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This isn't a real post...I'm waiting until I have a new website to really put the effort into writing about this. Obviously there was an e3 and e4 between e2 and this post...but I'll wait until the new website to figure that out. Here is a photo set for my FW2013JKJK look book starring Greg. Details: e5 48.20 - black deadstock mazzucchelli acetate with polarized PC blue mirror lenses. Enjoy!

The idea for this chainring started so long ago that I can’t even remember when it was. Nao Tomii was having a hard time getting his machine shop, for the now retired 3RRR product line, to make some necessary changes to the tooth profile that he had been using for his track chainrings. He came to me with a sketch of this chainring that made hearts with the spider pattern of the crank arms. Originally it was a track ring (144BCD), then it was a track-style ring that fit onto a road crankset (130BCD), then finally it ended up as a one-by-n road ring (3/32”) in 130mm BCD and 44 teeth. This happened over a period of three or four years, we even made some prototypes in each style over the years.

There are a few elements of the design of this ring that I think are interesting...After Nao passed the rough sketch to me, I wanted to add some features that were consistent with the overall idea of the ring, so I incorporated the heart cut-out around one of the chainring bolts, and a variable radius blend on the inside of the heart shape to soften that feature. I also thought that it would look sharp if the teeth of the ring blended into the nameplate. I wanted to avoid having gunk build up at the seat where the teeth meet the ring body, so instead of putting a sharp corner there, the detail is milled out with a ball endmill. 

Another unique aspect of this chainring is the application. A lot of people (myself included) have bicycles that run a single ring up front with a multi speed cassette in the back. The idea of making a tooth profile that is not designed for shifting, but is designed for tighter engagement with the chain when used with up to a ten speed cassette in the rear, was intriguing to me. I took some liberties with the design, and the prototype got good reviews during the field test. The ring will work with a chain catcher/keeper like the Paul Components version, and fits snugly on all of the cranks tested. 

These chainrings are a little more expensive to make than the track ring that I have previously released, just because of how much machining is required to make each, so the price reflects that increase. Manufactured in Peabody, Massachusetts, USA, from certified 6061-T6 aluminum plate stock. These chainrings are fully CNC machined. All edges (front and rear) are machine broken with a 45-degree 0.010-in deep chamfer. Product is packaged in brown paper with a QC certification label and number, and shipped USPS Priority Mail.

The price is $88 + S&H, there are 50 rings total available (26 Black and 24 Clear/Silver). Get it here.

The 2012 batch of Geekhouse Bikes CX frames feature a new custom dropout design that I have been working on for Marty since the spring. My goal with this design was to create a modern-looking dropout with very clean lines, to compliment the TIG welding process, and be consistent with the family of previous design work that I have contributed to Geekhouse.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to tastefully use layering of material thicknesses in a single part to create a visually more complex structure, without making the dropout look too techy. Overall, I am happy with how these turned out. At first glance, the dropouts look very plain, but there are a lot of subtle details in them. I think that the blends and surfaces in the final machined parts look nice and simple, and Richard Defrancisco, at Cantabrigian Mechanics, did a great job machining them.

Numbering systems are way more timeless than names, but if I had to name this frame, it would be called “The Worrier” or “Elton John John John.” Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the numbers, “e2” because this is the second pair of eyeglass frames that I have designed and fabricated, and “47.18” because that is the size of these frames.

With eyewear, scale is a particularly difficult thing to judge, especially because the glasses need to fit some pretty complex and diverse facial geometry. The completion of these frames has brought me technically much closer to where I want to be with the process of designing and fabricating eyewear, but the fit part is going to take me a while.

This pair took me about 20-hrs to make, spread out over three days. It started with a sheet of NOS Mazzucchelli Tectonic tortoise shell cellulose acetate (probably from the 70s), laminated in the nose pad region and CNC milled for the rough form. The frame was then hand filed for appropriate contours, grooved for lenses, fit and drilled for hinges, riveted, filed again, glazed, heat formed, de-glazed, wet sanded, polished, assembled, polished, re-glazed, temples formed, and then washed.

