For Sale: Boxer Bicycles Cargo Bus

The bike we built for the 2011 edition of the Oregon Manifest is for sale. You could call it a Cargo Bus, but I think the better description is a cross between a Chevy LUV pickup and a school bus. Sort of an El Camino or reverse Euro Mullet.

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Even with a load on the front, the bike is still lively for those inclined to ride quickly. But the Boxer Bicycles Cargo Bus really begs you to relax, forget your worries and need to hurry about. Why not take your time and enjoy the day?

It’s up for sale with a new improved rider interface/control setup. For the event it was built with downtube shifters, compact double cranks and a more aggressive riding position. Now, it’s equipped with a wide range triple crank set, bar end shifters and an upright riding position with the superb Nitto Albatross bars.

Details are as follows:

• Handbuilt cargo truck style frame with integrated platform rack and child carrier mount, butted steel tubing for the frame/fork and 4130 aircraft grade chromoly steel for the boom tube and rack. Frame has internal wire routing for front and rear lighting. Fork is built for the connector-free Schmidt SL dynamo hub, to provide simple wheel removal without the hassle of disconnecting your light wires.
• Schmidt SON Delux SL dynamo hub, eDelux headlight and Busch & Mueller fender mounted taillight.
• Handbuilt wheelset with 20″ front/650B rear with wide supple tires to smooth out and spice up the ride. Two additional 20″ tires are provided to fine tune the comfort and performance.
• Rear Shimano XT disc hub with a heavy duty axle and excellent dust shields to provide years of bomb proof service.
• Bike Handling optimized for front loading of cargo and/or passenger.
• Easy gear changes provided by Shimano indexed bar end shifters, right “at your fingertips.”
• Cold Forged Shimano XT triple crank set with comfortable MKS platform pedals.
• Wide, sturdy aluminum Honjo fenders with integrated mudflap up front to keep your feet dry and clean.
• Powerful Avid BB7 disc brakes and Jagwire Ripchord Kevlar reinforced cable housing for sure stopping in any weather.
• Brooks B-17 Special saddle for utmost comfort and good looks.
• High Visibility front mounted I-Bert child carrier seat. Chat with your passenger as you cruise along in style and comfort. Fits most children age 1-4 years weighing up to 38 pounds. 
• Handcrafted cargo satchel made of waxed cotton and supple leather to carry two grocery bags worth of stuff. Designed to still enable use of the removable child carrier when filled to capacity.
• Super easy rear wheel removal provided by the custom Integrated Chainrest System means you don’t have to get your hands filthy handling the chain! See this video for a demonstration of how it works on a Boxer Bicycle Randonneur.
• Handbuilt, chrome plated steel bott’le cage for wide mouth Stanley ‘Char-Vac’ insulated bottle (“thermos” is included). Great for keeping your oatmeal warm on those dark winter morning rides through the Pacific North West rain and chill.
• Zefal HPX Classic frame pump.
• Cargo only weight limit of 80 pounds.
• Cargo + Passenger weight limit of 65 pounds for safety and security of child and rider.
• European style integrated rear wheel cuff lock is great in low risk areas.
• Integrated lock can be replaced with optional custom rear pannier rack for even greater cargo capacity. Please inquire about the optional rear rack.

Bike basic dimensions are as follows:

• 55.5cm Seat Tube
• 57.0cm Top Tube
• 32″ Standover height
• 44.0cm Chain Stays
• 74″ overall length of bike + rack
• Rack platform is 19.5″ W x 22″ L
• 11.5cm Stem with about 1.5″ rise
• 170mm cranks Shimano FC-M730 Deore XT

We would prefer to sell this bike locally in the Pacific North West to avoid costly shipping fees and hassle. However, if you are interested and located out of this region, please contact us to discuss options.

This is a lightly used bike with less than 100 miles on it. There are a few small marks in the durable powdercoat finish, but overall it looks close to new. The Cargo Bus is for sale at $3300 (+ applicable sales tax).

Please contact us with any questions or to purchase.

Mitch wanted a bike that rode well, worked with him on the hills, let him do long day rides and brevets, handled well with a load – even an overnight camping load.

He did his homework and came to me with a sensible build kit with a few exotic pieces that just made the project that much cooler.
This graceful silver bike sports the same integrated chainrest design I’ve used on two Oregon Manifest entries, 2009 and 2011.

I believe the design was created by one of the contributors to Bicycles Quarterly, Mark Van deKamp, for his custom bike built by Curt Goodrich and tested in the magazine. A nice vintage iteration of this idea was recently displayed on the Bicycle Quarterly blog. It is used on a lovely 1962 Alex Singer, using a Nivex derailleur, custom fabricated dropouts and Maxi-Car hub with wing nuts.

