San Diego Tour De Fat

Homebrewed Components will be at the San Diego Tour De Fat this weekend (Saturday)
Look for me on my rootbeer rig. You’ll recognize my brown spiderless chainring and the new ti and aluminum cog prototype pictured in the post below. Feel free to stop by and check out the stuff!
Dan

New Cog Prototype

In the works are several new cogs. I am now offering threaded cogs for those running BMX type hubs. These are released and avalible for purchase. Also, i am making a 2 piece cog with an aluminum spider and ti or stainless teeth. This helps bring the weight down considerably over a standard stainless steel cog, but you still get the longevity. This expecially helps out on larger cogs. You’d save about 25g on a 20t over a standard stainless. Also, this allows you to have cool anodized colors that you normally couldnt get with steel or ti. The actual steel or ti piece (ti in these pictures, 18t) is an actual press fit onto the aluminium spider around the pins and into the pockets. It is captured in there so you actually have both the pins and the pockets driving, instead of just the pins. Then the pins are swedged to keep the cog from coming off.
These pins are also machined from the spider, so it’s all one piece to give it strength instead of drilling holes and using rivets.
The release date on these will be in about 1-2 weeks.
They have a 5mm base, offset to one side.

Did a little pre-ride of part of the San Jacinto Enduro race course

So a couple friends of mine; Dave, from Pedal One Long; and Brendan from Siren Bicycles ; along with a few other new acquaintances of mine pre-rode part of the San Jacinto Enduro this weekend. They are the guys putting it on, so it was cool to be part of the exploration of the course. If you decide to race it, be prepared for an ass-kicker. There are some really nice views along with a beer pit stop along the way, so i think the suffering will be worth it.
Here’s a couple teaser pics of Brendan (top) and myself (bottom) trying a new line he discovered around a fairly large pebble. Look forward to lots of techy fun singletrack with a fair share of obstacles. definitely not your typical Socal race course.

Check out these sites

My friend Brendan owns Siren Bicycles. He makes some really trick frames. I’m really looking forward to scoring one, hopefully in the near future. Click here for his site.

Also, my friend David owns Pedal One Long. He makes some really cool bike oriented shirts and goodies. Click here to check out his blog.

Last but not least, check out David’s wife Yumi’s online store. She also makes some cool shwag, some of which is bike oriented as well. Click here to check it out.

Shop photos

As requested, here’s some shop pics. It’s nothing impressive, but it’s all tight equipment. Some are new pics, some are old so some stuff might be different in other pics.

So here’s what Homebrewed Components is about.

So you might be wondering “Who is this Homebrewed Components, and what do they do?”. Well here’s your answer.
Homebrewed Components was founded by me, Dan Wilcox. After being a Machinist/Engineer for my whole working life, i decided to start up my own machine shop. Granted, doing it in the height of the economic recession was probably not the best of ideas, but i figured what does not kill me will only make me stronger. Also, i figured it would keep me from making a bunch of useless crap that has flooded the markets partialy causing this predicament we’re in.
At first, i started making parts for other companies and building tooling for people i had worked for in the past. That was going ok, but it wasnt really what i wanted to do with my capabilities. Also, i take pride in what i do, and if i’m going to make something, i want my name on it, not someone else’s.
Now here’s where i started thinking… what do i like to do the most? Well, that would be creating things and mountain biking. How can i put those 2 together? Well duh, make bike parts! At first it was just going to be a hobby to cure some boredom in between the normal work. I started making chain tensioners using part of a design that i had made a few years ago. The only modifications i did to it were basically a little material removal to lighten them up. I posted them up on a web forum and got some decent feedback along with a few orders.
I decided it was time to expand a bit from there. I had some titanium kicking around so i whipped up a cog for myself and one for my buddy Rodd, who was moving to Wisconsin. I posted those up and once again, i got some pretty good feedback.
The next stage was fairly obvious, it was time to make some chainrings. It took me a bit to come up with a design i liked, but i managed to find something that was light, strong, and visually apealing.
Since then, the orders have been coming in fairly steadily. I’ve been working my ass off to complete all the designs, tooling, and programing for all the different bolt patterns and tooth counts. This has been a bit more work than i first thought, but it’s getting near completion. I seem to have a good process down and quality has been great along with cycle times. It’s still leading to a good 12+ hour work day 7 days a week though. Needless to say, it has become more of a full time gig and i have been treating it that way with how much i’m investing time and moneywise. I couldnt ask for a better job though, i’m really enjoying the interaction with all my customers. There are some really awesome people out there, and i have yet to have a “problem customer”, even though i’ve fallen behind occasionally when a design was taking longer than expected. Thankfully most of that is over now that i have a system” in place for designing and programing, plus alot of the sizes are already done. however, i’m still experimenting with speeds and feeds for cutting along with cutting tools, but that doesnt really hinder my work output though.
Also, i’ve begun anodizing my parts in tons of cool colors. Im going to start working on multi colored anodizing along with a possible camo ano. I’ve also switched alloys on my stainless cogs from 316 to a heat treated 17-4. This makes them LOADS stronger, however it costs me alot more in materials. That’s ok though, it’ll be worth it in the long run since i dont think anyone is offering that.
There are still tons of things on the drawing board from sliding dropouts to tensioners for converted single speeds to possibly complete cranksets. I’m pretty excited to see where this goes as i have TONS of ideas.

