOOD AVENUE
(Just down the street from the Barrymore)
.................................................................................................................................................................................................

Along with the new site come a few changes....

Most notably the fact that I am no longer offering TIG welded Jonny Cycles framesets.

I was offering TIG welded frames.

A description of the TIG welded frames from the old site:

---

I started this project in response to two questions:
1) Can you build me a track bike in time for next years race (or riding) season?
2) I love your bikes but can't afford one, is there any way you can offer a less expensive option?
3) Have you ever considered selling though a shop?

Unfortunatley building custom lugged steel bikes is very time consuming and thus takes allot of money and time. A basic lugged track frameset takes a minum of 20 hours shop time to get it out the door and to the painter. A track frameset with modified and polsihed stainless lugs can easily exceed 80 hours of work...so you can see it doesn't take to many orders to add up to a significant waiting list. The answer to the above two questions was always no...untill now.

I share my shopspace with two great resources:
Ahren Rogers - Among other things he's one of the best welders around
Zack Reilly - In adddion to working on his own frames (ZRcycles.com) he helps me out around the shop by mitering tubes and doing general prep work.
I decieded the three of us could work togeter to provide an addional Jonny Cycles frame option, TIG welded framesets.


All the design work and material selection is done by me.
Zack does all the mitering and prep-work
Ahren welds the main triangle
I do all the brazing (frame ends and fork)
To further save time and cost we use Spectrum Powderworks for paint


The end result is a superb quality track frameset ready for any velodrome or street. No skimping on materials or design, just using my resources to come up with a quicker (only 2-month wait!) and less expensive option.

---

The current situation at the shop has however changed. Ahren from Banjo cycles now keeps very busy building frames for Velo Orange, Boxdog bikes (in San Francisco), and Broadway Cycles (in Boston). Zack from ZR cycles has been keeping quite busy building lugged mountain bikes. I'm excited for both of them and happy to see them grow their respective businesses. I was then left with the options of:
1) Do some real promotion of the semi production TIG welded Jonny Cycles frames such that the order volume would justify hiring an employee to help with the production.
or
2) Drop the TIG welded option and focus on my lugged frames.

Since my normal made to order lugged frames have been quite well and my available time for other projects is fairly limited I decided to go with the tried and try option #2. It works, its what I love doing, and I'm not sure I'm up for expanding the business at this point in time.

Halloween alleycat

halloween, originally uploaded by Jonny Cycles.

Sat Oct 25th. 1 pm
318 E Mifflin St
608-661-8090

New website!

In case you haven't noticed I have a new website. I'm pretty excited about it as its been quite awhile since I've made any major site changes, although I'm a little sad to see the old one go as I put an insane amount of time into it.

Changes on the new site:

Fresh new look.

Ditched the old frames programming setup. This eliminates allot of issues with search engines and linking specific pages. Most people wouldn't notice, but web geeks do!

New galleries (check out the "photos" menu selection): It's now easier to browse the bikes w/out paging though all the photos. I can also easily add descriptions to each gallery and photo. I tried to add as much captions as possible when uploading all the old photos, but as expected that was tedious. Do however expect more text to accompany photos of new bike that I'll post as I finish them.

The blog is now more integrated with the site.

All framebuilding progress photos have been moved over to flickr which makes them easier for people to follow, easier for me to upload, and you can comment on them!

...and a few other things which I can't think of at the moment.

Thanks to Jason Bay jbaysway@gmail.com for designing and completing a great site. http://flickr.com/photos/jonnycycles/sets/72157607893567209/

Party at Revolution Cycles

Lesley's 3Rensho

Back when I was working full time at the Yellow Jersey (before framebuilding) I found a 3Rensho Katina road frame in the basement w/a cracked downtube. As on of my first major frame repairs I replaced the down tube and built it up as a single speed for Lelsey. This was also one of my first
(and last) paintjobs and I'll freely admit I'm a not much of a painter: 5 years later the bike had lost quite a bit of paint changing from its original white to primer gray and rusty steel color. It was time for a re-do. Since its a daily commuter we decided it was time for some upgrades. I added some cantilever bosses and mounts so the bike could fit full fenders (no chance of that with the original short reach road calipers, which is fine as its original intended use was a road race bike), sent if off to Spectrum Powderworks for some fresh paint, and built it back up with some fresh new parts. The resulting bike turned out great:







More photos of the project are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnycycles/sets/72157607431189221/

photos photos and more photos....