Mitch is using thoroughly modern drivetrain parts on his bike, reserving the vintage parts for the MAFAC Raid centerpull brakes with brazed on pivots. Amazingly, the 11 speed Campy Athena brake/shifters shift the 8 of 9 nine speed cogs on the Dura Ace FH7700 rear hub, using a new Shimano Deore LX rear derailleur. I’ve modified the hub with a 7 speed freehub body to allow the extra drive-side room for the chainrest, which takes up the space where the smallest cog would be. The Campy shifters index perfectly with the derailleur and cassette, making the rear wheel removal that much easier.

You just shift to the highest gear position and the chain falls on the chainrest. Stop the bike. Remove the rear wheel as you normally would and the chain stays on the rest, which is stainless steel so no ruined powdercoat there, nor will it corrode over the years.

To replace the rear wheel, you need only move the body of the derailleur out of the way, like you normally do on a standard bike, but won’t have to handle the chain as it’s still sitting on the chainrest. Then you’d want to re-attach the straddle cable for the rear brake.

To get the chain off the chainrest, lift the rear wheel, get it spinning in the forward direction, click the front shifter onto the second or third cog on the cassette, then gently turn the crank forward and watch as the chain lifts off the rest and back onto the cassette cogs. Simple, elegant, keeps the bike and you clean. You could also just do a cyclocross style mount, where you run along side the bike and jump on as it’s rolling, then shift, turn the cranks and go.

It’s a nice system that works equally well on road or mountain hubs. There are a few limitations, in terms of specific models that are compatible with the 7 speed freehub body, but the selection is good enough that you aren’t likely to feel want for a better hub. The Shimano hubs are nice with decent seals for the loose ball bearings, so maintenance is simple and only needs to be performed once a season, if the bike has full fenders. Fortunately, with regular annual maintenance, these hubs can last for a very long time.

I’ve also posted a video on a recent post to this website. Check it out here.

It’s been fun to set this one up and I’m quite pleased with the shifting performance. I really was skeptical when Mitch requested it, but it seemed there were enough accounts of people doing just such a thing, on the interwebs, and you know how everything on the internet is true, right? The combo works so well, I’m even considering getting a set up like this on my personal bike.

Enjoy the bike Mitch, I certainly have!

I used two film cameras to shoot the following gallery, in addition to my standard digital SLR for in-shop shots. A new, to me, Olympus Pen FT with Zuiko 38/f1.8 half-frame camera was fun to use and good for close-up work, though the viewfinder is rather dim and the lens might do well with a CLA. The lens has a vintage character that is a nice contrast to the uber-sharp digital Nikon lenses I use. The Leica M6 Cosina Voigtlander Color Skopar 35/f2.5 is a nice, compact combo, also with a distinctive character. There’s a little distortion and vignetting but I sure do like how this set up fits in my coat pocket. Good stuff and adds to the enjoyment of documenting the creation of these bikes.

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The Boxer Bicycles integrated chainrest system allows the rider to remove and replace the rear wheel without handling the chain, keeping the rider and bike clean and facilitating easier rear tube replacement.

It’s an option on all Boxer Bicycles. It does require a specially modified Shimano rear hub or any freewheel hub that doesn’t use a cassette, but these parts are readily available.

This bike is a recent project, now headed to a lucky fellow in Zanesville, Ohio. Aside from the very useful chainrest, this bike is using Campy Athena 11 speed shifters with a nice Shimano Deore LX 9 speed rear derailleur. The cassette uses 8 of 9 Shimano cassette cogs. The whole system shifts flawlessly without resorting to any shifter modifications or Shiftmate products. These components are fully compatible right out of the box. Maybe we should keep this quiet so that Campy and Shimano don’t alter their products to be completely incompatible, as they’ve done with all their other drivetrain components.

I’m a downtube shifter user, myself, but this set up works so nicely, and uses lots of 9 speed stuff that lasts a decent amount of time, that I’m considering using it on my own bike. Now, if I just had one of those nice integrated chainrest thingies, I’d be riding in style. Maybe my bike will have an appointment with the torch sometime soon!

Tom is one of my very first “customers.” I built him a low trail replacement fork for his gorgeous Tournesol years ago, before I had officially opened for business. After a few years of enjoying that modified bike in many a Seattle International Randonneurs brevets, Tom got in the build queue for a complete Boxer Randonneur. So, Tom is my first repeat customer! Very cool. What an honor to be able to work with Tom again, because it is gratifying to know he liked my work enough that he wanted more. Very very cool.

Tom took delivery of his Boxer Randonneur a few months back and just recently I had it back in the shop for some modifications and a replacement decaleur. The original decaleur I built for his bike looked nice, but really didn’t have enough forward extension, nor vertical drop, to work well with his bag or handlebar position relative to the rack. So I built a replacement decaleur of a simpler, better-fitting, more functional design.

