All these bloody framebuilders eh

It’s for 26in front and rear - i am quite small and also a bit retrogrouch. In fact this bike will be my first with disc brakes…

Sounds cool! Any idea what the potential price of one of these batch cycle truck frames would be if it were to happen?

Thanks :)

Yes good question :)

I'll have a think! Need to assess a bit as there's more going on than a usual bike/frame obviously. I'd like to get some parts lasercut to refine the cargo bay.

Well i havent made much framebuilding progress, but its because i have moved to france. We left in late october, it was planned for a while but it all happened very fast, Quit my job and tried to get a bunch of framebuilding done in about 8 days, then packed up the workshop and that was that.
I built my girlfriend a road frame and made a lot of progress on the cycletruck but unfortunately didnt manage to quite get it over the line (Sorry! @DrDave).

It still needs the rear rack making and some braze ons adding. However im very pleased with both frames and i think they'll be very cool. I doubt we will manage to get the road frame built til the spring. I broke my no8 gas lens before welding the road frame, so used a no12 instead. I havent used one in ages and i forget how much shielding you get, all the welds are silver, its looks almost like ti.

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The road frame is internally routed which i havent done much of, but it went well, i was very happy with how it turned out, i made a little reinforcing oval around the insertion point.

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last few shots, sadly i didnt get many of the internal routing.

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I have a very strong desire to continue the framebuilding. At the moment were at my girlfriends mums home in Provence, but were going to head to Annecy in the new year and spend some time there. If we feel the urge to stay there we will, ill find a job and then hopefully rent a garage or something and stick all my tools in it and i can get back to framebuilding.

In the meantime ive been making bags, mainly backpacks so far, i made a running pack as i also like running. It orange so i dont get shot by the people hunting the boar. It took a few iterations to make something thats actually comfortable, but weve done some long runs and its been great. You can draw the shock cord tight to stop the contents from shaking.

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I also made a bigger backpack for hiking and that. Id like to add a waist strap at some point but i havent managed yet.

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Thats all ive done really, i miss the framebuilding and would love to get back to it soon, but itll be a while yet i reckon. Need to get settled somewhere first and a job would be nice. I can earn some money freelance but id rather just get a formal job.

What really stings round here is there is endless amazing off road riding to be done but i did not bring an offroad bike and my GF does not have one. So ive been doing a lot of running where i imagine im riding an mtb

on the topic of mtbs the first thing i want to build is a aggressive xc hardtail, have started to think about geo. Unsure if i want to go to 27.5 or not yet. For sure will go for a bent seat tube and shorter chainstays i think. Im not that informed on mtb geo so any advice is appreciated. looking for style points over up-to-dateness as with everything i build.

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Enjoying the journey, your builds always look spot on. As for an aggressive xc, I would 100% go for 29er, especially on a hardtail. They roll so well with race tyres on and unless your wanting to chuck it around like a jump bike I don’t know what the benefit would be of going smaller.

Absolutely love both those back pack!!

Hope you find that workshop and create more bike, your work is great!

Runners pack looks like a great minimal design!

+1 for 29". I had a chance to ride an Open One+ and I can highly recommend the aggressive geo. Not the most common angles, but so much fun to ride.

Oh wow that running pack is amazing!

Thanks! Ok seems like 29 is a good bet.

Cheers ! @Josh @c.h.e.

Ok great i will stick with 29

Thanks! im always inspired by your work!

The other dilemma i have with the mtb is chainstay length, I see a lot of people saying that short chainstays are best and the shorter the better. At the moment with a straight seat tube slightly offset at the bb 430 is fine for 2.3+ a bit of mud.

I could go down the bent seat tube route and get it down more, however id like to use 853 so bending a seat tube will be challenging, i also don't love the look of bent seat tubes. Or at least i prefer straight.

Is it worth it for the extra 10-15mm of shorter chainstays?

I guess it depends who you're asking. Esker has the new longtail
and Jones has been a proponet for long wheel base for a long time as well.
I prefer the the stable feel of a longer wheelbase myself.

Great work as always Max, the bags look really great. no stress about my cargo bike, fortunately my daughter’s rate of growth has slowed down - and I’m sure it will be worth waiting for!