Tamarack Cycles

I just uploaded a big lot of pics of Brian’s 1950’s-Replica frameset to my Flickr gallery, here’s the link if you want to see some photos. After the finished-frame photos, there’s a chronological gallery of its construction, starting with designing the cutting pattern on the lugs and bb with a sharpie marker, cutting the lugs, filleting the lugs to smooth their profiles, and the build pics. Grab a coffee and sit down, it’s a long one lol.

Brian's 1950's French replica This was a fun project - Brian had a set of NOS Reynolds 531 special Lightweight tubing which he wanted built up into a replica of the 1950's French bikes by Rene Herse and Alex Singer. I handcut some vintage lugs and carved a modern Rene Herse bottom bracket shell to match, then started building.

Some progress on the Tamarack Pista project - main triangle brazed and filed, and the Kalavinka NJS track dropouts fitted and filed. Tomorrow, miter and braze the chainstays, then on to the seatstays next. Although, progress will be interrupted by year end inventory count! Oh joy…

Ali’s 15 year-old Tamarack touring frame is back in the workshop for a respray. This one is a classic, built with Reynolds 531ST tubing, with Everest Arrowhead lugs, fastback stays, spoke holder on the right chainstay, and custom mounts for a front rack handlebar-bag support. Strange to think that I’d been framebuilding for 17 years when I built this…. Stripped and beadblasted, it’s ready to head off for some new paint!

Simon’s new fillet-brazed Tamarack gravel/touring frame is back from the paint shop. This is actually black, with some blue pearl metalflake added to the clear coat - looks pretty sparkly in the sunshine. Made with Columbus Spirit main triangle and Columbus SL rear triangle, this has a frame weight of 1840gm and 665gm fork, pretty lightweight stuff. Fillet brazing makes the joints soooo smooth.

So, when I built my personal Reynolds 853 Pro Team frame last year, I specc’ed it with a Whisky #7 Road+ carbon fork, which was fine, but I couldn’t stand the look of the straight blades - so I built a new steel fork with a custom carved crown for it. Didn’t realize at the time that the crown’s lines were a perfect fit for the Reynolds 853 fork blade decals! I painted it the same copper colour as the head tube and the seat tube of the frame, I think it’s going to look pretty sweet.

Brian’s new Tamarack frameset is back from paint. His classic pale blue colour with gold decals is reminiscent of the French constructeurs of the 1950’s. Built with NOS Reynolds 531SL tubing and hand cut lugs, this one’s made for 650x42’s and fenders, and internal wiring for dynamo lighting. Looking forward to seeing his photos of it when it’s built up.

Getting ready to start the next custom frame, this one’s a pure track bike frame heading to Ontario. Been a while since I’ve brazed up a track iron. Tubing is OS with sweet castings by Japanese keirin designer Kalavinka. This will be pure clean fun.

In the spray booth, doing a little paint mixing. Formulas call for portions to the 10’th of a gram. Cool to mix as always. Sprayed photos a little washed out as the booth’s fluorescent’s are a bit dirty, colour looks just as mixed. Ready for decals and a couple coats of clear, then a thorough wet-sanding then two final coats of clear.

Tamarack # 145 is finished and ready to head off for paint. This one’s a modern-road; sloping top tube, clearance for 35mm 700c’s with long reach sidepulls, longer chainstays, flat-top crown, Shimano Di2 internal wiring for a DuraAce 9100 drivetrain. Just waiting on the new owner’s colour decisions!

Crafting the seatstay caps is one of my favourite parts of building a custom frame. Yes, I could use premade cast slugs, but sculpting my own tops is more satisfying. I often don’t know which style I will use until the chainstays are in - what will look best - flat caps, pointed and curved caps, concave caps? This frame called out for concave caps, made from a short section of 1” top tube, fitted into curves sculpted into the seatstays with a 10” halfround file. Then brazed in with brass, and some careful filing, and you get this. No two bikes in the world are alike at this point, which is kind of fun.

Some progress on the next Tamarack Cycles custom frame, this one’s a road bike with a 5-degree sloping top tube care of some modified Manorina lugs, made with Columbus Spirit For Lugs tubing and clearances for 700x32’s with long reach sidepulls. I think these lugs are pretty sweet, agreed?

Prepping some lugs for my next Tamarack build. These are lovely Llewellyn “Manorina” lugs, but the bike’s going to have DuraAce Di2, so off come the cable guides on the lower head lug. The lugs are for a 5 degree sloping top tube, leaving the upper head lug extension in place, so I trimmed it down a bit. And the seat lug’s getting side-tack seatstays, so the lug’s fastback extension isn’t needed, so trimmed that down a bit too. Ready to start brazing!

Tamarack # 144 is heading off to the paint shop tomorrow. This one’s pretty close to my heart, a 1970’s NOS Reynolds 531-SL tubeset, lugs and bottom bracket shell handcut in the style of the 1950’s French constructeurs. This one’s getting lots of Rene Herse components including their sublime cantilever brakes. Looking forward to the post-paint pics!