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We also swapped out the fenders for a wider set that give greater side clearance for the 32mm Panaracer Pasela tires he’s riding. Please ignore the dirty tires, he’s been riding it, okay?!

Oh yeah, this was the first time I got to use my new fork jig, designed and built by Alex Wetmore. I really like how simple it is to set up and loading and unloading the parts, which I have to do repeatedly in my fork building process, is super quick and easy. It also easily accepts my Anvil Bike Works dummy axles, which makes the jig worth the money, in my opinion. Alex sells these jigs as a kit, though it’s as a hobby project, since he’s a very busy guy with his day job. Thanks for making this jig available Alex!

For more information about the jig and Alex’s other offerings and projects.

The gorgeous paint was done by Keith Anderson.

Thank you Keith!

This bike was built for the Schmidt Son Deluxe SL dynamo hub, the one without external wire connectors. It’s a neat design that allows the rider to remove the front wheel without having to disconnect any wires. I like this idea and can imagine how it would be a very nice feature to have while fixing a flat tire on a dark and stormy night in the middle of a long brevet. I’m usually tired midway through a ride like this and I can imagine removing the wheel without disconnecting the wires from my standard SON 28 hub.

That would suck, because my back up headlight is usually a Planet Bike Spok front light. These things are dinky and totally insufficient for seeing one’s way. I like it very much as a headlamp to read the cue sheet in  the dark, but I only call it a back up light to meet the brevet requirements. It’s a gamble for sure, but I figure it is highly unlikely that my Schmidt lighting system would fail under normal riding conditions, so why bother carrying a bulky battery powered light that is not going to give the same performance of a high powered dynamo light? Instead I take the risk and carry the Spok.

All that aside, Tom will be riding this bike on brevets and his daily rides in and around Seattle, and I don’t know what his back up light of choice is. Thanks Tom!

Chris is a very well traveled fellow who wanted a travel camping bike. With glittering gold finish. On the frame _and_ fenders.

We built up a 700c wheeled S&S coupled frame and fork with all the braze-ons he could ever want for his custom handbuilt front and rear detachable low-rider racks. This was a nice project that turned out well and went to a super nice fellow in the Bay Area. Chis is a bit of a connoisseur and collector of modern Constructeur bicycles. His collection includes a Toei, an Ebisu and now this Boxer. Oh yeah, he also has a custom built Hunter unicycle.

Dang!

Chris is now gathering parts to assemble the Boxer Travel Camper.

On a side note, you might be wondering about me, since I had seemingly fallen off the face of the Earth after the Oregon Manifest Event. Well, I have no fancy answer, besides having been busy keeping my head down and working through some backlog in the build queue.

The Oregon Manifest is a fun and challenging event. I had a good time participating in 2009 and 2011. Unfortunately, it’s also a very demanding event, in terms of time, energy and financial expenses. This is ancient history, in modern smartfone, interwebs timeframe, but I figure I should at least mention it, since I did participate and have a great bike as a result (which will be up for sale in the very near future, so stay tuned!). For the 2011 event, the design criteria seemed to be rather different from the 2009 criteria so my entry was a major departure from the typical Boxer line up. In fact, it was so different that it may be the only Boxer Cycle Truck ever.

I’ve got other projects to share, which I will, over the next few days, so again stay tuned…

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Wayne received his new Boxer Travel Randonneur in early August, leaving just enough time for him to get familiar with it, work out any glaring fit issues and practice assembling and dis-assembling the bike before his departure for Paris.

PBP 2011 runs from 21st – 25th August. Thousands of riders, from all over the globe, will endeavor to join the league of Anciens, those who have completed this storied bicycle ride within the alloted time frame. Some riders hope to make a good time, finishing the brevet in as hurried a fashion as they possibly can. Other riders will simply be glad to finish at all. And then there are those special riders who endeavor to complete the ride as near to the time cut off limit as possible, getting the full meal deal, you might say.

Of these many thousands of intrepid riders, three will ride their Boxer Randonneur bicycles. I can not tell you how cool that feels. It’s why I do this, toiling away, day after day. Riding PBP  has been a goal for me for years and this and that other thing has conspired to keep me from it. In fact I missed the current edition (running as I type this) and the last, in 2007, so that I could continue to build Boxer Bicycles LLC, as a business and going concern. In ’07 Boxer Bicycles LLC didn’t officially exist, but I was building it behind the curtains, so to speak.

It will remain a goal for me, though I can’t forsee when I’ll actually ride it. Perhaps in four years. Perhaps in eight. Hard to say, but it’s still fun to dream and live vicariously through others who are experiencing it now. At this time, 11:18 pm PST Wayne is through the return controle at Tinteniac at 57:41 hours cummulated time, 867 kilometers of a 1200 km brevet.

