Black Mountain Cycles 650b 'road plus' prototype on instagram

[John Potis]

I noticed this on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQbMfGYF9hh/?taken-by=blackmtncycles

Looks to be what should be relatively inexpensive disc/thru axle road/mixed terrain option in 650b. His other framesets are well regarded and run around $600. I am guessing production frames should be available later this year and (I hope) also equally inexpensive.

Potis in SF

[William Lindsay]

Take my money.  Right.  Now.  There is no better bang for the buck than a Black Mountain.  Whatever category Mike Varley decides to get into, he immediately takes the top spot in value in that category.  Buying a Black Mountain is kind of like finding money on the street.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Igor Belopolsky]

Pretty awesome - hashtag says at least a year out so y'all will have to wait

[Michael Mann]

I love my Black Mountain road bike, and Mike V is great to work with. I saw this post and am pretty psyched about this new direction for BMC. And it's always good to be dreaming about the next bike, right? ;-)

Mike M

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Michael Mann

[Igor Belopolsky]

BMC - the frame i was told to get and didnt get and am somewhat kicking myself :)

[Ryan Ray]

I'm building up the canti version now but I'm planning on going to his disc version once I wear out my rims. Not because I like disc brakes or through axels but for the glorious, glorious rim choices.

- Ryan

[William Lindsay]

Ryan

When you say "canti version", does that mean you have a 650B road plus Black Mountain?  Or do you mean his 700C Monster Cross frameset?  I've seen the latter, but never heard of the former.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Ryan Ray]

Oh sorry, forgot I was in 650b :)

Yes I have a new Red 700c Canti version. The Disc version is planned to work with 700c or 650b from what little I've seen.

[William Lindsay]

Haha, OK.  

I similarly forget when I see a 650B disc bike that you could run 700c wheels on it.  Yeah, I guess you could run 700c, but why would you?  ;-P

[Kieran J]

I don't think this 650b "Road+" prototype frame and the next generation of the 700c Monstercross is the same bike. Based on the above Insta photo - the wheel size and tire clearance pictured indicate these are two different bikes.

My canti MC frame can fit 700x60 tires, so not for 650b. I know Mike is planning on the doing discs - and I believe, a segmented fork - for the next round of MC frames. Maybe his plans have changed since last fall.

KJ

[Igor Belopolsky]

Couldn't you make 650b work on the canit frames with some Paul Motolites?

[Michael Mann]

+1 discs and segmented forks :-)

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[Justin Hughes]

Think that one through. 

[Igor Belopolsky]

other than misspelling canti..The motolites have a lot of vertical adjustment..wouldnt those work to convert a 700c canti frame to 650b?

[mitch....@gmail.com]

Like Justin said, that only works if you manage to mount them upside down so the can reach the 584 rims.

--Mitch, and that complicates straddle cable placement

[desmond...@gmail.com]

Other starting a sentence without a capital letter- would Paul touring brakes works instead of moto??

Sent from my iPhone

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[mitch....@gmail.com]

It's just you can't convert a brazed-on canti post bike to a wheel size smaller than, or too close to, the posts (unless you have the posts re-brazed lower on the fork and stays). You can convert one to a larger wheel size by getting brakes with long arms that can reach the larger circumference. Igor's Motolite idea works fine to convert a 584 bike to 622 wheels but can't go the other way. I once had a French tandem built for 27"/630 wheels and wanted to fit 622 wheels instead. The canti posts were brazed so close to the max limit for 630 that I could find no canti that let me down-adjust even to cover just 4mm required to convert to 622. The 19mm down-adjustment required going from 622 to 584 is right out.

--Mitch

[Bill M.]

Yup.  Too few rim brake options out there in 650b, lots in disc.  That will drive me off of my rSogn at some point.  A year out?  Fine by me.

Bill

Stockton, CA

On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 11:48:57 AM UTC-8, Ryan Ray wrote:

[Steve Palincsar]

Just how many rim choices do you actually need?

[Mike Schiller]

something in tubeless bigger than 18 mm ID. There are only two... the HED which is $150 each! and the Velocity Cliffhanger which is really heavy.   With all the larger width 650B tires on the market or coming in the next few months rims like the A23 and Pacenti  are too narrow. I'd love a 21-23 mm ID tubeless rim! 

