It's an Orange Furry Blue

Here's the bike back from the powdercoater, it's not assembled I just put on some pieces to visualize, hopefully next week it'll be ready for a test ride.

Happy Holidays and a good New Year to everyone!

atomic orange

It's been a long time since my last post, but slowly things have been going on.

The next Furry Blue frame has been built and it's now being powder coated. I'll talk more about the frame in another post, here I'll mostly talk color. I've been somewhat obsessed with copper/orangish type colors for some time, and this past summer there was a Corvette show in downtown Los Altos. I saw a beautiful Corvette that was "atomic orange"and decided I wanted that color, or something close to it, for my next bike - see picture.

It took some effort to find a powder coat color that is close - I got samples for a bunch of standard RAL colors from Tiger and nothing was a match. So I bought touch up paint from a Chevy dealer, applied the paint to some paper and sent it off to Prismatic. The best match was a two step process consisting of a basecoat and a tinted overcoat. I think it'll look good, we'll see.

Meanwhile, here's the raw frame - surprise, it's not a mixte, it's a versatile road bike designed for the Grand Bois 650B X 32 tires and I'll be trying out the Mary On-One handlebars too:

Mixte versus hybrid step through

My wife has a Bianchi hybrid in a step through ("ladies") style frame. This past Sunday she finally had a chance to try the Furry Blue mixte.

I was curious to see what her reaction would be. She enjoys riding her bike, but she's not really "in" to bikes. Well, this past Sunday she went for her first ride, and she was all smiles.

She liked the Furry Blue mixte better than her Bianchi hybrid step through, no question. Even though the hybrid is made from a lighter aluminum frame, and the parts on the Furry Blue aren't especially light, she said the Furry Blue felt sportier - lighter and quicker. She also noticed that the Furry Blue felt lower to the ground, and she felt less "on top of the bike" and that it felt safer and more stable and she liked that feeling.

Her reaction is what I hoped for. The Furry Blue mixte is somewhat like a hybrid bike in the use of canti or v-brakes and ability to take wider tires. However it differs from most hybrids since it has a steeper head tube angle which means quicker steering and shorter distance from the cranks to the front wheel. Also, as she easily noticed, the bike as a whole is built lower to the ground because the place where the cranks attach to the frame is set lower.

Why a mixte?

I haven't blogged for a while. I've been thinking about the next steps for Furry Blue. The mixte bikes are a success in my mind as far as how they look and ride. The one issue has been the rear brakes: I planned on canti brakes and found my leg was brushing against the brake arms so we switched to "v-brakes."

I had the smaller mixte at Menlo Velo for over a month, and the larger size for a couple of weeks, and I think less than 5 people took a test ride. I'm not getting a sense of a strong local demand for a handmade mixte; another possible conclusion is that Menlo Velo's customers aren't the right bunch to be interested in such a bike.

I didn't conceive of Furry Blue as strictly a maker of mixte bikes, so let me review how/why our first bike was a mixte. I have problems from time to time with wrist pain, so the mixte story starts with my search for the perfect handlebars.

I put the Albatross bars on my road bike and overall liked them, but the position was a bit too upright for me without switching stems and so I started thinking about a custom frame that might have a slightly longer top tube so I wouldn't need a really long stem.

Also somewhat relatedly, because of the position I like (semi-upright), and my proportions/height, I am kind of on the border for a properly designed 700C frame for drop bars. I like to be positioned a bit behind the pedals and with my desired reach to the bars a "normal" road bike will have more toe overlap than I like. Having a custom frame with a slightly longer top tube for the swept bars yet enough standover clearance for me seemed like the way to go.

Another idea I had was to explore commissioning a small run of hand made "versatile road bikes" (not a hybrid, not a touring bike, but able to take on medium width tires say 25 - 35 mm) because I felt the bike makers weren't making what I wanted. When I met with my favorite local bikeshop, the owner said he would like to see someone make a nice road mixte.

So, the idea of a bike designed for swept back bars and with a little extra standover clearance got merged with the local bikeshop's idea for a mixte.

Essentially the same bike could also be made as a non-mixte - perhaps a compact style frame, they are simpler to manufacture and might appeal to more people.

