RESTORATION: 1989 Tesch S-22

A while back a regular customer and friend of the Ti Cycles shop who has an appreciation for great bikes found himself in possession of a vintage road frame set from a noteworthy American builder that was nothing short of eye-catching.

photos courtesy of Scott Ebert

The “S-22” is a spot-on period piece from when it was built, in 1989, by a journeyman bike fabricator during the halcyon days of the modern US bike boom. The bike was bright as heck and highlighted by a retro-futuristic font and graphic scheme that would look equally at home in The Jetsons or The Flintstones. The striking orange, once full flourescent, had some dramatic fading but even that was pretty cool, adding rather than subtracting from the overall look.

The builder, David Tesch, is as interesting as the bike; a few breadcrumbs of information online has him popping up at a couple of important places during the the genesis of the modern American bike industry.

Tesch got his start in the right place at the right time, landing at the nascent Trek Bicycle Corporation just as it was transitioning from a small Wisconsin upstart making their TX series touring frames out of a rented warehouse to a full fledged bike manufacturer with a professional level line of road racing frames and a newborn MTB series. After a few years in Waterloo Tesch made his way out to California where he built frames for Specialized and Masi while also developing his own eponymous brand.

The frame wound up at Ti Cycles, having passed through eBay and at least a couple of owners, with a damaged chain stay in need of repair. At some point in its life a wider than appropriate rear hub had been used without properly respacing the frame and now a crack ran visibly across the inside face of the non-drive-side chain stay, just aft of the bridge.

photo courtesy of Scott Ebert

The frame’s visuals were so fetching that the Tesch looked stellar from 6 feet away. Up close it had a few blemishes befitting a 30-year old race bike, but since a proper repair meant that the paint had to come off nothing was lost.

Once it was stripped down to the bare True Temper and brass we found a few crusty corners and eventually a corresponding crack in the drive-side chain stay; a double stayectomy was in order. Before resurrecting the rear triangle we had to find the appropriate replacement parts; two identical pieces of steel frame tubing with the correct taper, the correct wall thickness, and two significantly different diameters at either end. It took a while but eventually Dave tracked down the ideal material and went to work.

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

View fullsize

After a lot of tedious pressing, cutting, grinding, filing, sanding, and maybe a little bit of swearing, this time capsule was brought back into top form, straight as an arrow with two new chain stays, a rear dropout alignment and re-spacing, and scoured clean inside and out to prep for fresh paint.

We handed the frame and fork over to the color wizards at Black Magic Paint for a museum quality restoration, and the finished product does not disappoint.

More information on Tesch bikes can be found at ClassicRendezvous.com

XXL Pinion Dirt Touring Travel Bike

NAHBS 2019 Round Up

Adventure Cycling took note of the big tire drop bar bikes that were stationed around the show, including the steel Local Disco gravelventure build we put together with our pals North St Bags, and the steel Pinion P18-powered round-the-world dirt tourer that was camped out in our booth. Both photos via ACA.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Reynolds R3D Printed Titanium Dropouts Available

Developed in conjunction with legendary UK tubing manufacturer Reynolds Technology Limited, the R3D printed titanium dropout is one of many products available for direct order in our Framebuilding section.

Mellow Yellow CarGoAway with Shimano STePS

Say what you will, like it or love it, the 'new economy' of Internet-based businesses offering delivery and passenger transportation services are changing the urban landscape. Every day there are more and more examples of mobile technology driving modern society (pun intended) ever so slowly away from individual automobile ownership. Uber, Lyft, Amazon Prime, Caviar, and their ilk are turning the tables on the 'practicality' of buying, fueling, registering, maintaining, insuring, and parking a private car in non-rural environments.

Of course this is exactly why CarGoAway is the name of our cargo bike platform. Sure, when the mood strikes you want to be able to load up kids, pets, groceries, mannequins, large vine ripened melons, et cetera and cruise from point A to point B. We all do. But in today's world there's no need to hassle with a car to do those things. You just need a cargo bike!

