Tag: smitty

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Getting a Smitty Ready for the Long Haul

I’ve been working on this Smitty as a candidate for some extended riding and touring for next season as well as a ride that can handle lots of gravel and occasional off-road excursions. Sort of a Monstercross meets Touring bike.

In keeping with the Smitty theme of doing many things as doing them all well, I set this bike up as a more traditional touring-type rig than the more urban-oriented Smitty’s we typically build with an internally geared hub.

For this particular set-up, I went with a Large Smitty frame to stretch the cockpit out a bit because I know I wanted a fairly short stem with some rise to get Woodchipper bars where I wanted them and to get the handling of the bike crisp both on the hoods and in the drops.

The drivetrain is pretty traditional with a sweet, gold RaceFace Dues mountain bike front triple crank and a 12-34 9-speed rear cassette. An Ultegra rear derailleur does the job in the back while the Shimano SLX front derailleur in the short cage version does the trick up front.

Since this was one of the first Smitty prototype frames we had gone with linear pull brakes on the back (current production Smittys have a disc in the rear as well as the front) so an Avid 5.0 V-brake is the choice in the rear while a Shimano disc is on the front.

The Salsa Delgado rims, laced to Shimano XT hubs with DT 2.0/1.8 comp spokes, are shod with Continental 700×42 Cyclocross Plus tires. The Continentals offer good puncture protection and the reflective “Reflex” sidewalls are super when the ride runs late.

For the present I’ve been working on getting the bike as comfortable as possible while doing 25-30 mile rides in preparation for longer jaunts to come. So far, so good. The basic riding position is very close to what I want with only minor tweaking left to do.

Remaining to be done are the addition of fenders plus front and rear racks. I don’t see myself doing fully self-contained touring yet but the versatility of being able to carry a couple of days worth of gear and provisions seems like a good idea plus the bags sure coms in handy around town!

A possible upgrade to STI levers is also a possibility. I really like the bar-end shifters but the wide Woodchipper bars coupled with the way the Woodchippers angle out puts the shifters out in the breeze quite a bit but to date that has not been a problem so we will see what we see!

More on this evolving rig as it happens.

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Tony’s Smitty CDS

We delivered Tony’s Smitty built with the Gates Carbon Drive System a couple of weeks ago and he is already sending in glowing comments!

Tony’s Smitty was built with Paragon’s Sliding Drop to allow us to tension the belt and because Paragon makes the mount with a break at the stay necessary to install the belt.

We used the Shimano Alfine 8-speed IGH along with a 46T front belt wheel. Gearing is great with the Schwalbe Big Apple tries. The bike is just a total blast to ride.

Direct from the Cat’s mouth:

A friend of a friend at MREA just rode the bike and said he had an out of body experience. Freakin hippies!  Lots of questions all day!

and

I had another 10 or so people ride it at MREA today and nothing but amazement was reported. Everything from “Never saw a belt drive before” to “what’s up with this tires …… wait, what the hell is up with that belt!”.  The smile on their face was worth the ride alone.  Just an epic ride, Greg!

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Smitty Built up as a Singlespeed

I built this Smitty up as a 29’er Singlespeed mostly to show the versatility of the Smitty frame but after riding it a couple of times I am going to keep it around for a while! One reason I want to put some miles on it is to test out our eccentric bottom bracket in off road conditions. The EBB has proven to be super for commuter version of  the Smitty and adding off road cred would be great.

Single Speed Schlick Smitty
Schlick Smitty Singlespeed

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Smitty Ride 01-04-10

Smitty on a Winter Day

It was a solid Jens Factor 3 day in Milwaukee today. 20-degrees and 10mph wind. I rode my Smitty and felt pretty good on the 11.5 mile, hour long ride.

My clothing choices worked well. I was warm for the entire ride except for my toes which got a bit cold in the last 10 minutes or so. Today I tried a thin wool sock with a Polarfleece sock over the outside. I think it may just have been that my toes were kinda stuffed into the Columbia Bugaboos. I am going back to a single, thick wool sock for the next ride.

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What is With Those HUGE Tires on the Smitty?

Schlick Smitty w/Schwalbe Big Apples

Those monster tires are called Schwalbe Big Apples and we are using the biggest of the big. 28 x 2.35 rollers. Don’t worry though, through some very smart engineering these tires have low rolling resistance while giving you the advantage of pot-hole sucking action a good city tire needs. They also have great, reflective sidewalls for visibility while riding at night.

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I conquered “The Hill”

Okay, so wasn’t so much that I conquered it, as I made it up without having to use my feet on the pavement!   Who says Iowa has all the hills?  We have one on Mill Rd close to Marcy Rd. that is a constant grade from the very bottom to about 3/4 up the hill.  Greg and I will get some stats tomorrow (and pictures posted).  It was a beautiful upper 50’s and no wind so it was a really nice, challenging ride. I did it on our 1×9 Smitty test rig with a 42×34 low.  Next challenge – a Shark!

