No. 22 Broken Arrow & The Shawangunks

September 17, 2015 cooper ray Leave a comment

Two weekends were spent in New Paltz just a short ways up the mighty hudson river via original New York Central Lines. Poughkeepsie is accessible by rail from Grand Central Terminal, which puts you within striking distance of the Shawangunk Mountain range: the northernmost, and tallest, section of the appalachain mountains that span the northeast region of the US.

I’ve been coming to new paltz since i was a child. Countless family visits and holidays spent together in hudson valley – and always with the backdrop of Mohonk Mountain and its beacon lit watchtower peak. The ridge jets radically upward as if reaching for the sky, with a straight vertical bedrock face – this is the New Paltz i’ve known all my life.

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The bike was right there with me, every step of the way. The second you commit to something, it’s incredibly reactive. The Broken Arrow provides a new level of confidence and control. The combination of the bicycles geometry, the dampening frequency of titanium as a frame material, and the careful selection of tubes to maximize stiffness, compliance, and efficiency/power transfer create a ride quality that simply wants to follow your every movement and propel you forwards. What would have been nearly impossible, or felt sketchy on other bikes i’ve ridden, was in absolute control on the Broken Arrow. I wouldn’t be writing this if i wasn’t truly impressed.

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Custom Bike Builds

Brian’s GT

Gallery September 8, 2015 admin Leave a comment

GT GTB

This has been the bike that has always gotten away from a few of us here in the shop. Wilis found this for himself, but it turned out to be too big. Perfect fit for Brian, however. He decided to take his time to find all the right parts to make this a pretty classy city cruiser. A big feature, and rarity, are the Campagnolo Gran Sport Pista Hubs, which brian cleaned up, high polished, and laced to some chrome archetype hoops. Along with those are some Topline cranks, also meticulously polished, and Miche Supertype seatpost and stem to match all the cutout madness of this build. Classy, time well spent to match all the small details of this build.

News

Deluxe Cycles Shop Visit – The Radavist

Gallery September 3, 2015 cooper ray Leave a comment

John over at The Radavist featured us in his reportage on shop visits. Head over there to get the full scoop!

Deluxe was born from the experience of the mechanics and riders who work in the shop. The business itself is built around building deeper, more intimate relationships with the customers, the suppliers, and everyone down the line. Every bit of the shop has more effort and thought put into it: The focus here is quality over quantity. Being confined to a studio space improves the quality of the work and attention to detail of what is being produced – this is possible without the distraction of the storefront and what that entails. You walk into Deluxe and you realize how intimate the space is. Located in Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, the lofty studio feels more like someones living room than a traditional bike shop.

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Uncategorized

Wilis’ No. 22 Little Wing

Gallery September 2, 2015 admin Leave a comment

Race. Machine.

Straight up, racing. No detail spared in having this bike be the fastest on the Velodrome. The Little Wing is the Track offering from 22 Bicycles. This is the second generation of this bike, which features many improvements over the first version. First off, all of the titanium tube swaging is done in-house. New swaged and butted top tube and down tube and longer one-piece dropouts, a fully redisnged mast-topper, as well as a new carbon 44mm tapered track fork with a shallow rake.

Power transfer and tuned handling suited for both the boards and the roads were at the top of our priorities when designing the Little Wing. The frame’s stout stays, oversized head tube, large diameter top and down tubes and integrated seat mast work together to keep all contact points firmly connected and instantly responsive under hard efforts.

Read More about the Little Wing’s details at 22 Bicycles

Everything made by No. 22 is crafted to the highest quality and engineered for performance, which is certainly reflected in this build.

To start, this bike has the new Sugino 75 SG75 DD cranks (with an upgraded ZEN chainring), developed with a hollow thru axle and outboard bearings. Brand new, and tricky to get your hands on if you’re not an olympian or setting your own hour record. Other key features on this build are the carbon wheels – An 80mm deep rear and iO front makes this one of the most elusive wheelsets in the wind in terms of aerodynamics. The 3T carbon aero TT track bars add to just how slippery this bike really is.

Racing

End of Summer Saturday at T-Town

September 1, 2015 admin Leave a comment

This past weekend was the second to last Saturday race at T-Town. It was a great day of racing, with perfect end of summer sunshine and good moods all around. We had a great weekend of racing with the crew – Jack, Wilis, and Jesse came out to race.

Jack is a 3 on the track in england, but in the US, his category didn’t transfer, so he ended up dominating the 5 field. He’s a monster to begin with so these cats didn’t know what hit him.

Wilis and Jesse both did quite well in the 4’s with a 4th and 5th place in the Omnium respectively.

One of the highlights of T-Town is always the post-race cali-burrito. Choice.

Smooth sailing this weekend other than getting halfway thru new jersey to realize Wilis forgot his shoes! maybe more than a 5 minute warm-up could have helped before racing, but either way, great weekend.

Custom Bike Builds

Cooper’s No. 22 Little Wing

Gallery September 1, 2015 admin 1 Comment

Cooper’s No. 22 Little Wing is probably the most heavily ridden Titanium track bike out there. It’s never seen the velodrome, and is usually catching the waves of the avenues in Manhattan. 22 Bikes are built to last, and this bike is a prime example.

To survive messenger work, high quality components must be used for durability and reliability. Sealed bearings all around, from the Mack/Phil Hubs, Phil Bottom Bracket, and Chris King Headset. Other durable components choices are square tapered Dura-Ace 7600 track cranks with a sugino zen chainring paired with a Phil Cog and HKK chain for a smooth, long lasting drive train. One more additional detail here are the campagnolo pista pedals, with double laminated toshi double straps – a necessity for piece of mind riding in the street on a brakeless track bike.