Duck Tolling in Los Altos Hills

Size medium prototype is built up and came home with me on Saturday. Such a nice looking bike. Here's a small shot, and I've added some other pictures to the google group at http://groups.google.com/group/furrybluecycles.

I went for a nice ride today in Los Altos Hills, and just past Poor Claire's Monastery I met a friendly woman with a really nice dog, he's a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, and if that interests you check out the page of his breeder at tollerzone.com.

I'll discuss my ride report and thoughts on the design of the mixte in another post.

Mini v-brake

It's been a little slow going since the bike shops have hit their busy season. In testing the medium small prototype, I discovered that occasionally my heel or leg was brushing against the rear cantilever brake arms. We have solved that problem with a mini v-brake for the rear. Size medium prototype is being built up and I hope to test ride it this weekend.

Another picture of size medium

I think this photo shows the color better, the frame really looks good.

Albatross bars with brake levers on the curve

This is a photo of the larger (56 cm) Albatross bar. I haven't seen anyone else set it up this way - I'm using downtube shifters and have the brake levers on the curve. I plan to use these bars on the medium size Mixte prototype with the addition of little bar ends and also the grip shifters.

And now for something completely different

This might just be the world's cutest puppy ... this week we are delighted to welcome Ben to our family!

Don't I look purdy?

Size medium is back from the powdercoater, a little faster than I was expecting, can't wait to get it built up and test ride it!

Off to the powdercoater!

Size medium prototype arrived yesterday. The frame looks fantastic, the workmanship is just beautiful. Because the seat tube is thin-walled where the top tube and mixte stays join, I asked for a reinforcing sleeve to be brazed over the seat tube and then the top tube and mixte stays attached to the sleeve - it looks really classy.

This frame has a more masculine look than the smaller frame - the tubes are slightly larger in diameter (but thinner wall) so it's both slightly lighter as well as beefier in appearance. Since this is a Furry Blue bike, I was planning to have it powdercoated a dark blue, something like RAL 5002 - ultramarine blue. It's hard to judge color, and there are limited stock color choices (of course, if I custom order, then there are lots and lots of powders). Anyway, I chickened out on the blue - the 5002 sample just didn't look right, and they had a "Satin Titanium" (Prismatic Powder 1860) that caught my eye, it's got just a hit of champagne gold so it's not quite silver.

I hope it will look nice.

First Ride

Friday afternoon Menlo Velo called me and said something like, "One mixte, ready to ride." The owner told me he had taken it for a short test ride and concluded, "it feels like a fast bike" and "it rides nicely" and "when you ping the tubes, it has a nice sound."

I'm really pleased with the overall appearance of the mixte - it is well proportioned, the powder coat has a nice gloss to it, looks better in person than in the photographs. By the way, if you click on the picture a larger version is displayed.

I showed the mixte to my neighbor who said something like, "looks like my old Trek, but nicer." The top and down tubes are "new old" tubes - they're the old standard diameter tubes which are small by modern standards, they give the bike a more graceful look I think. The tires are fairly "fat" 28C and there is plenty of clearance for larger tires, please check the Google group (http://groups.google.com/group/furrybluecycles) for additional photos. Before I commission a production run I'll try fatter tires and fenders to make sure all the clearances are as promised.

Anyway, Saturday I put a Brooks B17 on it and fiddled around a bit with the position of the bar ends, and went for a nice ride into Los Altos Hills. I'll want to experiment more with the handlebars and so on (I usually ride wider Albatross), but it's a great riding bike.

I also wanted my wife (she's about 5' 4") to test ride the bike, but she sprained her foot Saturday afternoon and so I'll have to wait a bit to get a woman's perspective.

Who wants a mixte?

So far, the interest I'm getting in the mixte is from men who want one for their wives or girlfriends, and further several inquiries are asking me about small sizes to fit someone < 5' in height.

I didn't conceive of the mixte as strictly a "woman's bike," and I have some male friends who like the idea of riding a mixte, maybe we're a minority.

If you would consider buying a USA handmade production mixte, please leave comments or send me an email at furrybluecycles@gmail.com to let me know:

1) Your height
2) Your sex
3) Approximate weight
4) Preferred tire size (diameter, width)
5) Handlebar preference: swept back or drop or other
6) Anything else you want to add

Thanks!