~mike

Carlsbad Ca

[Rich Mulvey]

Yep, exactly. Especially since I've started doing a lot more winter riding; between the salt and slush, it's eating up my A23 rims as much in a couple of months as a few year's worth of summer riding does.

A large part of the reason I like 650B is that as a 5'5" guy, road frame geometries simply fit me better than 700c bikes.

Since the number of reasonably priced, easily available 650b rim brake rims has declined markedly even in the five years I've had my Pelican, it's a good guess that they're going to be even harder to come by the future.

So I see a disk brake bike being a necessity sooner or later...

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ri...@mulveyfamily.com

[satanas]

The Crest MK3 is i23, and the previous Crest is i21 - something wrong with those?

[Rich Mulvey]

They don't have rim brake tracks.

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 8:30 AM, satanas <nsc.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

The Crest MK3 is i23, and the previous Crest is i21 - something wrong with those?

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ri...@mulveyfamily.com

[Stephen Poole]

Wasn't the new BMC going to have discs?

I agree more rims with brake tracks wouldn't hurt, but don't see the relevance here.

[Rich Mulvey]

The comment I was responding to was in regards to the sub-thread about the minimal number of 650B rims available now with brake tracks; it's hard to tell though because sometimes people aren't quoting. :-)

- Rich

On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 8:51 AM, Stephen Poole <nsc.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wasn't the new BMC going to have discs?

I agree more rims with brake tracks wouldn't hurt, but don't see the relevance here.

--

ri...@mulveyfamily.com

[Stephen Poole]

Okay, fair enough. Sometimes the chains of quotes get really unwieldy though, which is one reason to leave them out sometimes.  :-)

[Justin Hughes]

The Pacenti Brevet is 19mm internal, Mike. It makes little sense to make a rim brake rim wider than 25mm since virtually zero stock frames with canti posts are spaced wide enough for rims any wider. And caliper brakes are going to suffer the same poor modulation. I know it's tough for many of you to come to grips with, but wide rims and disc brakes are the better pairing. Thems the brakes, fellas. 

[William Lindsay]

The HED Belgium Plus is an awesome rim.  I also wish it was $85 instead of $150.  If it was $85 I would stock up on them.  It's got everything a civilized cyclist could possibly want in a rim-brake rim.  I might stock up on them, even at their price.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Ryan Ray]

Exactly what Mike Schiller said.

All the good, light, strong, tubeless, and WIDE rims are disc specific now.

[Ryan Ray]

I don't think this 650b "Road+" prototype frame and the next generation of the 700c Monstercross is the same bike.

I disagree, but I can double check.

I asked publicly here so we can find out: https://www.facebook.com/BlackMountainCycles/photos/a.248355820020.179895.64983405020/10155635888070021/?type=3&comment_id=10155644649725021&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R5%22%7D

- Ryan

 

[William Lindsay]

Ryan Ray said he posted a question on Facebook on whether that particular 650B road plus bike is a purpose built 650B road plus bike or is just a disc and through axle Monstercross bike that happens to have 650B road plus wheels on it.  

I don't Facebook, so I just emailed Mike Varley.  He responded that it is a:  "Completely clean slate frame designed around those wheels."  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[William Lindsay]

Mike also said he and Sean Walling at Soulcraft designed the dropouts together, and that those Walling/Varley dropouts are on the Soulcraft Treehorn and on this Black Mountain prototype.  That's pretty kickass.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Ryan Ray]

"Completely different frame designed around the pictured wheels/tires."

^ Wow. That's pretty exciting.

[Michael Mann]

Also noticing the prototype has Downtube shifter braze-ons, which are unfortunately disappearing on many modern bikes. I Like!

Mike M

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[nash...@gmail.com]

Man, I really like Mike Varley and Black Mountain Cycles.  I have a road and a cross from him.  And I would probably be buying more, but I just have no interest in disc brakes.  Obviously its a good move for him, keeping with the times and whatnot.  But one of the things I really like about his previous frames is the simplicity and ability to build up a great riding bike out of my parts bin.  Still a very cool looking bike and I'm sure it is a killer ride.  

