After a good couple nights rest, I'm up earlier than expected. Time to write a blogpost!
Chris made a post yesterday with some interesting discoveries. I've made a few of my own. Our leather comes from some very special cows, right here in Taiwan:
Free range, locally fed, and real friendly!What I like best about the Taipei Cycle Show are the samples to discover under the display shelves, prototypes not printed in their catalogues, and Solidworks drawings of concepts that were just a sketch on a napkin the previous year. And occasionally you stumble upon some completely bizarre item that, with a few tweaks here and there, is exactly what you are looking for. Case in point:
This is a 'backpack helper', designed to support your daypack when on your back. I really like the low profile hinged clamp. I guess you can see where Velo Orange would go with this.....
We also discovered quite a few new stems. Lugged stems have been in Taiwan catalogues for a few years now, but they all were 1" threadless. Kinda useless for even the classic bike builders as no-one is using 1" threadless steerers. It's either 1" quill or 1 1/8" threadless. This year we discovered one Taichung area fork builder that brazed up a new 2 bolt 1 1/8" threadless steerer lug. It would fit nicely on our threadless stem adaptor:
The gold lame wrap is a little over the top, but what do you think?
Sugino presented us with some new cranks aimed at the 'Grand Fondo' market; go fast bikes outfitted with climbing gears- usually 48-34t- on a 110 bolt pattern crank. They went the route of a 2 piece crank design for the new BB30 shell with a suprisingly low Q factor. The double anodized black color turned us off (that can be changed), but this may be an ineresting spec on a 'Moderniste' build PassHunter. There are a few other configurations, including an external bearing system that fits traditional BB shells, and a wider chainring range. Is this something we should waste our time on?
I could make this into a very long post and document our meetings and meandering with photos , but I'll spare you the volume. Isntead, take a look at my Flickr page with photos from the last few days. I'll re position images, edit tags and add more photos today and tomorrow too:
click here
Lastly, you should be seeing some Velo Orange packaging coming through on some of the product! It's a simple headercard, made of 100% post consumer recycled content paperboard. These cards are used on the existing product we have in stock in Annapolis. Eventually we will have this done at the point of manufacturing. I'd really like to get away from the plastic bag/headercard thing completely: a nice box for the stems, bottom brackets, etc. That will take some time. A referral or 2 for a graphic artist who has packaging design experience would be really helpful.
15 comments:
I'm having trouble accessing your flickr set. Flickr says it's marked private.
the upload took forever this morning. I can check permissions when I get back to the hotel, but it should be public.
Tom
I changed permissions on the set to public.
We can order 1" threadless lugged stems rather easily, but I think there's a larger market for 1 1/8" threadless. Would a 1 1/8" with an alloy shim be acceptable?
you mention a contact with a fork builder--what would be super lovely is a sloping crown, steel fork with a 1-1/8" steerer and maybe some eyelets for fenders. kinda like the fork for the surly pacer, except with a nicer finish. (chrome, perhaps?)
I'm still get the "this folder is private" message. Anyone else having problems viewing the photos?
I've reset the permissions like 4 times since the photos were posted. Not sure why everyone's getting denied.
I posted some more photos today, and the upload is taking almost 4 hours. I'll edit at a later time.
The next few days I'll be exploring Hualein and Taroka Gorge.
update- I think I fixed the permissions for all photos- try the flickr link now.....
tom
"Backpack helper" looks promising!
Is that first gold stem really lugged? Perhaps there is some trick of the lighting, but it looks CNC-cut to me.
call Julia Gibb at Jahru on Hudson st annapolis. She went to the Corcoran and would p0rbably have great design ideas for packaging
Tell Julia you were refered to her by Jonathan --the guy who gave her Eartha Kitty ( a cat)
she is good and talented.
The gold ano stem is CNC'ed to look lugged.
I'll contact julia when I get back to the office early next week.
tom
http://jahru.com/
You should stock the new SA 5 speed and the bar end and Paul like thumb shifters that go with it. The range is 256% (vs. 305% for the first SA 8) which is good enough for some, and it represents the best range of internal gears free of the nasty grip shifter that has no place on smaller french style handlebars.
if we stock the Sturmey internal hubs, it will be the 3 speed and 8 speed. The 5 speed is quickly becoming a dinosaur. The european market is well established and they all want an 8 speed internal hub. The 3 speed is for lower price bikes. The 5 speed is in this grey area- it costs almost as much as an 8 speed.
Sturmey tells me that the US customers want a 5 speed as a middle ground between the 3 and 8, but nowhere else are they getting that feedback. So, I'm reluctant to pick it up.
Tom
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