earleb profile

The opposite of an all carbon build, as much ti as you can possibly get. 

Who will make you some custom ti rims????

That is a good looking bike. Certainly doesn't fit that "Looks like a Trek" thing that is going on with many bikes these days.

Here's another to consider for some min-maxing. Patagonia Cloud Ridge at $299 cad. It's the most breathable fully waterproof shell I've owned. I have not owned a Neoshell so can't compare the two. It's no budget jacket, but Patagonia saves on the material not having it "branded" and paying a licensing fee as they would if it was Gore/Neo. Hood is cut to fit over a climbing helmet and it fits good over a bike helmet. A mild eco upside in it's production and fabrics compared to the alternatives.

I think the media can do a better job of pointing out the good budget bikes. See Andrews fine articles on the subject. 

I also think some manufactures shoot themselves in the foot chasing new concepts/designs when there are very good proven designs that are passed over or forgotten. All that effort just chasing "new" costs money that needs to be recovered, lower expenditure means they can sell at a lower price. 

The typical shop bro doesn't help the situation much either. Someone walks into a shop and get's the impression that the sport can only be done on 6-7k super bikes.

Want to design bikes? 

http://www.bikechecker.com/

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview

https://www.velocipedesalon.com/forum/f55/

http://forums.mtbr.com/frame-building/

The two forums linked above hold pretty much every nugget of info you'd need to reverse engineer any bike, you'll have to do a lot of reading figure out how to sift the bs form the good info and what posters to watch for, but it's all in there. 

So no you don't need to be an engineer.

Who makes those grips that you can rotate to change the angles? Those would be a match to these bars to fine tune set-up.

Really looking forward to seeing this.

I am pretty sure Jeff's truck is a 7th Gen Ford F-Series making it something between 1980 and 1986 and not a 6th Gen 1978.

Andrew I just kept a nickle sized chunk of tube on it. The Conti ones have a good amount of rubber at the base.

30 usd for valve stems????? That is just wrong. 

Cut the perfectly good valve stem out of a high quality Continental tube ( $8.50 from MEC) and you have your Shcrader fully threaded valve stem.

https://www.mec.ca/en/product/4005-357/26-x-1-75-2-5-Schrader-Tube

I've used both Presta and Shrader valves cut from tubes to seal up and hold tubeless just fine. I've been back running tubes the last couple seasons but I'll be drilling out my next wheels to run the ghetto Conti Shrader valves as tubeless valves. 

The one downside to running shrader these days it everyone is running presta so if you need to borrow a tube the fit isn't idea, and if you carry shrader it's not going to fit into your buddies presta drilled rim when he gets his 3rd flat and needs to steal your tube.