Steelwool Bicycle Co.

650b Road

admin — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 04:20:23 +0000

New goodies for online shop.

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:29:47 +0000

Light box

admin — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:47:13 +0000

Sewing, cutting, punching, dying…

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:13:13 +0000

Online shop and more!

admin — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:29:53 +0000

Well yes we have been neglecting the blog a little bit as of late, but we have a good excuse! Our bike shop Tall Tree Cycles has been pretty nuts over the holidays, what with warm weather, Thom vacationing in England and store reno's. Not to mention we have been a bit run off our feet with the volume of custom frames that we are working on these days. Somewhere in between all this crazyness we have been working on implamenting a new point of sales system, and trying to launch the Steelwool General Store. The general store store is something we have been planning on launching for a few years, but wanted to do it right so it's taken a while. The launch is right around the corner and we will post more soon with all the details.

Truffle Pig Frame Sale

admin — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:46:36 +0000

The need to MAKE (A new workshop)

admin — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 20:23:03 +0000

Some people may wonder how and why Thom and I started Steelwool and the answer is actually quite simple, we are idea people. Anytime we get together and don't have to deal with some necessary evil like placing orders or dealing with some sort of administrative duties (which is consuming more of our time than we would like) we start throwing around ideas. This is the sort of thing happens: "Hey Will lets I have this great idea for a new dropout, it will solve that problem......" or "Hey Thom lets make a new alignment table out of this old piece of machinery I saw over at......" pretty normal daily banter. It's not surprising that after spending years working in and running bike shops that we would dream up our own bike brand and open a bike store (which was only supposed to be a showroom for Steelwool in the beginning). Almost six years later here we are. For most people that would be enough to satisfy a creative outlet, but apparently that's not enough for me. If I don't have some sort of fabrication project on the go I start to feel a bit stir crazy. So that leads to my other passion, making bags. As a teenager I always wanted a cool messenger bag, at that time choices were pretty limited. I had an early timbuk2 bag but it never quite did it for me. It just so happened that in my parents basement there were a number of industrial sewing machines. My dad would make the occasional bag, I remember him rushing to finish this super complicated travel bag only a couple days before he left on a big trip. As I understand it he also used to make his own climbing harnesses before commercial ones were readily available. I also just recently found out that my Grandfather used to make his own bags, often from leather and canvas. So I guess it's no real surprise that with some guidance I started making my own bag designs and learned to sew them. Over the last few years I have been developing my designs, have been learning to work with new mediums. Originally I mainly used cordura and tarpaulin, but have transitioned to using waxed canvases and leather. Along the way I have been acquiring the necessary machines and tools to have a proper workshop to work with these mediums. Space was always the issue though, my apartment was only so big, one industrial sewing machine in the spare bedroom and a dining room table that had turned into an almost permanent cutting table (my wife is very understanding...). This year we moved into a house and I have had a chance to set up that workshop that I have been dreaming about in the basement. Hey it's off the dining room table! Here are some shots of the new set-up. Over the winter months I will post about the side projects I'm working on. Will

Rossland

Thom J — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 01:00:17 +0000

Rossland Rossland, a small, historically rich town in the Monashee Mountains, lays several ribbons of single track stretching for more than 150 km. Here, riders can test their mettle on the beautiful and punishing Seven Summits Trail. A 35 km point to point trail climbing seven peaks, Seven Summits takes you to a maximum elevation of 2300 meters. From there you are treated to a near 9 km descent. This trail is classified as an IMBA Epic ride, and is definitely worthy of the designation. Lily and I started the ride by parking at the north trail head at the Nancy Greene Summit. We had decided we or I would have to ride back to the Element to pick it up at the end of the ride. No problem, it's only 30 km. We started off and happened to meet one of Rossland's city councilors, Kathy, and her husband Dave. We mentioned that we were doing the full Seven Summits and they asked how we planned to get back to the north trailhead. I confidently replied that we planned on riding back up. They asked if we had lights and then kindly offered to pick us up at the south trailhead. A big thanks to Kathy and Dave, because when we finished, both Lily and I were tired. The signage at the top of the trailhead recommends that riders carry 1 L of water per hour of riding, and we found this to be a reasonable estimate. I do want to say that I still had some left in the tank and we still had daylight, but who is going to want to do a 22 km road climb after all that fun in the mountains? We spent two nights and one day in Rossland. We stayed at the Prestige hotel and had the Sunshine cafe to provide us with breakfast and good coffee. Decent shops and restaurants in town. We both wished we had time to sample more, but further adventure awaited us.

More photos from cross.

admin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:19:58 +0000

Cyclocross in Almonte + New Kits

admin — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:53:19 +0000