13 March, 2007

Ahren's City Bike


As you probably know Ahren Rogers is building the VO city bikes and racks. Frame #1 is finished and waiting for paint. Ahren brought two bikes to the handbuilt show. One of them was a mountain bike and the first bike he built under his own brand, Banjo Bikes; he previously built for "Seven". The other was a nice fillet brazed city bike built for a local client. It featured 531 frame and fork with a very pretty double plate crown. The gearing is a SA 5-speed internal hub. The bike is really nicely built with smooth fillets and great workmanship. Please excuse the terrible photos; I had a bit of camera trouble.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alex Wetmore from the RBW e-forum has some better shots of the Ahern here:

http://alexandchristine.smugmug.com/keyword/nahbs#133876144

I think it is a very well executed first effort. Good proportions. Nice, clean lines. Nice front rack. I would have gone with Nitto North Stars over the Mustache bars for a city bike. But that is more aesthetics than anything.

Ahren is a good talent developing. I really love the quality of my constructeur rack,

Dad said...

Nice bike, but gosh, the wiring for that headlight sure is half-baked. A beautiful rack like that should be internally wired for sure.

Which brings up the question: are there any modern headlights that can be mounted directly on the end of the rack's headlight stalk, like one of those old Soubitez "golf ball" lights? I would opt for one of those Soubitez units, but I think the current from a modern dynohub will fry the bulb without some sort of regulator, which the modern headlights all have. Frying the bulb at high speed in the pitch black might not be so cool.