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Smittys in Iowa

John and I took a trip to Decorah, IA to meet up with Deke from Oneota River Cycles, LeeAllen, Ron and several other cyclists from Decorah and Rochester, MN to do some bike riding in the hills around Decorah. We both took Smittys. John’s was set up with a 1X 9 drivetrain with a 42-tooth front chainring and a 12-32 rear cassette. My Smitty was set up pretty much like what I’ve been riding around town (coaster brake Shimano Nexus-8) 8) with the exception that I swapped the 2.35 Schwalbe Big Apples for some Kenda 38mm tires.

Smittys in Iowa

Saturday Evening

On Saturday evening we met up with Deke and LeeAllen to run about a 13 mile loop around Decorah on mostly gravel roads. Lest you think Iowa is flat let me tell you that the first hill out of Decorah rises about 350 vertical feet in about a mile and a half. With most of our riding this year in and around relatively flat Milwaukee, this hill taxed us a bit but once on top the road was rolling and a lot of fun. Dropping back into Decorah at the end of the ride was sweet too. John and Deke did one more hill before returning to town while Lee and I headed to T-Bocks for some libation. The Smittys both worked really well!

Check the ride Map here: http://bit.ly/LnkQB

Sunday

On Sunday we had a larger group including a couple of tandems. in fact, John weaseled himself onto the back of Deke’s tandem. I heard Deke muttering mmmm…fresh meat! Was that an ominous sign? I’m not really sure but I was mostly off the back while the tandems tore it up so I’ll assume John had a good time!

Smittys in Iowa

Smittys in Iowa

We took gravel to Bluffton, about a 13 mile trip out, and had a few beers with lunch before heading back via a slightly different route. The ride ended up being about 29 miles or so. One of the roads we took was just beautiful. A “B” road, it is a low-maitenance road that is only open in the summer. Nice double track and enough scenery to mask the fact that this was a good climb out of the valley Bluffton is in.

Somehow we ended up at T-Bock’s again. Imaging that! John experienced his first Erma Burger!

After eating we bid farewell to the Decorah folks and drove to Iowa City to be ready to meet Tom Teesdale, our intrepid frame builder, on Monday AM.

Check the Ride Map here: http://bit.ly/17NunL

Monday

On Monday we meet with Tom Teesdale who is currently building all our frames both in the Schlick Cycles line and the Teesdale Classic line of bikes. In addition we talked about some new projects with the goal of bringing some great bikes to you! More as we know it.

Smittys in Iowa

Smittys return home to the Teesdael shop!

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Smitty Prototype #2

Schlick Cycles Smitty Prototype #2

Like Smitty #1 we started with a hand-built frame from Tom Teesdale. Made with True Temper Verus HT tubes, this frame was painted gloss black to match a sweet Wily 29er fork I have. Since this is a coaster brake bike and no front brake is needed I figured the Wily would provide a great ride since it doesn’t have to be really beefy like the Salsa fork to resist the twisting forces of a front disc brake.

This Smitty uses a Cane Creek S2 Ahead Set, Syncros stem and an old Zoom Brahma bar for the control center. I’m digging the riding position on this bike. Tte stem/bar seem to suit me a bit better than the set up on Smitty#1

I took back my Ritchey saddle from #1 and, like the saddle on that bike, it sits atop a great 27.2 Sasla Shaft™ seatpost.

Again, like #1, a black Sugino crank with a 42-tooth chainring handles the front end of the chain loop while the rear hub, an 8-speed Shimano Nexus hub with a Coaster Brake (Yup, a coaster brake!), handles the rear. A Shimano Micro-shift twist shifter connects us to the hub. The front hub is a Shimano Generator unit to power the headlight.

The rims are Salsa Delgado™ 22.5mm hoops built with Wheelsmith spokes and wearing HUGE Schwalbe Big Apple 2.35 tires. I have a couple of other sets of tires to try but it would take a pretty special set if rubber to replace my Big Apples!

Like Smitty #1, all the parts really work well together and the bike is a blast to ride and, with the refinements to #2, I’ve found my setup!

If you are looking for an All-City, commuter ride the Smitty is a great choice. Let us know how you want yours setup!

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Schlick Cycles Smitty Prototype #1

The first prototype of the Smitty was assembled in about an hour and a half with parts we had close at hand in the shop and, while we had a general plan, the end result exceeded our expectations and left us with a very cool ride and time to get to the Brewer’s Hill Superweek Race!

Schlick Smitty

We started with a hand-built frame from Tom Teesdale, coupled that with a Salsa Fargo fork and added a sweet custom paint job in metallic copper.

We added a Cane Creek S2 Ahead Set, Easton EA70 stem and Titec H-Bar handlebars for the control center.

The Ritchey saddle sits atop a great 27.2 Sasla Shaft™ seatpost.

A black Sugino crank with a 42-tooth chainring handles the front end of the chain loop while the rear hub, an 8-speed Shimano Nexus hub with a Coaster Brake (Yup, a coaster brake!), handles the rear. A Shimano Micro-shift twist shifter connects us to the hub. The front hub is a Shimano Generator unit to power the headlight.

The rims are Salsa Delgado™ 22.5mm hoops built with Wheelsmith spokes and wearing HUGE Schwalbe Big Apple 2.35 tires.

All the parts really work well together and the bike is a blast to ride. If you are looking for an All-City, commuter ride the Smitty is a great choice.