Wednesday, January 23, 2008

OS Bikes Blackbuck Pics



<===Sparkly!

I arrived at work yesterday and took a bit of time to snap off some images of the OS Bikes Blackbuck. Pretty cool that a company decided to go the subtle, classy route instaed of doing the huge "billboard" company graphics

Of course, it'll be hard to escape notice with those arched seat stays!






<===The Blackbuck comes with a quick release seat collar.

The intersection of tubes here is cool. Captain Bob said it reminded him of a GT. I think it is reminiscent of what that triple triangle seat stay weld looked like.

I am swapping over parts from my Inbred to this frame. The 27.2mm seat post worked out as did the nicer quick release seat collar I had on it. Both are Salsa items, by the way.




<===Dainty looking drop outs.

The caliper mount is on the chainstay instead of the seat stay, a unique touch. This keeps the frame looking clean with nothing on the top of the seat stay to break up that graceful arching line. No extra bracing necessary.

Notice the two holes in the drive side drop out? Those are for mounting the pin mount derailluer hangar, which comes with the frame in case you are wanting gears.




<===Split shell EBB here.

The old split shell EBB. I have worked on old tandems that utilized this type of eccentric bottom bracket. No pinch bolts to distort the shell and no fancy wedges requiring special tools or force to bang loose. Simple and effective. We'll see if the creaks come or if there are any other problems after I ride it in dirt and mud.

Of course, I'll be greasing this baby up but good!





<====Big external butt on the lower end of the head tube. Beefy!

So, you may be asking yourself, "where's the fork?" Well, I did get the rigid Blackbuck fork for this too. The really cool thing about the frame is how Mark Slate, the designer of the Blackbuck, designed the bike to be ridden with both a non-suspension corrected fork, with suspension forks, or with rigid suspension corrected forks. The Blackbuck rigid fork is really interesting in that it has a 440mm axle to crown measurement and 51mm offset! Mark sent me pictures of his rig with the rigid fork on it all muddied up. He said it rides quite well in this configuration. The Blackbuck also is available as a complete bike and in this configuration it comes with a Reba. I happen to have a spare Reba, so I'll also test it with that fork.

I will be trying out two other forks on it that I have here. The RST M-29 80mm travel/44mm offset fork and my On One Superlight Carbon fork that is suspension corrected and has 47mm offset. In fact, the On One fork will go on this first so I can dial in my cock pit and get some stems to help fit the Blackbuck properly.

I'll have this together soon and I will post some pics then. Be forewarned though! The Inbred has quite the menagerie of annodized parts which will be seeing duty on the Blackbuck. I can't say it'll be a classy, subtle build! That's what I have though, so that's what I'll use.

In related news, the Badger drop bar bike is nearing total completion, so I'll be posting pics of that very soon. Stay Tuned!

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