Nebraska Girl

This has been a busy week getting the Nebraska Girl completed for Joie. I'm very pleased with the results even though this project took a long time - thanks Joie for your patience!

The frame is custom-designed with compact geometry suitable for both training and racing. Raw material is steel and the tubing is a mixture of True Temper S3 and Columbus Spirit. The end result is a light but durable frame weighing in at 3.15lbs. The precursor to this bike is a mountain frame I designed for Joie's husband Isaias, a long-time college friend of mine and bike geek like me. Joie had a chance to ride that bike many times and was sold on the S3 ride quality...as a result this project got started.

The frame was fabricated by Jason Grove at El Camino Fab using Anvil tooling for tube mitering, fixturing, etc. This is close to the 100th frame Jason has built for me and honestly they keep getting better. Jason understands my design style and overall design intent which makes it easy to communicate every last technical detail.

The S3 down tube is bi-axially ovalized which means there is more material at the bottom bracket and head tube to spread the load. This tube provides excellent ride quality and a distinct look unmatched by other tubes.

The frame is powdercoated white by Mass Bros, clear coated with gold pearl, stickered, then clear coated again in pure-clear to protect the stickers. The end result is classy and the gold pearl picks up the sunlight nicely.

Graphics are custom by VC Graphix and include black logos with gold outline to match the gold Nokon cables. The Enve carbon fork is wet painted to match the frame by Flyworks in Soquel,CA. The SRAM Rival drivetrain, Chris King headset, King Cage stainless cages, and Chris King R45 hubs laced to Mavic Open Pro rims with Sapim CX-Ray spokes round out the build.

Rear dropouts are Paragon 'micro-hoods' that mate very nicely to the Columbus Spirit rear triangle tubing. These dropouts feature a replaceable hanger machined from 7075 aluminum. For that added custom touch, I had 'Nebraska Girl laser marked onto Nokon cable housing...subtle and I'm still waiting for Joie to discover this little gold nugget!

Special thanks to Ryan Bontrager for the wheel build and final assembly. Ryan also understands my design intent with these projects and brings everything together in the cleanest way possible. The wheels on this bike were built, tensioned, re-tensioned, and tweaked until they are as perfect as they can be. I ran out of time to weigh the complete bike but my guess is 16.75lbs - respectable for steel and definitely light enough to hammer on!

Movember Projects

Movember will be a busy month for Ahrens Bicycles with the start of (2) new steel road frames and my continued effort for stellar facial hair growth. Movember is changing the face of men's health awareness as they say. My daughters recently told me that I looked like an old-man with the facial hair and that was funny because I felt like an old man when they said that!

The first road frame is for my long-time college friend Scott and the second is for myself of course....it's not too hard for me to find a reason to build a new bike. Both will receive a mixture of Columbus Life tubing, Paragon dropouts, Paragon BB shells and of course custom geometry.

Scott's frame will be built up with Campy Ultra Record 10-speed from a previous project and will be rounded off with handmade DT Swiss/Mavic Open Pro wheels and an Enve carbon fork.

My frame gets an extra-tall Reynolds 853 seat tube for added stiffness plus it looks cool. I plan to swap Dura Ace 7700 parts from my existing road frame with the exception of the cranks...special thanks to Ryan for hooking me up with some brand new Ultegra 34/50T compact cranks...much easier on the knees for this old man.

I'm also developing a very new, ultra-stiff aluminum track frame for NAHBS....very stoked about this project but too early to show anything so stay tuned.

Holiday WiseCracker Pre-Order

I woke up today and realized the holiday season is rapidly approaching. To get into that special holiday spirit, I'm offering limited edition WiseCracker bottle openers with a special message. Drop me an email to pre-order one because they will go fast. Cheers!