[Jesse Stoddard]

I asked about the tubing spec, but he's not ready to throw any numbers out there. Isn't his monstercross frame 8/5/8 OS?

I think I understand why off-the-peg, modestly priced lightweight steel is a little much to ask, but hey, the Rawland Stag went over pretty well, didn't it?

[Chris Sanford]

And speaking of Rawland... I saw the mythical Ravn and ULV frames at Velo Cult today.  Looked very nice!

Chris - Portland, OR

On Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 7:52 AM, Jesse Stoddard <archaicfa...@gmail.com> wrote:

I asked about the tubing spec, but he's not ready to throw any numbers out there. Isn't his monstercross frame 8/5/8 OS?

I think I understand why off-the-peg, modestly priced lightweight steel is a little much to ask, but hey, the Rawland Stag went over pretty well, didn't it?

--

[Mike Schiller]

yea... his monster-X bikes are heat treated OS 8-5-8 which is a decent spec.  A little too stiff for an unloaded ride for most people but much better than most of the stiff heavy stuff that comes out of Surly/Salsa/Soma IMO.  

Personally the proto bike shown looks klunky to me. The MUSA bikes made by Cam Falconer he sold were much nicer.  

~mike 

Carlsbad Ca

[Mike Schiller]

Hmmm... the Black Mountain frames cross frames fit 50mm wide tires. A 21-23 mm ID rim would work great on Mike Varley's bikes.  Since it's 700C there are rims that in that size.  Not so for 650B.  I like discs as much as anyone else in the right application.  But for tires 2" wide and narrower canti's still work great for most riders.  

~mike

[Stephen Poole]

On 17 Feb 2017 3:42 pm, "'Mike Schiller' via 650b" <65...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> Hmmm... the Black Mountain frames cross frames fit 50mm wide tires. A 21-23 mm ID rim would work great on Mike Varley's bikes.  Since it's 700C there are rims that in that size.  Not so for 650B.  I like discs as much as anyone else in the right application.  But for tires 2" wide and narrower canti's still work great for most riders.

Which is why I'm seriously considering the Belgium+ rims. They're not cheap, but if they allow a comfier (non-disc) fork the extra rim cost is well worth it. I imagine the B+ rims must be somewhere between i19-i21 so should be okay with tyres up to ~60mm, wide enough for my purposes.

[Justin Hughes]

I guess I didn't make my point clear. Cantis do, indeed, work great. But the posts are not spaced far enough apart on any production frame I've seen to be able to achieve good modulation (if they'll work at all) with any cantilever I've used in combo with a rim any wider than 25mm. That effectively limits your internal width to 21mm max and your rim choices are few. I agree that i21 is good (but, wider is better) for a 50mm tire, but you were the one wishing for something wider and I just don't see how that's practical with rim brakes with the current post spacing. 

That's not to say someone can't have an i19 rim with a 2.35" tire and be perfectly happy. But, I've swam in the wide rim water and, personally, want to stay there. 

[Stephen Poole]

Okay, we're getting well away from the original topic here, my apologies.

However, assuming there was a suitable wider rim, there's no reason why one couldn't increase the brake post spacing by using posts with different mitreing. FWIW, I've used cantis with e28-32 Araya rims in the 80s; I'd guess these were i23-i28 or thereabouts. All worked fine and the rims were similar in width to Cliffhangers; AFAIK, that's about the widest at present with brake tracks.

Yes, there can be problems with short reach dual pivot sidepulls accommodating >25mm rims, but not so much with cantis. As an historical note, early Pugsleys came with canti posts and had 65mm rims; there were pix of bikes with cantis on Surly's blog so I assume this worked.

If you're going to be riding at very low pressures offroad all the time, and tubeless too, maybe using the widest rims possible might increase burp resistance(?), but otherwise I'm not convinced that wider is always better. That said, i17 rims and 50+ mm tyres are best avoided IME.

Later,
Stephen (who believes in happy mediums, but does not endorse clairvoyants)

[Steven Frederick]

Remember when the Pugsley had canti-posts?

