Trail 70 Engineer

3D Printed Chain Whip shown in use. 3D Printing has been a hot topic for the last few years. So much of a hot topic that it has found its way into the general consumer market. Many an aspiring maker has one sitting in their office or living room slowly extruding plastic into various shapes. The last part of the sentence, various shapes, is what concerns me a bit. It seems most of what gets printed are decorative trinkets that are generally useless. They sit on a shelf to be admired for a few months and then get discarded for the latest trinket... That's not what I've been printing. I've been designing and printing useful parts with a consumer FDM 3D printer focusing on mountain biking. So, here are five useful/functional prints I designed for my mountain bike.

Old took kit I carried in my small seat bag. I was recently doing some maintenance on a friends bike. When I was finished I realized I had only used the normal tools I carry in my seat bag. This was a good sign as I like to be prepared for anything but it was also a bit concerning when I realized I was carrying all this stuff all the time. I figured the best way to shed some weight was by combining the two multitools. (In all honesty I did this small project because I was a bit bored this morning and wanted to see if it would work. Luckily it did.)

Sliding dropouts on a Redline Monocog Flight. These are sliding dropouts on a 2009 Redline Monocog Flight 29er mountain bike. The problem is this isn't a picture of my Monocog because my dropouts didn't look like this. Mine were bent. I noticed this because my rear wheel had a tendency to not stay aligned. It would move around some and the tire would rub on the chainstays or seatstays. So heres how I fixed this problem. 

Crankset and chainrings ready for dinglespeed install. Singlespeed bikes are great but lack in versatility. Gear them low for climbing up a mountain or gear them high for top speed. You can't have both. I often found myself wishing for a two speed bike. A high speed for riding across town and a low speed for the trails. The trick is having those two speeds without using a chain tensioner or derailleur. The answer was dinglespeed.

Finished Jones Plus 135 before the first ride. Ive been riding singlespeed rigid mountainbikes for a few years and really like it. (Link to see my  Bike History ) After months of considerations, I decided it was finally time to build one up exactly the way I want it. (Steel frame, massive tires, no suspension, mechanical disc brakes...) I chose to build a Jones Plus 135 singlespeed.

I've replaced forks, bottom brackets and even done a little wheel truing. So when I decided to build a mountainbike from frame up I felt fairly confident about building the wheels too. In the end this wheel build went well for my first build. I did have one problem, I miscalculated the spoke length. The spokes ended up being about 3-4mm too short and will have to be built a second time. Even factoring in this mistake, building the wheels myself saved money, gained me valuable knowledge and added a few good tools to my garage.  Front wheel laced and ready for truing.