For the past 5 years a custom frame builder Don Walker has been putting on the North American Handmade Bike Show in different parts of the country each year. Frame makers from all over the country come together to show their craft and pride of their work. No, there are no Treks, Specialized, Cervelo, Giant, Orbea, or any big box stock bikes. What was there? Well the brands that Shama Cycles offers...Guru, Moots, Alchemy, Kirklee, and many more hand made custom frame makers. Shama Cycles went to represent Guru at the show with with the DFU (Dynamic Fit Unit) and 5 Guru dream builds at the Guru booth with Robert Pinazza from Guru. Also we brought two Alchemy bikes of ours to show at the Alchemy booth as well as the Wood Kirklee bike for the Kirklee booth. It was very flattering to be able to have bikes built up for our clients that are show worthy. It was a busy and tough 3 days but we made it through. Being able to see all the friends who drove up from Houston to Austin was great and so was being able to meet new people there and talk to them about Guru and the benefits of custom and talk about how we build these dream machines. One highlight of the show was a frame that Kirklee made for Analise Thompson which she wanted painted based on the art work of Van Gogh's Starry Night. We found the frame painter who could pull it off and got back a pure work of art. The work was so stunning that it was the most photographed frame of the show and won BEST PAINT of the entire show. With that finishing off the weekend...we left Austin on a high!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Monday, October 4, 2010
A Shama Guru CR901 at AG Nationals!
I am very proud of the bikes I build and every once in a while one will grab attention that you would not have expected. Recently I built a bike for Krista and we chose pretty wild color scheme. Black with Florescent Yellow accents. A little worried about how loud it will be and did we pick it right. Well it came in and WOW its amazing! Built up even better and rolling....in a race...FORGET ABOUT IT! THIS IS ONE BAD MACHINE!!! Check out the USAT Teaser video here at about 1:20 seconds in you will see Krista and this rocket under her FLYING down the course as she blows by a guy on the right. Sure...maybe he was in the 50+ AG but still...its a hell of a pass. haha Jokes aside, its a proud moment for me to see one of my creations make a clip like this...and proud to see Krista flying the Shama colors out at such a big race. Rock on Krista!!!!
http://http://www.usatriathlon.org/news/2010/09/27/watch-the-highlight-video-teaser-from-usat-age-group-nationals/38744?ngb_id=12
http://http://www.usatriathlon.org/news/2010/09/27/watch-the-highlight-video-teaser-from-usat-age-group-nationals/38744?ngb_id=12
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
A Guru Photon for Joe, a year long upgrade
Joe came to me this time last year with his stock Fuji carbon frame road bike with 105 components. He was not all that comfortable and wanted a fit. We changed up the fit some and I mentioned some upgrades to enhance the fit further. See Joe was not the standard male body type at all...or the typical cyclist body type. Joe hits the gym hard and looks more like a football player than a roadie...throw in his long legs, short torso and long arms and you have a need for some changes in a big way.
We changes the cranks, then the bar and stem and with each change he loved the improvement in his weekend rides where he found more speed and comfort. Next came new shifters, brakes, and derailluers...being geeked out over the performace of the shifting, braking and the weight he has been dropping off his Fuji he decided to get some better wheels as well. By this time we have changed everything. Everything but the frame. Finally after months of change after change and increased riding enjoyment he upgraded the frame. Guru Photon...custom made to be as tall as he needed it to be while having the perfect reach he needed. The parts list included Deda bar and stem, Zero G GSL brakes, Selle SMP Carbon Lite saddle, Sram Force shifters and derailluers, Rotor 3D cranks, SABB, and Q-Rings, Arundel cages, Hed Stinger 4 FlameRouge wheels with Schwalbe Ultremo tubulars with Nokon cables. This brought his 21lbs Fuji stock bike to a 14lbs Guru Photon bad a$$ rocket ship.
Oh, and how does it ride? Well on his first outing on the new frame when he normally would have been dropped from the attacks at 26mph and up Joe chased down one of his friends at 31mph and stayed away with him till the rest stop. Which prompted from all his friends, questions as to what has he been doing differently in his training and such. His response was...its the frame.
I loved going through this journey with him and finally completing it with an amazing finished product. The only bummer is now we are done...
Time to ride!
We changes the cranks, then the bar and stem and with each change he loved the improvement in his weekend rides where he found more speed and comfort. Next came new shifters, brakes, and derailluers...being geeked out over the performace of the shifting, braking and the weight he has been dropping off his Fuji he decided to get some better wheels as well. By this time we have changed everything. Everything but the frame. Finally after months of change after change and increased riding enjoyment he upgraded the frame. Guru Photon...custom made to be as tall as he needed it to be while having the perfect reach he needed. The parts list included Deda bar and stem, Zero G GSL brakes, Selle SMP Carbon Lite saddle, Sram Force shifters and derailluers, Rotor 3D cranks, SABB, and Q-Rings, Arundel cages, Hed Stinger 4 FlameRouge wheels with Schwalbe Ultremo tubulars with Nokon cables. This brought his 21lbs Fuji stock bike to a 14lbs Guru Photon bad a$$ rocket ship.
Oh, and how does it ride? Well on his first outing on the new frame when he normally would have been dropped from the attacks at 26mph and up Joe chased down one of his friends at 31mph and stayed away with him till the rest stop. Which prompted from all his friends, questions as to what has he been doing differently in his training and such. His response was...its the frame.
