25Seven

Steampunk Mushrooms

It’s been raining a lot in Boston over the past few weeks.  We don’t typically get so much wet weather in this area—I believe that’s one of the reasons the area was coined New England.  However, with all this precipitation, I heard rumor that the prefix “New” might get replaced with “A Lot Like”.

In fact, we’re getting so much rain that we seem to be growing some very rare steampunk mushrooms at Seven Cycles.  I’m guessing that someone dropped, in the grass, a few screws and washers or something. 

Rapha Continental with Seven

Recently, Rapha invited Seven Cycles to be part of the Rapha Continental team.  Rapha just posted their 2009 East Coast rider information on their site.  They posted pictures of Seven's Continental bike, an interview with me, and some photos of our shop.  It makes for interesting viewing.

Jeremy Dunn—soon to be expat of the Boston area—connected us with Rapha for this project.  Jeremy also connected us with Continental rider Steve Francisco.

Here are some of the puzzle pieces—and some links:

Product Design in Real-Time

Yesterday Seven Cycles started a new blog.  Great; just what we need, another blog.

This one is kind of interesting; it’s for a very specific project and timeframe.  Basically, our Italian distributor requested a product for their market that we don’t offer in the United States.  They also requested that we provide them details documenting every step of the design, development, and production processes—so that they can share it with their market.  So, we agreed, and we decided to set up this process as a tumblog.

We’re posting in real time as the project moves along.  And, we’re having a number of Seven employees post on the blog—essentially, the folks that are working on the design, fabrication, and management of the project are tracking their facets of the project.

Follow along, won’t you?  At VelvetSeven.

Bike Project: Earth Day Limited Edition – Part III

Here’s the third installment in a series on Seven Cycles’ Earth Day Bike.  The other installments can be found here:

Part I:  Product details
Part II:  Fuel consumption and commuting by bike

In this third installment I describe some of the manufacturing processes we employ, and how they differ from Seven Cycles’ standard production methods.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this information isn’t meant to be a “how to” series of posts; it’s not the way to build ecologically low impact bikes.  I’m simply sharing how we went about it—as more and more people have asked for details.  I’ve also learned that we have a lot of room for improvement for future Viridianesque projects.

Within the framework of this low ecoimpact bike project, we had a number of internal and external goals; here I’ll explain another of our primary internal goals:

Weak Expression of the Week: “Lean and Mean”

“Gotta get lean and mean.”

I’ve been reading that expression a lot in business articles over the past couple months.  Apparently, it’s one of the reawakened slogans of business managers.  Great.  I thought that mantra was gone with the '80s. 

It’s cropping up across all business segments:  non-profits, consultants, and big and small businesses alike.  Some examples I’ve seen during the past few weeks include:

“A lean, mean operating machine.” -- Description of Hewlett-Packard by CNN¹ 

"[GM’s] got to emerge…much more lean and mean...than it currently is.” -- A well-known politician talking about GM’s ex-CEO Wagoner heading for the hills.²

Strategic Application of Carbon in a Titanium Bicycle Frame

Someone asked me the other day about Seven Cycles’ approach to combining titanium and carbon together in one frame.  This conversation occurred, in part, because of our recent introduction of our Integrated Seat Post frame model.

Part of the conversation had to do with the various approaches to combining titanium and carbon together in a single frame.  And why Seven approaches it the way we do.  This is a long complex conversation.  Not one we could cover in one discussion; so we focused on only one facet of titanium and carbon as frame materials:  vibration and shock absorption.

Titanium and carbon are interesting in the context of vibration characteristics because they behave so different from each other.  This difference is one of the primary reasons that Seven offers frames that combine both carbon and titanium—as well as monolithic titanium frames and full carbon fiber frames.

Local Cycling History – A Conversation about Charles Metz

And now for something completely different; a video post.  Here’s a brief interview excerpt I did a few weeks ago for Seven Cycles.  Jesse Cates, a grad student at Brandeis University, is working on a project for the CyberArts Festival in Waltham, MA.

The complete interview covered a number of topics, focusing on a bit of the history of local Massachusetts manufacturing, contemporary cycling culture, and the intersection of art and bikes.  In this excerpt we talk about one of the earliest bike builders in the United States:  Charles Metz.  He was a local bike builder—based in Waltham, MA—and a bike racer in the late 1800s.  He was also the inventor of the American motorcycle.

Bike Project: Earth Day Limited Edition – Part II

Here’s a follow up to the Seven Cycles Earth Day post from a few days ago—part one is here.  I mentioned I would explain some of the internal business processes and manufacturing thinking that we employed on this Viridianesque project, and how it’s affected my thinking about frame building in general.

I’ll preface the details by clarifying that this information isn’t meant to be a “how to” series of posts.  I’m not suggesting that this is the way to build ecologically low impact bikes, or that what Seven is doing on this project is the right way, or the best way.  I’m simply sharing how we went about it—as a number of people have asked for details. 

Minimizing Seven’s Ecological Footprint

For this project we evaluated more than just carbon emissions—a popular topic right now.  I have a lot to learn about designing and building low impact products, but I’ve been involved in enough sustainability projects to know that reducing carbon emissions is only a piece of the puzzle.  So, we made an effort to view the entire process of bike building from cradle-to-cradle—with an emphasis on the steps over which we have the most control.

Titanium: The New Wonder Material?

There’s a topic that been coming up more and more at Seven Cycles over the past year or so.  It crystallized for me a few weeks ago while I was giving a technical manufacturing tour to some visitors.  I was walking some or our retailers through our production process; nothing unusual there.  What was unusual was the number of questions regarding titanium.  These weren’t the typical I-already-know-the-answer-type-of-questions that I sometimes hear.  These were real, fundamental questions about titanium; questions that belied both a lack of knowledge about the material and a true interest in understanding the material’s properties, benefits, and uses.

Essentially, the questions and interest struck me that titanium appears to be the new wonder material for those that didn’t grow up with it.  It feels similar to how it was 20-years ago.  I think there are a few obvious reasons that titanium is once again confusing—and alluring—to people; the primary reasons include:

Bike Project: Earth Day Limited Edition

Recently we completed a Seven Cycles limited edition bike design that was a bit different from our previous limited editions.  This project was different because it turned out—for me—to be more about the process than about the product.  Normally we don’t discuss process with the public; mainly because it seems that most people are a lot more interested in the finished product, rather than the process—or how a project comes to fruition.

The recent limited edition I’m referring to is Seven’s Earth Day bike.  I call it our Viridian model.  I’m a bit of a Viridian.  Even though, technically, the movement is officially dead—as stated by its founder—I still find it worthwhile.

Anyway, why did the process overwhelm the project?  I think that the product—the bike—is actually really cool--I'm jealous of those that will own one.  If you’re interested, you can read a bit about the bike on our site.  The process, however, has had a lasting impact on the way I now think about building bikes.