Work continuing on the 1950’s French replica project; being built with NOS Reynolds 531SL tubing and hand-carved lugs and bottom bracket. The triangles are done, and brake bridge and chainstay bridges are in, now on to the canti pivots and small braze-ons then building the low trail fork. I’ve drilled a hole in the underside of the chainstay bridge and the lower head lug for internal taillight wiring. This is a fun project so far!

Just received a restock on some of my favourite little files, made in Japan by Hozan, who have been making bike tools for many decades. My last set has lasted me over a decade, which is remarkable. Two sets should last me out. Fred approves!

It's a very happy for me!! A true dream bike masterfully hand built in Nova Scotia by and assembled with love by yours truly. This steel beauty is actually lighter than the carbon bike it replaces. KAPOW! The colour scheme is called Golden Hour, the green is from my dream car of yore the 2008 Porsche 911 GT3 RS. Who needs a sportscar when I can ride a sweet bike?!? And it rides like a dream too. Christmas came early to be sure

On to the next framebuilding project at the Tamarack Cycles workshop - this one’s going to be something special… a 1950’s-French-inspired 650b road machine. Found a set of ancient Agrati lugs on Ebay with enough “meat” to do some carving, a la Rene Herse/Alex Singer. And a modern Rene Herse bottom bracket, carved to match. And added some fillets around the lug spigots for a more pleasing profile. Stay tuned…

A custom fork, ready for paint. This is a custom carved crown, with scalloped style dropout treatment. Made for 57-reach sidepulls, this will fit a 700x35 tire.

Jon’s new gravel bike is back from the paint shop. It’s a hot Porsche 911 RS green with yellow details. This one’s built with Reynolds 853 Pro Team tubing, a 5 degree sloping top tube with full lugged construction, dropouts, and a colour-matched Ritchey WCS Adventure fork. Came out pretty nice, I think…




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Messin’ around with fork crowns today - the Allotech A-14 crown is kind of homely, let’s see, pare off a little material here and there… hmmm…

Tamarack # 143 is ready to head off to the paint shop. This one’s a full fillet Columbus Spirit all-road/touring/gravel frameset with a sloping top tube and canti brakes.

Chainstay time…

Was an orange morning at the Tamarack Cycles workshop today, one expedition touring, one gravel, one long-hair domestic ginger…

Been a while since I stamped a serial number onto a new Tamarack frame build, guess that’s what happens when you spend August and half of September cycling across the USA from Seattle to Portsmouth NH - which was awesome. But this one looks pretty awesome too, and will look better when it comes back from the paint booth next week. This one’s a fully lugged Reynolds 853 ProTeam gravel/allroad frameset, sloping top tube, flatmount drops from with clearance for 700x45’s. It’s getting a colour-matched Ritchey WCS Adventure carbon fork and a Campagnolo component group - should be a sweet ride!

Finally taking the time to organize my build photos of Vicki's custom frame... lots of pics at

Vicki's fillet rando frame Built with Columbus Spirit 7-4-7 tubing and a Columbus tapered head tube, this one's designed for long-distance randonneuring and gravel riding.

Raana’s 2012 Tamarack Mixte is in the shop this week for a drivetrain upgrade to 1x11. Crankarms by , 36-tooth narrow/wide chainring from Blackspire, with a shiny Specialities T.A. chainring guard doing pantleg duties. A Deore XT M8000 rear mech shifts an 11-42 XT cassette flawlessly. This frame was a fun build.



www.tamarackcycles.ca

Little write-up in the latest newsletter from the US distributor of Reynolds tubing, here you go…

Simon’s new Tamarack allroad/touring/gravel bike has left the shop with its new partner. The build includes Shimano Ultegra-RX shifting an IRD Vortex sub-compact crankset, with powerful Diacompe 980 canti’s doing the stopping duty. Pacenti Forza wheels with GravelKing SM tires roll light and smooth. This do-all bike can fit full fenders and rear rack and lowriders for touring, or handle gravel roads or pavement with aplomb. With the fenders off, it can fit 700x42’s. Final weight at 9.25kg is quite respectable.




www.tamarackcycles.ca

Craig’s new 29’er hardtail Tamarack frame is back from paint. This one is using Reynolds 853 main triangle and 853 double-bend-and-
dimpled mountain chainstays for 2.4” tire clearance. The seat tube is sized for 31.8 dropper post. Paragon Machine Works dropouts are sweet and tough. The frame is adventure bike geometry, with low mount bottles to make room for a frame bag, and a third triple-boss bottle mount under the down tube. The paint is DuPont Imron Dark Jade Green Metallic, with a super-deep metal flake in the sun, looks great, I think.



www.tamarackcycles.ca

Simon’s new allroad/touring/gravel frameset is back from the paint shop looking shiny and dark! The paint is actually gloss black, with some red/blue pearl added to the clear coat to make a midnight blue a mile deep. This will be built up with an 11-speed Ultegra-RX kit and an IRD sub-compact crankset. More baby pics next week after a RustCheck application dries and the build is completed.




www.tamarackcycles.ca