Started work on the Bantam Bicycles adventure bike small batch production run this week. (Henceforth to be know as adventurebike-a-go-go...). Six bikes in this run. A trio of 29+ers, a 26" fatty, and a couple of 26ers. They are all sharing a similar design aesthetic, and are close enough in design that I can justify doing them as a batch. In theory this speeds up production time significantly and helps keep costs down. When building bikes using machine tools and whatnot, it can take a pretty significant amount of time to set up each cutting operation. But a relatively small amount of time actually cutting the tube. So it can actually end up saving me hours per bike by doing them in batches. I haven't done a production run since my days at Bilenky, but at this point I think I have my process down enough, here at Bantam Bicycles headquarters, that this make sense. The key is to be organized and to not screw anything up. (The downside is of course that if I screw something up I screw it up six times). Doing pretty well so far. Got all the front triangles mitered and dry fitted, no big mess ups. Gonna start welding next I'm in the shop.
More exciting adventurebike-a-go-go pics here.
Six tubesets
Making sure everything fits before moving on