The 29′er

Production on this custom steel 29′er is finally wrapped up, and the paint work is complete. The bike is a tribute to a feline friend who died far too young and far too suddenly. Not only does the paint reflect the pattern of her fur, but some of her ashes have been mixed in with the black, so that a little bit of her soul is embodied in the machine.

The story behind this bike is the story behind the founding of Pallas Athena Custom Bicycles. During the summer of 2009, I had been saving money to purchase a 29′er mountain bike frame. I had been home from vacation for a week, when my cat, Mooch, threw a blood clot into her right front leg. A trip to the emergency vet, the follow-up work, testing, and eventual euthanasia (due to metastatic cancer) and cremation of my best friend, not only wiped out my bike savings, but wiped out a good chunk of our joint savings, as well. My fianceé went back to North Carolina, where she was in the middle a 5-month business trip, and I spent a lot of the next week alone in the house, grieving for my friend, and contemplating life and how it frequently seems too short.

Two months later, I met Paul Wyganowski at Minnecycle, a mini-show for local framebuilders. We got to talking, and I decided to embark on something I’d dreamed of doing and never pursued: learning the craft of building bicycle frames. I had decided that life was too short to waste time daydreaming. Right away, I decided that my first frame would be a 29′er mountain bike and it would be a tribute to my pal, who loved the outdoors and had a strange fascination with bicycles.

And so, after more than a hundred hours of work, and countless more of learning, I have a rigid (but suspension-corrected) 29′er, and the first excursion was an incredible experience. I went out and rode, and once I got past my analysis of how the frame rode, it was a time for quiet reflection. My little buddy was with me for those few hours, and as much as she changed my life the first time around, she was with me at the start of a whole new chapter.

Materials: 4130 chromoly steel, Suntour rear dropouts.
Features: internal routing for brake cables through top tube and through fork, eccentric bottom bracket, biaxial-ovalized downtube

View this bike elsewhere: Flickr, Velospace.