The second part of our bike build, by Owen Byrne (Donard Bikes). Read Part 1 here.
The Donard vs Victory Chimp bike. It seems like it's taken for ever to get this far. We started talking about it alongside the bikes for Bespoked with the intention that it would be ready for the cross season, but more importantly we wanted to get the specification right, and the build right, we've both been busy with other projects as well, but we're almost there now!
Ryan wanted a bike for long off road rides, some touring and cross racing in the winter, so that meant clearance for big tires, thru-axle and discs, and then we've also added internal cabling.
Dropouts and disc mounts from Bear Frame Supplies.
The rear triangle took a bit of head scratching and measuring out to get the chainset and tyre clearance I needed, and a bit of old school work with a pencil, compass and protractor. We also went for 142mm thru-axle rear hub, so that meant an update to my frame jig and some new tools. And flat mount discs - with dropouts and disc mounts from Bear Frame Supplies. The curvy chainstays took a bit of extra dimpling to get the tire clearance with the help of some new handmade tools! And a bit of trial and error and a lot of tea later I got it all sorted and the frame should take 700cx40mm and 650bx2.2" tires.
Beginning to look like a bike.
We opted for a 44mm headtube to take a tapered 1.5" fork - using a Chris King headset, and a lot of study went in to analysing all of the possible forks on the market to select something with the clearance we needed with mudguard eyelets, thru-axle again and of course disc mounts. We even had a spreadsheet! The final selection is the Kinesis ATR fork which should be a perfect match for the frame.
Stainless internal cable guide tubes before brazing.
All the cables are internally routed, fully guided through the downtube and chainstays in stainless steel tubes. Getting all those tubes in, through and out again in the correct places was a fair bit of work - but well worth it. The downtube has extra bottle mounts underneath, so that tube itself is a work of art before you even think about the rest of the bike.
Exit points after brazing.
We've also got a front mounted seat binder to keep the muck out of the seat tube, mudguard mounts, and an oval top tube for shouldering in cross races so the overall frame should be a really versatile platform ready for gravel rides, off road touring and cyclocross races.
We've also added a laser cut stainless headbadge, silver soldered on to that beefy headtube. (I love this - Ryan).
The result is a really nice frame, I'm a bit jealous! And a lot of new capabilities under my belt, some of which are already going into the next frame. Now, painting...
- Owen Byrne (Donard Bikes)
Read Donard x Victory Chimp Part 1 here.