I compiled some of my initial sketches and notes since the last frame into a nice collage, which shows part of what had to happen on the back end before anything was modeled or any cutting occurred. Stay tuned for another pair in a month or so.

Sometimes when working on a project you have to give up on an idea with which you fell in love. Partly as a jab, and partly because it was perfect, I pitched the idea to Justin Spinelli, of Luxe Wheelworks, for a design that incorporated the setting of a Swarovski crystal into the skewer lever for his custom built wheels. How Luxe would that have been?

Anyway, after a few changes we came up with the current version, which just came back from the shop. This lever is swiss milled out of 6061 aluminum, then anodized black, and then laser etched with the Luxe logo on both sides.

The lever replaces the stock plastic lever on the Joy Tech skewer system. Rims for your rims. Available on Luxe Wheelworks stock in-house builds soon.

This post details not a specific project, but one of the most important decisions that I have made recently concerning direction, work, and process. About two years ago I started working with a local eyewear company to help them develop a new production frame. I tried hard to learn everything that I could about the process, but at the end of the project I had a lot of questions. For the last year or so since that project ended, I have found myself more and more interested in this industry, perhaps because there is so little information about process and because manufacturing techniques are so guarded. A few months ago, I decided to take the plunge and start to assemble a better working knowledge of the process of designing and fabricating glasses frames, more specifically cellulose acetate plastic frames.

I’m not trying to specialize into this industry, but by acquiring a “strip-built canoe” or “ship in a bottle” type project, I will attempt to be more connected to the process of refining an art/skill instead of working on projects solely towards the goal of completion. I am not going to stop designing other devices and products, but this project will hopefully be in the background, slowly maturing. This is the first pair of sunglasses that I have designed and made from scratch. The frame is made from vintage Mazzuchelli tortoise shell acetate, and the lenses are custom cut plano 6-base CR-39 plastic.

I directed, shot, and edited these three spreads as a part of the online ad campaign for the new Cuppow Regular with Straw-Tek product release. Illustrator Natalya Zahn did some additional edits and sketched some of the graphic elements of the product packaging over the photos.

Joshua and I introduced the second member of the Cuppow family earlier this month, with the birth of Cuppow Regular with Straw-Tek. Cuppow Regular fits on regular mouth canning jars while Cuppow Wide (what we are calling the original Cuppow now) fits only wide mouth canning jars. In an attempt to keep this product different from the Cuppow Wide, we approached the product with a different form in mind. Also, we added a diamond shaped spout opening--which we were jokingly calling “Straw-Tek” during development--to allow for a variety of flexible straw sizes to be retained (from small to the garden hose that McDonalds offers) if you should choose to use a straw instead of just sipping from the spout.

I guess that the whole Straw-Tek naming thing was kind of funny until we trademarked it and put it on the packaging.  It was the perfect name and allowed us to highlight a significant feature of the product which would have otherwise gone unnoticed. A major reason for adding straw compatibility was to appeal to the smoothie and cocktail user base, since regular mouth sized canning jars will thread directly onto the blade base of most household blenders, and also to further separate our two products. Visual separation of the two products was very important to us because, for the most part, the only people who can tell the two sizes of canning jars apart (wide vs regular mouth) are the two of us, and avid canners, however; our market is much less specialized than that and we needed each product to have its own identity.

Prolly Is Not Probably is doing a contest to promote a new category of content on his site devoted to photography (and maybe stories?) depicting cycling as a more spiritual/emotional journey. It's a mature direction for John's blog and we can definitely expect to see a new angle of well-developed content from him.

I sent John down three of these "Prolly Purple" anodized 144#47 chain rings a few weeks ago, and the winner of the contest will get one. Only three were made, only one is getting released to the public. Depending on the rest of your build these could just scream 1990-something, or be super classy.