I recently purchased this really slick memory card for my digital camera that automatically uploads the photos to my Flickr site as soon as I take them. Now you can expect my normally well documented builds to be even more well documented in more or less real time.

Starting with Johns framehere you will be able to see the slow process of building a frame in my shop.

As usual all the builds are here: http://jonnycycles.com/framesInProgress.php

Also check out quickly expanding Flickr site: http://flickr.com/photos/jonnycycles/collections/

More photos on Tuesday when I return from the holiday weekend bike trip...

Cookout tomorrow: Thursday 08-28

At the shop from 7 pm until ?

There will be some food and beverages, but feel free to bring your own!

chain tension

Normally I'm a loose chain sort of guy on the fixed gear and I'm always surprised by how loose a chain can get with good components and never come off. Today over on the fixed gear gallery forums I saw this:



Apparently his chain jumped of the chainring and was caught by the crank as it came around. ?!
http://fixedgeargallery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18139

Maybe I'll tension my chain before the ride home.

Finally, a useful wooden fender!

Over the past few years there have been quite a few people making wooden fenders. For the most part I've ignored them all because they were less functional that the standard plastic/aluminum/steel fenders. All the wood ones were flat as opposed to curved to fit around the sided of the tire. Google "wooden fender" and you'll see several examples. All these wood fenders all look great and some have excellent craftsmanship with all those wood and inlay options, but a fender is supposed to stop all road spray which is something a flat fender isn't that great at (seriously try one though a wet sloppy Wisconsin winter).

A few months ago this random guy Ben wandered into the shop. If you've been to the shop or are familiar with the location you would know someone just wandering in is a rare event. Ben was looking to see if I needed any help, which I didn't need but we chatted for awhile anyway. On his way out his last words were "check out this cool curved wood fender prototype". What?! Thats like the holy grail of cool fenders and I'd been thinking of attempting it someday when I find the time (i.e. never!) and Ben just mentions it as an afterthought, pulling a sample out of his pocket as he walked out. I expressed quite a bit of interest and encouraged him to pursue the project further. As it turned out he wanted a custom rack for one of his bikes and Leah(the rack builder that hangs out in corner) wanted some wooden fenders.

Today Ben stopped by the shop with the fenders:




I am very impressed. If your interested in some of your own you should contact him via e-mail - Lbrk@hotmail.com, we need to get him making some more of these.

ZR Cycles in Bike magazine

ZR Cycles (the guy that builds on the other side of the shop from me) has a nice review of a 650B mountain bike he built in Bike Magazine, check it out: http://bikemag.com/gear/bikes/tested_zr_cycles_650b_hardtail_frame/

Frame raffle is still going!

Raffle is about halfway done...so get on board if your interested:

http://jonnycycles.blogspot.com/2008/06/get-jonny-cycles-frame-for-50-and-help.html

Grim Reaper

Jerry's "Grim Reaper" frame is back from paint, check it out:

Grim Reaper Flickr set

Sanchez paintshop up and running!

Finally! It's been awhile now, but Jason finally has his new shop up and running. The first bike for me will be Jonny Hunters polished stainless road frame which I'm really anxious to have finished, and I'm sure Jonny is even more anxious to finally have his frame. Jonny gave us some leeway with the paint and Jason is working on some great (but secret) ideas.

Zack (ZR cycles) and I took a bike ride over to Milwaukee over the 4th of July weekend and visited the shop. Jason was working on a frame for Dave Wages from Ellis Cycles at the time. Here are a few photos:

Grants road frameset is back from paint...

Check it out:
http://flickr.com/photos/jonnycycles/sets/72157606036386140/

Bike the Barns

Bike the Barns is back for 2008! This years bicycle tour of local CSA (community supported agriculture) farms is scheduled for Sunday, September 27th which is the perfect time of year for enjoying the near perfect roads of South Central Wisconsin.

