Bike Hugger 

Our mobile readers may have already noticed that we started serving RWD images today like these of a Redline SSCX in the mist at Sea Otter.

Front

The images are widescreen and will fill the screen of your phone or tablet in portrait or landscape mode. To see it on your desktop, click through to the mobile version.

Downtube

RWD is the web designer/dev de rigeuor and for those into that, read more about what we’re doing in a G+ post. Everyone else, please just enjoy the images formatted for your device and our commitment to content. After we get our mobile site how we like it, a rev is coming to the desktop that’s focused on being more readable.

Oh and that’s a custom spec Redline. I’ll race on it this Fall when Cross season starts.

Put a camera near the Hodala crew and this is what happens: talk about how drunk that got last night and then do a thrusthug dance.

Watch now on YouTube or download and sync to iTunes, your iPod, iPhone. Subscribe to the Huggacast Feed for more episodes.

High rez photos of the Raleigh are lightboxed on G+ and on Flickr too.

After a crack o’ dawn flight, a drive from SFO to Laguna Seca, and straight to the media center to get credentials, first bike I see is a Raleigh with a Bud in a Lezyne carbon cage. My kinda party! I was here to race and see what was going at at the season opener in the States.

As seen on Instagram

Quick Race Recap

Racer in a banana suit took out Etheridge (SSCX champion) into turn one, bars got tangled up, then lots traffic. Rode through that in 85° heat to finish on the lead lap and place somewhere.

I raced on Rutledge’s (Redline) “Arctic Fox” shown below. A custom spec’d Conquest carbon in an enthusiastic field of about 50. Earlier races in the day had about the same turnout, including a world champion and other old, fast dudes.

Custom spec’d Redline carbon

Spotting locations for the photos – Photo: Dan Holtz Photography

After posting the latest D-Plus photos, reader Brian Fung asked

Diggin’ your new ride. Curious – besides, being a custom project, were you looking for certain ride qualities when you approached Davidson? You planning to rock it come this fall for CX season?

Yes, rock it! Also, now that I’ve got more time to write about the topic, the D-Plus is a pursuit of passion. It’s the result of a decade of thinking about modal/cross bikes by Mark V, with the work of a Bill Davidson and his crew.

Like the music a band plays, the influences are many and when you combine the talent of a master builder with someone who’s obsessed with the bike, good things happen. As another trusted source on the project said

Master Builder and OCD types were made for each other. Like Internet dating in 1989. If you were there, it was a guaranteed a match.

And the D-Plus is one hot date, in materials, and build. Check the annotated photo below with a full-rez version and more notes on Flickr.

Annoted with notes – click through for full size.

If you’ve followed us for a while, the D-Plus is a progression from the Modal and Hotspur. The Modal is an S&S coupled Ti bike with Paragon dropouts that toggles from fixed, single, geared, and internal. The Hotspur is a Ti racing bike made with Feathertec tubing and a Reynolds carbon rear. Both bikes were intended to prove Ti is a relevant material, in a market flooded with carbon.

We’ve been discussing a Cross version of the Hotspur with modes like the Modal since I got back into Cross 3 years ago. The D-Plus has even larger diameter Feathertec tubes and Paragon track tips with a derailleur hanger.

In an earlier post, I said the bike is built to fight.

It’s also has soul. It’s made here in Seattle, a city of makers and those that believe in what they do.

Front end

Upon learning that Twitter was attempting to patent “pull to refresh” in iOS apps, I thought, “what do I pull to refresh?” Well, these brakes on the D-Plus for a start and then a tap at a brewpub; before that a shot from the espresso machine.

You?

Sublimated logo

While working on this copy for our new Velocity collection

Deep into the race scene we went, lurking around the showers at Paris-Roubiax to capture the essence of Pro; a drop of embro’d Euro sweat was condensed in a lab and ultimately spun into our new fabrics. This kit will make you fast, sure, but being PRO is what it’s about.

a colleague who had just seen the jersey said, “now that’s a commitment to green!” And it is! This new kit from us is a commitment to the brand and what we do here. Our unabashed enthusiasm for the bike drives us to make the best gear we can and share it with you.