--

[Steve Chan]

On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 7:59 AM, Stephen Poole <nsc.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

If you're going to be riding at very low pressures offroad all the time, and tubeless too, maybe using the widest rims possible might increase burp resistance(?), but otherwise I'm not convinced that wider is always better. That said, i17 rims and 50+ mm tyres are best avoided IME.

   I've been wondering if there are some guidelines around the maximum rim internal width for a given tire external width. For example, the Velocity Dually is 39mm wide inside the rim - what would happen if you put a BSP in there? I'm assuming that the BSP may plump out to at least match the 45mm width of the rim, but the sidewalls might actually get kind of vertical which is supposed to be a bad thing with mountain bike tires, but with roadie tires/wheels the aero ideal is to have the rim outer width match the tire outer width. So I'm a little confused by this.

[Stephen Poole]

Most of the recommended rim width charts are well out of date. The only one I've seen that acknowledges the existence of rims > i29mm is from DT Swiss:

https://www.dtswiss.com/Resources/Support/RIMS/Tire-Pressure-Dimension20150114.pdf

Other than that there's plenty of discussion/argument/controversy.  :-)

[William Lindsay]

Although it's not germane to the Original Post of this thread, different folks were commenting about the relative availability of wide 650B rims for rim-brake applications.  This is just an FYI, I guess.  Rivendell is releasing a smallish batch of 650B tandem bikes (about 50 of them).  Most of the bikes were pre-sold, and the frames haven't arrived yet, but Rivendell got most of the wheels ready, and this week have asked their customers to take delivery of the wheels to clear out some space.  I picked my wheelset up today.  It's a silver, double walled, eyeleted, machined sidewall rim by Alex, and it measures a full 30mm outside width, and 25mm inside width.  The inside surface of the rim has a deep channel down the middle with shelves on the sides, LIKE tubeless rims I've used.  They are quite heavy, as you might expect for a tandem application.  The front wheel has 36 spokes and the rear has 40. 

So it's not likely this group would go out and try to buy up 30mm wide Alex rims, but I thought it might be useful to know that new rim-brake rims 30mm wide in the 650B diameter do exist.  

Bill Lindsay

El Cerrito, CA

[Mike Schiller]

The Velocity Cliffhanger is the same size and is tubeless compatible.   Unfortunately that rim and most likely the Alex rims are just as heavy ( if Rivendell is using it for a tandem)..  

~mike

Carlsbad Ca

[Justin August]

Has anyone converted a BMC road to 650b x42/48?

Asking for a friend.

-Justin

[Ken Mattina]

http://blackmtncycles.com/project-progress-lets-talk-road-plus/

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[Michael Mann]

Been following this since first pictures came out . I like. A lot.

Mike

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[Parkaboy]

So what's it gonna take to get him to put nitto rack mounts on this sumbich eh?

On Tuesday, February 14, 2017 at 9:05:40 AM UTC-8, John Potis wrote:

I noticed this on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BQbMfGYF9hh/?taken-by=blackmtncycles

Looks to be what should be relatively inexpensive disc/thru axle road/mixed terrain option in 650b. His other framesets are well regarded and run around $600. I am guessing production frames should be available later this year and (I hope) also equally inexpensive.

Potis in SF

[Jesse]

Per Mike's blog entry:

 

 The red fork has an offset of 60mm that results in a trail of about 48mm.  The black fork has an offset of 50mm that gives a trail of about 58mm.  A trail of high 50s is what is found on my standard road bike.  On paper, trail dimensions between 48 and 58 are pretty big differences.  But the reality is that, after riding a fork with 60mm offset for a few months and then riding one with 50mm or offset, I really can’t say that I LOVE one over the other.  Sure there are subtle differences, but those differences are overcome after the first 5 minutes of riding and it’s just another bike.  I suppose if I had two identical bikes built, one with the 60mm fork and one with the 50mm fork, and I was able to ride them back to back without any time lost between riding, I would notice a difference more than subtle.  But, I have to choose one for the final design and maybe I’ll do a 55mm offset to split the difference. 

Does "splitting the difference" seem a little questionable? Maybe a better solution would be to offer two different fork options yielding either ~40mm trail or ~60, but I can also see how that might end up being a logistical hassle. I remember when Kogswell was offering three different forks for the P/Rs or whichever frame it was, but can't recall whether it went off without a hitch or not.