Aaron Cantrell
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I chose to include the bike I am currently fabricating, as I felt my portfolio wouldn't be complete without a representation of my love of bicycles. The bicycle is one of the simplest and longest running methods of transporting oneself over long distance in a highly efficient manner. The American society is very attached to their cars and reasonably so, considering the history of the vehicle and the context in which our ideas of land use and ownership evolved from. However, we shouldn't forget that there are other more efficient methods than transporting a single person in a vehicle 10-20 times their own weight... a lot of energy is wasted moving all that excess weight. I don't hate cars; they have their place. I just find it fascinating how hesitant people are to thinking about transportation methods other than cars.

I created this design from scratch and have custom tailored the dimensions of every piece for optimal fit for my body. This is the first bike I will have fabricated from scratch and I must say the amount of detail that goes into designing a bike from scratch is a surprise for how simple of a vehicle it is. I worked hard to create a bike that would be comfortable on long rides, yet still be fast and have moderately aggressive geometry. My idea was to create a road bike that I could do anything with. This included larger than normal tires, the ability to run fixed gear, single gear, or 30 speed; this frame can accommodate a wide range of styles of riding and setups. Creating a highly versatile bike introduced some interesting engineering and fabrication techniques; to be able to fit three chain rings on the cranks and still allow the chain-stays to accommodate 35c tires (on the fatter side of the road spectrum), I had to manually form them. Many people will buy preformed chain stays when trying to accomplish this same feat; I chose to form them myself from scratch. This included a two degree bend and manual ovalization of the tubes. This is only one of the many examples of the level of detail I put into designing this frame. I am currently in the process of fabricating the design and can't wait to see how it rides.

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