It’s been 8 years, omg 8 years, how!?!? 8 years since I built myself a new handmade frame. I have my Norther Randonneur I built myself back in 2017. It was my everyday bike and a performance machine. In truth way too much bike for me. I need to do a stretching routine for a few days now before I can take that bike out for a ride. It’s fast, but not super comfortable. It’s for sure under braking for my weight and fast busy city commuting.

I still love it, and take it out on longer rides for fun, but to be honest most of my ridding is to work or running errands. I need a real city bike.

So am I joining the trends and buying a cheap bulky aluminum e-bike? Nope. I’m making a modern-ish, but classic lugged steel handmade city bike. Slightly sloping top tube, head tube extension and gasp, disk brakes.

I’m calling this bike, Scout’s Bike. Because she loves riding on bikes, but picky about the bike. It’s going to have cruiser bars and a big front rack with a fence and a doggy seat. It’s going to be 1 1/8th threadless and disk brakes, and use 48mm tires. All of these things are things I never thought I’d do, especially for myself. I’m all about that vintage classic sleek standard size tubes, quill stems, rim brakes, French flip forks gorgeousness. So I’m making something kind of modern, but I'm still going to try and make it a pretty and classic as possible. I’m using neat lugs and fork crown, and modifying them a little bit. But, just a little bit. Because not only is this the first frame I’ve made for myself in 8 years, it’s the first I’ve made at all in 5 years, and the first one in the new shop with mostly all new tools and jigs. I feel like I need to relearn everything all over again, but as I go it’s really just like ridding a bike. I’m falling right back into it. I’d like to say without missing a step, but I’ve definitely stumbled a few times. But, honestly that’s kind of the fun. Relearning and remembering and getting back into it after swearing off it and being sure I was never going to make a bike again.