Michael

Painted and ready for parts

The size medium-small prototype is now painted (well, powder coated actually). Please see the discussion group (http://groups.google.com/group/furrybluecycles) for more photos.

So, the next step is to have it built up and then I'll arrange to have more photos taken and I'll start the test rides. Because I imagine the medium-small might fit more women, the prototype is painted a perhaps more feminine shade of blue.

The size medium prototype is being completed now, and it is about a month behind the size medium-small. The size medium prototype will be a little different than the size medium-small prototype. Whereas the medium-small uses standard diameter tubing and a threaded headset, the size medium prototype uses slightly oversize diameter, thin-walled tubing, a threadless headset, and a custom fork.

Tentatively, I'm considering offering a production run like the medium-small, and then perhaps semi-custom like size medium.

Mixte prototype, Size Medium-Small

News:

The first mixte prototype should be on its way to me soon. The mixte prototype is a 700C bicycle intended for riders about 5' 2" -
5' 5" - I think of it as size "medium small." I would classify this mixte bicycle as in-between a modern "hybrid" bicycle and a "racy" road bicycle.

The combination of road bike tubing, a lightweight fork, and details in the frame geometry of the mixte should make it a better handling, more responsive bicycle for road riding than most hybrids. Unlike most road bicycles, though, it has cantilever brakes and is designed to accommodate 700C tires in the range from about 25 mm - 35 mm width. The mixte frame is also designed to be used with swept back handlebars, and so the distance from the seat to the handlebars is slightly longer than on a road bicycle intended for drop handlebars.

After I have had a chance to test ride the bike, it will be on available at a local bicycle shop near Stanford campus for viewing and test rides.

Origins

Furry Blue Cycles is a little company (at this point, it's just me) that brings to market high quality steel bicycles for recreation and fitness. By bicycle I really mean a bicycle frame and fork. And by "bring to market" I mean that I don't actually fabricate the bikes myself.

A little history...For my 11th birthday, my aunt and uncle bought me Eugene Sloane's "The Complete Book of Cycling." I probably memorized portions of it since I read it so many times. Convinced then of the importance of "10 speed handlebars" I modified my Schwinn 3 speed Speedster with drop bars. A few years later I had saved up enough money to buy my dream bicycle - a lugged British Falcon (10 speed) made with Reynolds 531 steel tubing from Proteus Designs in College Park, MD.

When many years later (20 or so) my beloved Falcon got damaged in a crash, I found the newer mass market bikes didn't appeal to me. Around that time, I discovered Richard Schwinn's Waterford Bicycles and Richard replied to my letter about "all rounder" bicycles with a note about the bicycles he was making for Rivendell Bicycle Works.

Since that letter to Richard Schwinn some years ago, I have followed the evolution of various small bicycle companies. And as I have thought about the kind of bicycle I like to ride and might like to buy, I have sometimes wondered, "why don't they make this, and why don't they make that," and so on.

I realized that a bicycle company can't be all things to all people, and that if I really wanted to see certain bikes made, and if it seemed these bikes would have enough general appeal, I could make it happen.

About the name - my son is an aspiring puppeteer, and in thinking about a name for this company, I suggested "Puppet Bicycles," since it is the rider that controls the bicycle. My son didn't like that name, and we came up with "Furry Blue" since his favorite puppet is a blue furry thing with more than a little resemblance to the cookie monster. The name Furry Blue is also something of a play on words - a company that makes steel bicycles painted blue could be "ferrous blue cycles."

A question that I asked myself as I thought about starting this company is, how will Furry Blue's bicycles be different? If they are not different, why bother? So, I don't intend Furry Blue to be a "me-too" company and try and make bicycles that you can already get elsewhere.

A little philosophy - in most things in life I tend to take a "middle ground" view of things, and at Furry Blue that means we will strike a somewhat different balance among the variables that make one bicycle company and model a little different from another. To my nephews and kids who grew up in the age of high tech mountain bikes, our bicycles may seem old fashioned: no suspension, no carbon fiber, and details that require hand craftsmanship and an appearance that may evoke the image of bicycles from the 1980s and earlier. Connoisseurs of classic hand-made bicycles may view our bicycles as too modern - our bicycles use modern standards and dimensions, are designed to work with modern parts, and are fabricated with modern steels and techniques.

Cheers and welcome,

Michael