Building bikes – Myth Cycles

February 19, 2019

Chimera, L, Desert Sand

We are having an epic winter here in Durango, so I was excited to build this Chimera fat bike for my friend Brendan.

The build went great. Any details about geometry can be found at the Chimera page, but the build kit on this bike turned out really awesome. He spent money where it counted, and saved money where he could. The wheels are the awesome DT Swiss Big Rides, saving a ton of weight where you notice it most. Mated up with the Surly Bud and Lou combo, which is incredible in the snow. We went with Race Face Turbine cranks which allowed us to flip the Cinch chainring and run a narrower q-factor crank on a 197mm rear end fat bike; the best of both worlds. Then keeping it simple with Shimano Deore brakes and an 11-speed SRAM GX drivetrain really pulled it all together. Not pictured here are the ENVE carbon bars he got to help keep his hands warmer, but they didn’t come in in time for these pictures.

I was able to get this built up in time for the annual fat bike race in Silverton, the Silverton Whiteout. It’s a great route, and with on-course coffee bar, bee-bee gun range, and bacon station, it’s my favorite race of the year. The unbelievable amount of snow we’re getting this year doesn’t hurt either.

One slight difference with this Chimera over past builds is that it features Fender mounts. I believe I’ll be including this with all future Chimera builds, as it’s an incredibly useful thing to have if there is any amount of water, sand or other fluids getting on your tires.

February 19, 2019

Custom Rear Rack

Recently a client reached out to me and asked if I build custom racks. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a VERY long time, longer than custom bikes, actually. I built my first rack in Ron Andrews’ shop almost 7 years ago, and built a few more over the years just for fun. Needless to say, I was definitely keen on this project.

This client wanted a rack that was for bikepacking, with some specific design criteria. He wanted the crosspieces of the top platform to be curved down so that a stuff sack would sit in the top and move around less. He also wanted it to fit his bike specifically, and also to have triple bottle boss mounts on the vertical members. I took all his design considerations and this is what I made.

February 5, 2019

Full Custom Titanium Hardtail

It was bound to happen eventually; I built a titanium frame.

I came into framebuilding with about 6 years of professional welding experience behind me, and this is a fact I’ve always been proud of. Back when I went to trade school, I learned TIG welding with the intention to build bike frames. After getting a job, I sort of forgot about my ambitions to be a framebuilder and began learning the art of metalcraft. During this time, I welded quite a bit of titanium, and so learned the ins and outs of titanium as a material to work with. This gave me a really good basis of knowledge for delving into titanium framebuilding. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a very new project, but I felt prepared for taking on this build.

This frame is a full custom build for my friend Sam. Sam bought a Wyvern from me last year and has been riding the piss out of it, and even won a race on it! This bike is made to measure for his sizing, and we changed up to geometry to handle exactly like he wanted it. It’s got a 67 head angle, 63.5 seat angle, 416 chainstays (effective) and a bit longer reach than his Wyvern. All geo while sagged with his 120 travel Fox 34 Step Cast fork. It’s got Paragon Sliding dropouts, S-bent stays, and a plated chainstay yoke with tire clearance for 2.6, and chainring clearance for a whopping 38t chainring.

Sam is the first Myth Cycles sponsored rider, and I’m really excited to have him ripping around on the first Myth Ti bike. I’m stoked to see what trouble he gets himself into with this thing, and also excited for the possibility of more ti bikes in the future.

January 26, 2019

New Powder Coat colors for 2019

I’m excited to announce three new powder coat color options are being added to the Myth lineup. These colors fill some gaps in our color offerings, and are all really gorgeous colors we’re excited to see on some bikes. They are all medium gloss colors with about a 60% gloss level, so they’re a slight departure from many of our high-gloss offerings. They are also a bit closer to earth tones, which many of our customers have showed interest in.

I have swatch images of the three new colors. We’re calling them Desert Sand, Earthy Red, and Sea Water Teal. These colors are available to spec on your Myth Frame immediately!

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I also have pictures of the latest bike we did in Desert Sand. Image Credit goes to Michael Melo for the awesome photo:

January 23, 2019

Full Custom hardtail, 27.5+/29

I recently finished this build of a full custom hardtail frame, and it was a really awesome build. Michael contacted me and showed me what he had in mind, and I immediately hoped he’d go through with this build. He decided to, and we entered into the build process. Some clients pay very little attention to geometry, and instead describe to me how they want the bike to handle, or the kind of stuff they ride, and I decide on the final geometry. Other customers, like Michael, have a very good grasp of geometry and have a pretty solid idea of what they want going into it. I like working with both types of clients, and it was enjoyable to discuss frame geometry at length with someone who thinks about it as much as I do (maybe more). We discussed quite a few points and went back and forth on a couple frame designs, but by the time we’d finalized the drawing, I think we really came up with an awesome design. Something I would definitely build for myself. This is the direction mountain bikes are going, and it was fun to build something so modern.

The build went very smoothly, and I got to use my signature loopstay yoke, as well as coned stays, both of which I love. We also settled on a powder coat color that I will be adding to the lineup this year. It may be one of my new favorite colors.

Michael also decided to get a Bedrock frame bag with his frame, so I contacted Joey and sent him the necessary information to get the bag started. The team at Bedrock were able to get the bag done at the same time as the frame, so I was able to send it all off together. Not before getting a couple good pics.