I participated in last years ride and it was one of the best organized rides I've ever done. The route was great, the food was amazing, and after it was over I was already anxious for next years ride.

If your interested you should sign up early as last years ride was very popular and the registration filled up in the first few weeks.



http://www.macsac.org/bikethebarns/

Get a Jonny Cycles frame for $50 and help a great cause!

In 2006 I helped with the Bix Fix ride: A fixed gear ride across the country to benefit Histiocytosis. For the 2006 ride Mojo and I worked to get a frame for one of the riders. It was a fun project and I was able to complete the bike just in time for the winner Ken Mclain to ride the frame across the country. The ride was done in 28 days, fixed or not thats no small feat! The finished bike can be seen here: http://jonnycycles.com/trackpix13.html

This year Mojo is doing a similar promotion to benefit Histiocytosis called the Wheels North ride. The ride is going from California to Washington recreating the epic 1909 adventure of two young cyclists. You can read about the original ride in the book entitled "Two Wheels North: Bicycling the West Coast in 1909".

For this years ride I'm helping by doing a raffle for one of my frames to generate some cash for the cause. The good news: You don't have to do the ride to win the frame, just donate $50 here for a 1 in 100 chance (not bad odds) to win a frame. This will be a custom fit track or road frameset constructed from the new Reynolds 953 stainless steel tubing.

Read more about the event here:
Event website
Event blog

Photos photos Photos!

I finally upload some photos of the latest frames back from paint:

http://jonnycycles.com/trackpix23.html An all stainless Reynolds 953 track bike thats now with its owner in Great Brittan.

http://jonnycycles.com/trackpix22.htmlTrack frame-set for Neil in California.

http://jonnycycles.com/roadpix7.html
I finally finished the other half of that all stainless pair of frames (the yellow one).

In other news: Lots of rain. All of central and southwest Wisconsin seems to be underwater. I was planning a bike trip from Madison to Eau Claire on Thursday this coming week, but with so many road closures I think the trip will be difficult if not impossible. Interstate 90/94 is even closed down in one section:

This weekend in Milwaukee

Dropout flower

Art Pedaler

8pm Friday, June 6th
Posters, prints, and art celebrating the bicycle.

Escape Java Joint
916 Williamson Street

More Flickr

I've been really into the unpainted Flickr group that Sweat Pea Bicycles has set up: http://flickr.com/groups/unpainted/

All sorts of great unpainted frames there.

Even more than frame-building process photos and unpainted frames I love photos of peoples shops. I love all the photos in the unpainted group, but always find myself looking into the background to catch a glimpse of everyones shop. To compliment Sweat Pea's Unpainted group I've created a new Frameshop group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/Framebuilding_workshop

If you have any sort of frame-building or painting workshop feel free to join and post any and all photos of your shop that you have, I'd love to see photos of your shop.....

Photos of Danny's TIG welded track bike and Flickr

Danny from Austin sent me some photos of his recently built TIG welded Jonny Cycles track frame. Taken outside of Lance Armstrong's new shop "Mellow Johnny's" in Austin:








I've also started a flickr site. Check it out -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnycycles/

Midwest Bike Polo Championship: May 3rd

Should be fun times as usual.

More info here: http://www.madbikepolo.org/

Seen on the Fixed Gear Gallery

I made the stem:

http://fixedgeargallery.com/2008/apr/2/JonathanMorgan.htm#image_2

H8TR100 photos

The H8TR100 (formerly Madison-Basco-Madison) was a success!. Due to poor trail conditions the race stopped at Belleville instead of going all the way through the train tunnel (frozen and ice covered). 40 degrees with rain and snow = perfect conditions!

Some photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/newlow/sets/72157604524396442/

Results here:

http://www.kittenfactory.blogspot.com/

Orange

Custom orange track stem with a French diameter (22.0 mm) quill - hows that for unique?

Threadless stem installed on Mercian

Kyle just sent me some photos of this stem installed on his Mercian: