Eesu 650b gravelbike (and other bikes...)

Thanks, not gonna show some of the welds that need a bit more filing...

Day five: everything is welded. Seatstays went on reasonably quick, the cable guides were easy. Chased, faced and reamed everything that needed to be chased, faced, and reamed. Tomorow is a long day of filing...

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Awesome!

Those seat stay are my favourite.

Loving the bike, exactly my kind.

Holy clearance batman! You chucked a wheel in there yet to see how it looks?

Day six done, been filing welds for 8 hours and there's still a days worth of filing to be done at home.

Recap: it's a lot of work but totally worth it. Learned a lot, need to learn and practice more. Mitering is good fun, brazing is hard, filing is a bitch. Anyone thinking of doing a course like this; do it, it's worth the time and money.

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Fit's a 42mm with 10mm on each side so like the fork I can go up a tyre size if I want.

Aesthetics question:
On a triple-triangle frame, why not make the seatstays parallel to the downtube?

Very nice! The triple triangle nod to classic randonneurs will look great with discs and carbon fork I think.

Care to share a closeup of the chainstay/bb area?
And maybe what tubing it is? Because I like how those stays look.
I am contemplating building a frame myself, and this is one of the most interesting parts to daydream of.

Aesthetics; i went with different reasoning and made sure the little triangle has two even length sides with the seatstays as the base

Chainstays are Columbus something 29'er stays. Chose them for clearance reasons. Triple triangle nod is too my other bike, a GT Grade. Didn't plan it but we were discussing seatstays and I held one of them in this way to the frame and we both agreed it looked cool.

That does make sense.
To each his/her own I guess ;)

Any updates on this?

Not really, I've been busy with work and life. Did make a tube block because I need to file the welds on the seatcluster, didn't get to it on the last day of building. Also I've been faffing about with bottom brackets and cranksets. A standard double doesn't fit because there's too much room for the rear tyre. Don't want to use a mountainbike crankset because of q-factor so it's double taper for now and trail and error with UN-55 bbs in different lengths.
Plus, my budget could be stretched a bit and I could go for either Di2 or eTap... But electronic shifting and square taper sounds a bit wrong somehow. Or does it?! 🤔

Interesting stuff. Would the wider cranks/q-factor using integrated axle cranks be a worse option than square taper narrower cranks? Why?

Oh, and good job on the frame obviously

I was going back and forth on the the square taper cranks (stc from now on) and then realised both my other bikes have stc and one of them is going strong for 7 years without any maintenance. Never thought I needed to upgrade them to outboard bearing crankset. Still thinking about SRAM mb cranks and AbsoluteBlack narrow wide though.

Your recap said" brazing is hard".
This guy makes it look easy:
https://www.facebook.com/eric.estlund/videos/10206246568503260/

I doubt this was his first time holding that torch though. On a side note; Tom Ritchey is giving a brazing masterclass at the Bicycle Academy in two weeks, mailed them to see if there is a spot availible and looking into traveling to and fro in a day and a half so I'm back at work the next morning. Should be interesting.

What sizes chainring? Smaller chainring = more clearance like a 46/34, 46/30, 44/28, 42/24.

That's Mr Winter Cycles at work,
watched it a few times,
looks like a dance, effortless.
Yours a beautiful frame, thanks for sharing

42t single ring. Trying to locate an elusive SRAM wide axle crank, the distributer confirms they excist and given me order numbers but sofar my local SRAM dealer can't find them.

I know, I follow him on Farcebook 😉. Watching any master craftsman at work is always a joy, they make it look easy.

Anyone got a bed/couch availible in Frome the night of 8 September? Airplane, train and work don't align for doing this masterclass unfortunatly.

If it's a durability/maintainance issue you should steer clear of SRAM gxp bb's, but there are good aftermarket options.
Great thread. Following

Tried a Tiagra Triple crankset but, allthough the arm cleared the chainstays, the chainline was 52mm with a Wolftooth ring. Ordered a Sora double just to check; with the chainring spaced out 3mm this will give 49mm chainline, clears the chain-stays, and has 150mm q-factor. Sora crank with 44t Wolftooth chainring weighs 800g.
Next step: deciding if I'm going for Ultegra or Ultegra Di2...

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