I loved going through this journey with him and finally completing it with an amazing finished product. The only bummer is now we are done...
Time to ride!
Guru Crono Retro fitted for internal Di2
When this rig was ordered at the end of 2008 Di2 hadn't swept the scene yet...so it got the best of Sram and other parts of the time. Now its 2010 and while the owner would love a new rig...its kinda like why? What would be different? This bike fits perfectly and has taken him to podiums in nearly every race he has entered. How do you perfect perfection? Ahhh...I love a challenge. In sprints and Olys you often run through tight turns that on such a short bike count for time. You can't always carry speed through them so you slow down on your base bars only to try to accelerate in the wrong gear...costing you precious power and seconds. Bring in the Di2! So Rich wanted to get crazy low and rail corners like a pro! We used the Pro Missile drop aero bars with the full Di2 set up with the shifters on the brake levers as well. The install was great with the cables all running perfectly through the frame and set up was a breeze...just perfect. OMG I love this stuff! We also used the Zero Gravity Gravitas brakes for when he needs to slow down giong into T2. The crank set up is my fav....Rotor 3D cranks spinning a QRing set on a Quarq power meter. We also used a Rotor SABB ceramic bottom bracket and Tiso ceramic pulley wheels to have a friction free drivetrain. First race...I watch him come out of T1 going to a flying mount and he eats it. That's right...he biffed the running mount and hit the ground. My mouth dropped looking from afar at this catastrophy. I can't believe he ruined my flawless machine. No...I didn't care how he was...I didn't care what he did to his bike....I cared what happened to my creation and the results I was looking for him to get. haha He picked up his pride and his bike and remounted. Headed down the road and was on his way. Now I am worried that with uber tech this frame is I am worried that something is off and his race will be over shortly. But what is this? He finished the bike in good time and with a blood running down from his knee and all over his Guru he finished 2nd in his Age Group. Long story short, after 6 stitches and some blood loss...he LOVES the new set up and will work on his cyclocross skills some more before his next race.
See ya on the road!
See ya on the road!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
DANCING BEAR, MOONWALKING BEAR, CYCLIST AWARE
Pretty good, had to post. Its so true as one of my good friends was crashed off the road by a truck last night. Though we are pretty sure the truck saw him and was intentional.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Kirklee Goliath
What started off as a simple quest to build a better bike than his current Trek Madone slowly became a monster of its own. First we chose the frame and of course being the number one Guru dealer in the country it would seem likely that we would build a Guru instead of some of the other fine frames that I offer in the shop. After listening to my client and what he wanted I leaned him towards the Kirklee. A small company based in Austin turning out custom frames that can easily be dialed in to what I would want for my clients needs. Light, smooth, and fun. Now the hard part...what to paint it. See with Kirklee we deal with a painter and the sky is the limit. After about a week of back and forth the owner settled in on an idea or a theme...WOOD. My first reaction was "no way", done poorly it would be a really horrible looking bike. As I thought about it longer I saw the potential here. Potential for something unique and set apart from the rest. After some more back and forth with the client, Kirklee and the painter we picked the shade, finish and grain of wood the paint is supposed to represent. After that we gave the painter artistic freedom to do what he does best....make it look amazing with out our own ideas mucking it up. The one thing we wanted was a branded look for the logos and name of the bike. If you notice the name on the bike says "Goliath". No, that is not the owners name, his name is David and is not very tall. Having a sense of humor about it he and his two sons came up with the name Goliath. Of course I think its great and fitting in a way....I knew this was going to be a big bike. Now with the custom tubing and geometry figured out and being made, the paint lined up, we then chose an Edge 1.0 fork to be painted in to match as well. Next in line was the selection of the components. We talked a while about each part and basically wound up with a pretty amazing build even if I do say so myself. Sram Red shifters, front D and rear D handle all the gear changes via the Power Cordz ultralight and smooth cable system. The gold KMC chain spins through two gold Tiso ceramic pulley wheels before rolling around a Dura Ace cassette mounted on a DT Swiss 240 hub laced with DT Swiss Aerolite spokes holding onto an Edge 45 carbon clincher rim...which rolls on a Schwalbe Ultremo DD tire. That gold chain spins through the rear via the power put down onto a set of Dura Ace pedals attached to a custom set of Lighting crank arms which turn over a set of Rotor QRings. The crank set up spins nearly frictionless thanks to a Zipp BB30 bottom bracket shell housing a set of Enduro Zero ceramic bearings. The Sram Red shifters are mounted on a Zipp Countor SL handle bar which is held in place by a New Ultimate stem that happens to match the very clean New Ultimate carbon seat post that holds onto the Selle SMP Carbon Lite saddle. If and when you ever want to stop this rig a set of Zero Gravity GSL brakes will slow you down nicely. The little add ons include a Soul Kozak seatpost clamp, a set of KCNC ti skewers as well as a very hard to come by pair of Emporelli bottle cages. Wit this huge list of parts selected on this rolling work of art...what does it weigh? Well of course even though the frame is small and made very light...its still pretty heavy due to the paint work....still this bike complete as shown in the pictures here tips the scale at 13lbs 9oz. I, was not even expecting it to be that light. Yep, I gotta say it, this bike even exceeded my own expectations!
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