Vallie Components - bicycle part and accessory design

I'm looking forward to NAHBS 2009, which is the North American Handmade Bicycle Show.

It was started by Don Walker, and is now in its 5th year. I attended the Portland show last year, and was incredibly inspired.

This year it is being held in Indiana, and since I'm on the East coast, I'll be travelling there by train!

There's only one catch. The train that goes direct from NYC to Indianapolis does NOT take baggage! So I get two carry ons.

One of these carry ons will be a folding bicycle. I'm stoked that a friend here is lending me a bike, but at the same time bummed I will not get to bring a working rear wheel with my hub in it.

I'll have one on me though, so if you see me, just ask =D

Recently, while visiting the Brooklyn Machine Works shop, I had a look at a variety of Laser cut dropouts. I can't get into detail about the the designs I saw there, because I don't have pictures to illustrate them, and there was just TOO much awesomeness going on there to be described in one post.

Laser Cutting is the general technology used to churn out dropout after dropout for the majority of today's track and BMX frames. Obvious exceptions to this are the forged and machined examples found on some high end bicycles. For the most part however, the single thickness dropouts found on your track bike, were cut with a CNC driven laser.