This full dress touring machine in tinted grey powder was built, finished, assembled, and a week later after a few shakedown rides, packed up for several months of European touring. Godspeed. This is an elegant, big, and sturdy machine. Low trail front end, Pass+Stow front rack, great mix of old school and new school bits and pieces, Phil Wood laced to Mavic A719 rims round it off. Photography by Geoffrey Colburn. Full gallery here.
Size adjustable kids scoot machine. Kicking ass and taking names. 3 stem extensions, 2 wheel sizes, 1 long seat post. 2 -5. Photography by Geoffrey Colburn. Full gallery here.
So. I’ll be teaching again this summer at CCA – a session of summer framebuilding. It’s a hot ticket, so don’t sleep.
Zoom.
Some days.
I hate driving through the city sometimes.
Teaser shots. A bicycle is love.
Legit photoset in the works.
Check out the fresh images up on the main site – Geoffrey’s CX racer and Michael’s Street Tracker.
Some special ass bikes.
A real post to come in the near future. Things are busy and in full swing over at Raphael Cycles HQ.
Alright. Works in progress. Geoff’s team issue Chica Sexy CX race machine saw it’s first race this weekend. Michael’s Street Tracker took to the roads Friday afternoon. Picture sets coming up. Right now, I’m working on a very special machine – a bike for my Dad. He rides regularly all year round in Brooklyn, and though I’m pretty swamped with work right now, he’s coming out to visit SF in early November, and we all thought that it would be rad for him to have a new machine waiting for him on this side, to ride and enjoy for a few days on all the amazing rides that SF and the Bay Area has to offer. UOS PegoRichie Columbus tubeset, ENVE 1.0 fork. I’m doing some carving that I don’t usually do on the seat tube cluster, a little extra bling.
Things have really been moving along a hell of a lot lately. CX machines in season. Orders coming in. Bicycles getting built. I don’t have a “team” here at the one man show that is Raphael Cycles, but it would be great to give a shout to Geoffrey Colburn. Chica Sexy racer, pro wrench at Box Dog Bikes here in SF, photographer, and good friend has been shooting my bikes, building some wheels, lending a hand, and being a really rad supportive friend. So yea, ups. He has a glamorama new CX machine that hopefully we’ll see the shots of in a few days. Other bits and pieces. Learning to TIG weld. Going really well. I’d like to incorporate this into the frames – making it an option for race machines only, work a little faster and get some team machines out the door. TIG is quite the beautiful process, and I’m in love a little bit all over again. The fillet brazing is taking to new heights as well (classic folks I’ll never leave you) and the work is consistently and constantly getting cleaner, better, and straighter. It’s rad to see real process ad progress in one’s own work – hard won through love and sweat and frustration, but won. I’ll also be teaching a desig studio at CCA this spring, which is going to be a heck of a lot of work, but I’m really really excited to be in the classroom, teaching college level design classes. It’s been an aspiration for a long time, in some ways, and I think that the integration with my career as a frame builder will overlap well with having a more socializing and sharing medium (of teaching) to accompany it. I’m sure there’s more, but it’s time to get back to getting my hands dirty.
Photography by the ever rad Geoffrey Colburn.
This is also a particularly lovely image Geoffrey shot in my studio.
Busy as heck. Some explaining and more words sometime in the near.
Man. Keeping all my media bits updated is rough. Neglecting this one hardcore. Track bike – before the finish, raw. Daily rider for my buddy MTG. 49mm aero DT of note. Um, let’s just cut to pictures. This is alomost done. Some final sanding and polishing to do. And then the finish, which I believe is going to be somewhat out there, and totally rad.
Stay tuned on this one.
Back from vacation. New York was great. Seeing my fam was great. But it was hot – hella hot and humid. Rode a whole bunch, met up with Seth Rosko of Rosko Cycle Company to talk shop and eat lunch, great and super nice shop visit, super clean machines. I kind of now covet a raw BMX. Anyways. Rode more. Even though I’m from Brooklyn, it always blows me away with its size and energy every time I go back. Back and forth over bridges, though infinite neighborhoods, a thousand ways to find your way and a thousand ways to get lost. Just a rad place.
But.
Back into crank mode. Happy to be home. I do love SF.
“full length trailer” of the racer prototype. I’m open to orders for carbon seat tubes, and I’m working on some further hybrids of steel and carbon. Working on Mike’s frame, with Cathy’s allrounder, Michael’s track, and Robert’s allrounder on the horizon. Also Velo Genesis on August 19th up in Sonoma – a bike show and swap, and a few of us builders up there working on a frame together to be made in 1 day and raffled off! Pretty rad.
Anyways, lots of work to come, new ideas always percolating, new things always happening. Keep in touch.