Available with or without (but better with) electric assist, integrated lighting, longtail passenger seat, and cargo areas in various sizes, our CarGoAway platform is perfect for living a simple, convenient, and practical urban life with a minimal carbon footprint.

Zwei Tandem S&S eTap

Tandems are beasts unto themselves. They have more or less been around as long as the modern bicycle itself, their popularity waxing and waning for a century before a renaissance in the 1970s that cemented the captain/stoker seating arrangement as a thing. (Ironically, 1972 was the last modern Olympic Games to include tandem cycling).

Today tandems are fairly common; you don't see a lot of them, but you've definitely seen them and know what they are. If you've ever ridden with one while on a standard single bicycle you can attest to how remarkably fast they can go in the hands of two competent tandem riders.

Not only is this custom titanium Zwei Tandem build built for speed, it is built for travel. With a suite of S&S couplings this two-person road rocket fits into a couple of regulation size suitcase boxes and checks just like any other baggage. The brilliance of the couplers is nowhere more apparent than on a bike with a SRAM eTap drivetrain; disconnect the rear brake and the bike is ready to disassemble and pack.

This build is outfitted with lightweight carbon fiber components, a Gates Carbon Drive timing belt, tandem specific wheels from our friends down the road at Rolf-Prima, and one of Dave's bespoke titanium forks.

Semi-Custom Road Disc with Campagnolo H11

We developed our Semi-Custom program to give our customers expanded options to find the perfect bike for their intended use, budget, and timeline. Just as with our full custom bespoke bikes, we work with our customers to dial in exactly what they're after, from the geometry and materials to the cosmetic finish and build out. To move semi-custom projects through our schedule more quickly we have a trusted subcontractor weld them up in batches, avoiding the 10-12 month lead time of our bespoke frames to get folks out on the road or trail rather than waiting in line.

This fantastic road disc build with Campagnolo H11, Enve Composites cockpit, and equisitely balanced half-flashy-half-classic finish work by Black Magic Paint is the perfect example of a beautiful, high performance, no compromise bike.

Service: Complicated Repair Archive // Lemond Tete de Course

The motto around the Ti Cycles shop is "Anything Is Possible". If something was made once, it can be made again.

One of the more complicated frame repairs in recent memory was a composite Lemond Tete de Course, half titanium and half carbon fiber, that required a downtube replacement.

Before we could replace the titanium tube we needed to un-bond the top of the frame from the bottom. For this task we called on our friends at Ruckus Composites here in Portland, masters of the art of carbon fiber. 

The carbon sections needed to be out of the frame, but able to be put back in to place to set up the frame jig for welding the new downtube to the original bottom bracket shell and head tube. During this process while the downtube is out of the frame the head tube is completely disconnected, as are the carbon fiber tubes, meaning the frame is almost completely disassembled. Only the chainstay welds at the dropouts and bottom bracket shell remain from the original assembly.

After the new downtube was installed the titanium sections were brushed up to a beautiful shine and transported in a box back to the Ruckus labs for the carbon fiber reassembly. Then the frame came back to us one last time for final detailing and wax anti-fingerprint sealant before heading home to its owner.

"Everyone is impressed with the work and craftsmanship of Ti Cycles, as the frame looks beautiful. Your service and final product was excellent."

Custom Titanium Racks + Bits for Seven Cafe Racer

This past winter we had the pleasure of building a suite of bespoke titanium components for a cafe racer project the folks at Pleasant Hill Cyclery in the Bay Area were working on. The overview is straightforward -- a titanium fork, front and rear racks, and pant guard for the Gates Carbon Drive -- but there were plenty of details to sort through.

Starting from scratch we had four individual pieces to fabricate, some of which interface with each other directly, and all of which needed to bolt up to an existing frame built by another shop. Seven Cycles does good work, so we had a solid foundation to build from, and Loc at Pleasant Hill Cyclery was organized, specific, and generally great to work with.

The custom titanium fork is a fantastic piece of hardware. Our 1.5" Tapered, sleeved unicrown design with a solid 15TA dropout and a smart and smooth 58mm of offset. Disc only with the hose running through the leg and mounts for fenders and our front rack. 

