One of the thing that sets Trek apart from the competition is that we don’t just fly the flag on our frames with “Designed in America” stickers. Since we first opened our doors in 1976, Trek has been committed to both designing and building bikes in America. Owing to Trek’s in-house production capabilities, when special projects arise we like to jump on them.
Take a custom road bike for Dallas Mavericks basketball star Shawn Bradley. Standing at 7’6” tall, we knew that when the word came that he was looking for a road bike, it wouldn’t be a standard off-the-floor version. As with so many other custom frame projects, this job once again fell in the lap of frame engineer Mark Andrews. Mark knew it wouldn’t be easy, but whether it’s building a carbon SPA bike for George Hincapie to race at Paris-Rouibaix, or Travis Brown’s one-off Big Pink singlespeed, Mark is always up for a challenge.
“One of the advantages of Trek making so many frames here is the availability of so many different types of tubes we have from all of our models. I wanted to make it a very conventional looking frame (eliminate the need for a laticework of tubes to make the frame strong and stiff). Here’s a breakdown of all the different tubes I used to build the bike:
Head tube: Section of VRX downtube material. Capped off with 1-1/8 head tube inserts and welding into a one piece headtube
Down tube: Section of VRX downtube material.
Seat Tube: Downtube from an Fuel EX. Capped with a seattube insert to accept a 31.6mm seatpost
Top Tube: Downtube from the Fuel EX
Chainstays:Trek tandem seatstays
Seatstays: Trek ATB seatstays
Dropouts: Trek tandem dropouts
Fork: Trek Pilot fork with extended steerer
Other features: Shimano Dura Ace drivetrain (180mm cranks, 12-27cassette), Dura Ace STI w/ long reach brakes, Bontrager carbon seatpost (31.6mm), Bontrager carbon stem w/Bontrager aluminum VR 46cm handlebar, Discovery Team training wheels (32hole DT hubs, RXL aluminum clincher rims) Bontrager ACX tires, Bontrager saddle and carbon cages. Project One “Planets” paint scheme with the words “SEVEN SIX” on the top tube. Bike weight: 24lbs.
normāli?
te vidējais aritmētikais amerikānis pie tā velosipēda…
te pats laimīgais īpašnieks :)