Full zip with racer fit

Bottom bracket

Spent a few more intimate moments with the D-Plus before it’s machined, polished, and painted. While I’m riding, talking, and hosting Built at SXSW this custom, handbuilt Davidson Cross bike will debut at the Seattle Bike Expo. It’s called the D-Plus because of all the +1s the build has.

Frame

In the background is the Elliott Bay Bicycles Machine shop where this one-of-a-kind bike was made. It represents the work of a master builder, bike stylist, machinist, welder, and creative direction from me.

When my mind wanders during a lull in the Austin action, it’s to this bike and riding it.

I don’t know how they’re going to paint it. They’ll just hand it to me. I’ll say thank and proceed to beat a patina into it. Expect no art paint or for this to hang on a studio wall. No Fondos or Sunday afternoon bike path rides either.

This bike is built to fight. Check how muscular it is…

Seat stays

See more photos of the D-Plus and how it’s being made in the lightbox view on G+. Also on Flickr.

Damn Holmes! That’s a big head tube

The #makebikes D-Plus is welded and in the machine shop for prep before the paint shop. Took a few quick iPhone photos and put it on the triple beams: 1499 grams. That’s expected an respectable weight. All the pluses on the frame add weight and with a light build kit, the complete bike should weigh in at just over 16 lbs. the carbon Parlee I raced last season weighed just over 15.

Beefy

To recap, the D-Plus is a custom Ti CX bike built by Davidson at EBB and features BB30, 44m inset 7 headset, butted tubing and track dropouts with a derailer hanger. It switches from single to geared and is stiff as fsck. It’s another version of the Modal concept developed by Mark V.

Fixed, Single, or Geared

Pressfit BB30 welded to Feathertec tubing

In a jig at Davidson Handbuilt Bicycles is our latest project bike. Davidson’s frame shop is just north of Pike Place Market; that place where they throw fish and buskers play street music. The bike is called the D-Plus because of all the +1s the build has. We’ll get into the plusses later, after the Seattle Bike Expo, the first rides, and into the 12 Cross season.

Is that a gigantic head tube or is this bike just happy to see you?

For now, the most interesting details include

• Press-fit Ti BB30 – available for about a year, this is the first Davidson built with BB30
• FeatherTec tubing – custom profiles, OS tubes
• Headtube for King Inset 7 – 44M for tapered steerers
• Paragon SS dropouts with a derailed hanger – swappable from SS, fixed, to geared.

A bong-sized BB, massive John Holmes head tube, and over-sized, thin-walled Ti tubing means a bike so stiff, it’s gonna hurt. Also with the ride qualities expected from Ti and carbon weights too.

The bike is tacked together now and next week, Max Kullaway will weld it. His welds are the best I’ve ever seen.

An evolution of the Modal concept to Cross

Seattle’s best welder

The story of a Bike

We’re sharing the build on G+ with feature follow-ups here by Mark V, who developed and designed the concept with Bill D, a master builder.

As it was told to me by Nick Burlow

I’ve been bugging Shawn Small of Ruckus Components about setting up my ‘cross bike with custom eyelets on the WCS carbon fork, as well as some of their custom carbon fiber fenders. We finally got together and as I am not to picky, I gave them complete artistic freedom on the paint / design work.

Graham Adams, painter for Ruckus Components, used an old hot rodders’ trick by using lace and create a unique pattern.

Being made from carbon, the fenders are not only light, they are also very stiff. This allows the use of a single strut (hand bent on each install by Shawn). I love the clean look of this set up. The custom eyelets on the fork are done so well they look stock.

May take a cyclist that’s had a progression of rain bikes with fenders to fully appreciate this set up. They’re like Honjos, in carbon, with enough fender clearance for a ham-fisted UCI official to get his fat fingers in there measuring your tires. This setup includes Ruckus molding eyelets onto your existing fork.

See more photos from Ruckus Components on Flickr and learn more about this project on their site.