BALLS TO THE WALL FISHING

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CHEEKY FLY REELS, THE OFFICIAL REEL OF BALLS TO THE WALL FISHING

Thursday, September 8, 2011

CASTLE BIKES ARE HERE

The Final product of the FIRST Castle
I am currently, right now, as I type this blog post, in real time, while I sit in Yeti's Grind in Eagle, sitting next to Alfred David Mires. He's been a steel fabricator and cycling enthusiast pretty much his entire life. I've played music with him live as he rips an electric guitar pretty damned good, and I rode with him two springs ago in Eagle because he lives here, and he has lived here a really long time. After the ride he took me to his steel fabricating shop which I found fascinating, he creates some insane steel and metal items all from scratch for all kinds of people who need all kinds of shit, custom, it's impressive. Dave told me what he really wanted to do was build bike frames. Guess what, he did, and I introduce to you the first ever Castle Bike frame from Alfred David Mires. He had just finished this baby up and threw some parts he had laying around the house on it to make it rideable before the actual build for Charlie Brown who owns the Mountain Pedaler in Eagle, this is his frame prior to paint. Dave took the bike out for a quick spin to see how it rode for an hour, and came home four hours later with a perma-grin on his face, he had done it, he had built a rock solid and functional mountain bike frame which he said rode fantastic, and the detail is just plain fucking sexy, craftsmanship beyond the wildest. So here it is after the first ride, raw and dirty, just the way a mountain bike should be. Nice job Dave, see you at NAHBS soon. You WILL see more soon from Castle Bikes.

Castle Bikes preferred tubing choices for the initial build
4130 Aircraft Chromoly for the Seatstays, top tube, and down tube 
The seat tube and head tube are True Temper OX Platinum
Chainstays are Columbus Life tubing
Mires also uses Fillet Brazed Brass to join all of his frame tubing selections. He can use whatever tubing you prefer. 


If the first question out of your mouth is "how much does it weigh?" (this frame weighs in at 5.5 lbs.), then this is probably not the frame choice for you, all though 5.5 is pretty right on, and to be honest with you, I'm not sure Mires, or myself would find you as the type of person we want to ride with anyway, so eat a few less donuts and ride a Castle. These bikes are built to ride and have FUN on, which is what bike riding is supposed to be about in the first place.
Dropouts from Paragon, set it up as single or  as a geared machine. Killer.

Internal routing through the seatstays for the rear disc brake

 Below is stellar craftsmanship, check out the seatstay mounts here, and the first look at the yet to be named top tube configuration...
 
Above and below are the cable routing holes designed for the internal routing of the housing for both brake and shifting cables
Even the bottle cage mounts have a little flair with the diamond shaped framework.....nice flair.
The first Castle Bike frame complete, a 26 inch edition, and it's sweet that Dave just threw a bunch of parts that he had laying around to test ride her, you get to build yours up as you wish. But be patient, these frames are built one at a time, and there is already a small line forming to get em. Most importantly, there may be a CX frame prototype in the works, which pleases me.
I mean look at this profile from the top, this frame simply reeks of 
FUN.
WELCOME TO CASTLE BIKES, MANUFACTURED IN GYPSUM/EAGLE COLORADO.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks LG
    The next three frames on the slate are: a belt drive 29er, a fat cx/skinny 29er, and a 26" fat bike. Stay tuned for more...

    ReplyDelete