The front rack is a sleek, minimal, slightly swoopy mini platform with an internally wired dynamo light mount out front and a standard tombstone bag loop in the back. The legs were specified with a unique and deceptively complicated design element that needed to be square, symmetrical, and pretty but also weight bearing. They turned out great.

The rear rack would also have internal wire routing and a dynamo light mount at the rear. Opposite of the front rack, the rear would have no cargo platform but instead carry saddle bags. Effectively a series of intersecting loops, the rack construction makes for a sleek profile. An additional feature of the rear rack is a set of light housings for LED running lights. We used bullets for oversize chainstays as the end caps for the housings, adding just the tiniest bit of complimentary flare to the rack package's art deco sensibilities.

To tie everything together a titanium pant guard for the belt drive was made to mount discretely to the bottom bracket shell and snugly into the Seven rear dropout, with no additional mounting points required.

A gallery of the component package we built is below, and you can check out the final build out with RuthWorks SF bags and a happy rider here.

HYENA XL Titanium Fastback SS MTB

Early each year the dead of winter brings the annual North American Handmade Bike Show, better known as NAHBS. From a small start with a handful of frame builders the event has grown into an institution for the bespoke bicycle crowd.

The 2018 event was held in Connecticut, the first time NAHBS has been in New England. The logistics of transporting a commercial display and fleet of bikes that distance made a full Ti Cycles booth impractical, but we did continue our tradition of collaborating with our friends in the industry on one-off show bikes.

For our pals at Gates Carbon Drive we put together one of our XL Hyena MTBs with a bomber build kit. 

This frame utilizes Dave's trademark "Fastback" design with its distinctive big bottomed side profile. The design centers around an extended, continuous, pierced top tube that creates a monostay rear trapezoid (rather than a triangle), pairing the large diameter top tube with shorter seat stays to make for a very stout rear end. Built for riders 6' and taller, the Hyena is stiff and nimble, with short chainstays and slack angles, ready to take on everything from an Enduro downhill to a freestyle run on a set of dirt jumps.

With white knuckle performance in mind, this bike was built out moto-x style with front and rear wheels sized for their distinct roles of attacking obstacles and powerful acceleration, respectively. A 2018 version of our beloved 69er. (More on that in the 69er FAQ)

To dress up the frame we went compact and clean. The Magura TS8 fork is light and smart, not to mention stiff, and is paired on the same handlebar mounted Bluetooth wireless remote switch as the Vyron dropper post for the pinnacle of clean and uncluttered cockpit tech. We also used the venerable German brand's MT8 hydraulic brakes for their wicked light hardware and reliable stopping power. 

Ever faster and steeper trails call for the specially tuned Schwalbe ADDIX rubber, with a 26x2.35 Nobby Nic out back and 27.5 x 2.60 Magic Mary up front, and the rad guys at Stans No Tubes did a purpose-built Flow MK3 matching wheelset on SS Neo hubs.

FSA's MTB cockpit and their new modular Afterburnercranks with a custom 4-bolt carrier for the Gates belt ring transfer the giddyup. Local friends Chris King Precision Components and Portland Design Works make our regular go-to parts and each always has the colors we are after. And hot dang we just couldn't miss with that Selle Italia Flite saddle!

To tie the top shelf build kit and striking frame design together we dolled it all up with half a dozen shades of blue, including custom decals for the Magura and Stans parts. It may be pretty but make no mistake, this is one light, tight, and unmistakable trail beast!

Andy Dahlstrom's GS Flash Team Pursuit frameset

In the nascent days of Ti Cycles Dave built a quintet of framesets for the GS Flash elite track team for the 1992 Olympic trials in Team Pursuit. 

Four of the frames were the same, and the fifth -- pictured here -- was a larger size for Andy Dahlstrom, who would go on to win the Washington State Pursuit Championship and set several records in the discipline.

This frame/fork set is on display in our shop, on loan from the owner Dennis Stuhaug.