The 29′er

Production on this custom steel 29′er is wrapping up, and it’s getting ready to go to paint. When it’s done, it will be a tribute to a feline friend who died far too young and far too suddenly. Not only will the paint reflect the pattern of her fur, but some of her ashes will be 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. At the time, 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 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 frame and fork. The parts for the build are ready to rock, with the exception of some stuff that’s on the way from Chris King, and I should have a finished bike by the end of June. More pictures will follow.

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