Designing a bike for a tall rider presents a range of challenges and it takes a proficient frame builder to still build a bike that’s more eagle than a stork. Wheeldan’s Daniel Pleikies previous career as an architect helped him resolve this steep brief.
Daniel was profiled in Gestalten’s recent Velocity book, in which he revealed his insight into working with titanium. For him, it’s a zen-like practice. The space, materials
His correlations between architecture and frame building is obvious, both in his approach and the results of it. Every Wheeldan is considered for the client (even the balance bike he created for his young son) and reveals thoughtful innovations.
Daniel took a great deal of measurements of his client, on his original commuter bike, and the workshop fitting bike, and had to take into consideration not only the rider’s height and limbs, but also a large pair of feet.
Thankfully ENVE offer their forks with extra-long steerer tubes. As the client is tall, but not heavy, Daniel focused on strengthening only the lower half of the frame, with a bulky down tube, bottom bracket shell, and 1″ chain stays that Daniel ovalised himself.
It’s a pleasure to study Daniel’s welding around the bottom bracket shell. The whole frame has been superbly executed, but you have to appreciate how tricky the BB shell must be to work on.
Daniel added a seat stay bridge that’s both functional and decorative, and the seat post is worth noting as well. Apparently, the frame is full of batteries, for the levers, derailleurs, power meter and even one for the lights inside the seat post.
Extralite hubs, an ENVE cockpit,