The pups!

Mya, my new puppy, and Max.

Utah/Arizona trip

Well i took a much needed 4 day vacation this labor Day weekend and went on a road trip to do some mountain biking with my buddy Brandon. The first place we hit was Gooseberry Mesa. I’ve been there before, and it’s loads of fun. I wish it was a bit longer, but it was a great warm-up after a few weeks off from riding due to a broken hand.
Later that day we hit up the Jem Trail, which was also pretty fun yet short. We crossed the highway and rode up some other trail back to the car.
Brandon was having issues with his rear brake and took a good digger at Gooseberry so we stoped down to Over The Edge, a local bike shop in Hurricane. My friend David told me to hit up the mechanic (also named Dave) for some trail info, so it was a planned trip anyways.
Dave was extremely helpful, and not only fixed Brandon’s brake, but showed us some new loops on the map. I shamelessly plugged my shwag while i was there, and to my surprise he was already aware of it.
So on to that night… Brandon and i had decided to camp out in the Little Creek Mesa area and ride it in the morning. We’ve ridden there before, but it was one of our favorites so we were both amped on it. We woke up and began our ride. This was the third time i rode my new GF Rig, so i was still getting used to it. Brandon had the same bike, but he had bought it earlier this year. I was pretty happy with how it handled overall. Some stuff definitely seemed easier, but there was some stuff that i couldn’t clear that i had cleared in the past. I think it was mostly due to the tires and the weight of the bike, since my PUSS was at least 4lbs lighter. Other than that, it seemed to roll over alot, and my confidence definitely went up.
After our ride, we both took a good nap and woke up unsure what to do next. Brandon mentioned Flagstaff and Sedona Arizona the day before, so we decided to go for it. We rolled into Flagstaff that evening, and got a room at Motel 6.
The next morning, we began our ride. It started with a decent climb up a fire road then followed by a good amount of fast, flowy single track. There were some techy rocky sections, but overall it was a quick ride. I wouldn’t have minded sticking around a little longer but we decided just to roll on through to Sedona.
Now this was my favorite ride of the weekend. There were tons of technical ups and downs, some ridable, some not. The red rock was amazing, much like the slick rock at Gooseberry, but a bit more technical. I definitely pushed the limits on some sections, but the bike definitely inspired a bit more confidence. There were some pretty huge step-ups that i went for and amazingly cleared. Adrenaline was flowing, and a little luck was definitely on my side. I’m not sure if it was a few days of riding in a row that did it or if it was just pure adrenaline, but i just had an awesome day.
Anyways, that was pretty much the end of it aside from a very long drive home through the desert with no a/c. I was pretty excited to get home and see the dogs. I never like leaving Max, but the fact that i just got a new puppy (Mya) just made it worse. Those 2 have become best of friends thankfully. 

Brandon (left) and i (right)

Brandon

Brandon

Me

me again

some fun shit

Brandon

First Post!

Well due to popular demand, i have finally sat down and started a blog. This is new to me, so bear with me while i figure all this out.