doug1e's bikes + a Flying Fish

Some small updates on a Flying Fish build with Sam @Fishfabs

He is an incredibly talented metal worker with a huge wealth of bike knowledge. We’ve been talking about building something probably since Grinduro two years ago, when Sam made, exhibited and rode his own MTB prototype.


My Kona currently serves as my commuter, bikepacker, gravel bike and road bike. It fits me really well and its nice to have a utilitarian bike that I'm not overly precious about. But it also means I’m constantly having to adjust the fit and change tyres and parts. After much back and forth with Sam I decided on a clean, disc, road bike.

I drew up a frame on fusion360 using the Kona geo and overlaid a copy, so I could make marginal tweaks (a bit steeper/aggressive/responsive and a more horizontal top tube) without straying too far from my current setup.



I toyed with the idea of electronic shifting, compared weights and prices, looked into buying discontinued parts. I got majorly side tracked fussing over the aesthetics and sizes of hydro, electronic and mechanical shifters. Ultimately I decided not to go electronic, mainly because of what cycling and building and maintaining bikes means to me.

A few months ago 

I spent the day in Sam’s workshop in Norfolk, weighing, measuring and choosing tubing under Sams advice and he got the frame started. We went for mainly Columbus Life with a tasty externally butted seat tube. Other features including tapered headtube/integrated headset, integrated seatclamp, paragon machine works dropouts, fillet brazed, Carbonda road fork (think its based on a Columbus slx) and 32mm tyre clearance.

There’s quite a way to go but its a very nice project to have percolating away.

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