I’m not sure which group he left with, but I think it was the 90 hour group. The official PBP website allows one to track riders and see some interesting breakdown of average speed between controls and overall average speed. It looks like that last stretch from Loudeac to Tinteniac was a slow go, though he may have taken a sleep break.

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Anyhow, I am so glad that Wayne appears to be riding well. I hope his experience is matching what I see in his numbers. Good times for Wayne. And Jeff. And Vinny. And Robert!

Go guys GO!

Check out the latest issue of paved Magazine, from the editors of Bike, that classic publication full of dirt-oriented cycling, for a very nice piece about the new-wave U.S. Constructeurs. The article profiles such superb builders as Peter Wiegle, Tony Pereira, Mitch Pryor, Steve Hampsten, Mark Nobilette and Mike Kone, and, if I may say so, myself.

I’m honored to be included in the same sentence as these guys, let alone enjoy a lovely display of my bikes and history in this new quality magazine. Each builder gets plenty of ink to talk about their passions for Constructeur bicycles, old and new.

It was fun learning something new about each of these builders. The article is accompanied by lovely photographs, including a few great shop shots – always interesting to the geekiest of bike geeks, myself a proud member.

I know this is horribly stale news, but there’s bound to be someone out there that wasn’t aware of this.

Find the magazine at your local book store/magazine stand or get it online at pavedmag.com.

The Oregon Manifest Design Challenge is rapidly approaching (October!) and it’s been busy round here finishing up bikes in the queue and celebrating Father’s Day and Katie’s birthday and on and on. Now I need to refocus and get this Oregon Manifest bike together.

They interviewed me for a builder spotlight and posted about it on theOregonManifest.com site. Read about it here.

Tom – that’s your fork in the fixture on the Oregon Manifest profile page. The photo is a month old.

Meanwhile, I keep my head down, deal with pollen allergies and enjoy the freshly filled oxygen and acetylene tanks.

That is Wayne’s travel Randonneur at the top of the page, from a couple weeks ago. It’s at the finishers waiting for a fine powder coat finish in Evergreen. Wayne is also headed to Paris in August for PBP.

Jeff picked up his new Boxer  Travel Randonneur, an S&S coupled bike, last week. Jeff is a fellow Seattle International Randonneur and has been riding brevets for a number of years.

Jeff has pre-qualified for the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200km Grand Randonnee. He just has to complete one remaining qualifying brevet, the Tahuya Hills 600k. That the brevet is named after the Tahuya Hills should tell you something about them thar hills, as there is plenty else of interest and challenge on the course to warrant naming the brevet after them in tribute.

I first rode the Tahuya Hills on a reconnaissance ride way back in late March 2004. I had been hearing about the difficulty of this very hilly section of our upcoming Spring 300k brevet on April 10. Word was not only are they pretty challenging, they are remote, to say the least, and they come along around 2/3 of the way into a 300km brevet.

Being a savvy rider and newb Randonneur, I took these warnings and tall tales to heart and prepared myself. I mapped out a route that took me from the Bremerton ferry terminal out to the Tahuya Hills and back, skipping the long stretch on US101 along the Hood Canal that precedes the fearsome hills. Not really knowing much about the area, I rode a part of the hilly section, then turned around and booked it back to the ferry terminal in time to get home before dark.

The second time I rode the hills was on that Spring 300k brevet a few weeks later and did some notable suffering through the hilly section until I arrived at Seabeck, where I boosted my bloodsugar with some quality rando junk food. By that point the sun had set and I was getting the chills, so I didn’t dally in Seabeck.

I finished that brevet in just over 15 hours, 15:01 to be exact, and missed the returning ferry, from Bainbridge Island, by seconds. While waiting for the next ferry, I ate the finest Cup O’ Noodles ever and chatted with Tim as we welcomed in the other finishing riders.

The Tahuya Hills that Jeff will encounter on the 600k brevet this weekend are different from the ones I rode in 2004. Jeff’s Tahuya Hills will be on the second day, possibly after dark, depending how quickly he rides the preceding portions of the brevet. I have a feeling Jeff’s hills will be harder than my 2004 Tahuya Hills. Let’s hope his new Boxer Randonneur will help him along and he’ll have appropriate gearing for the steep sections.

It’s built up with some very nice components and has a fabulous powder coat finish in a deep orange-y red, courtesy of Spectrum Powder Works. I built the wheels with Velocity Aerohead (non-O/C) rims, Schmidt SON Deluxe and White Industries H3 hubs and Wheelsmith double butted spokes. There’s a Sram 10 speed drivetrain mixed with a TA Carmina crank with 30/46T rings, SKF bottom bracket and 11/32T cassette. Honjo aluminum fenders, a Gilles Berthoud handlebar bag and leather saddle, and Paul Racer centerpull brakes mounted on braze-on bosses round out the package. And, let’s not forget the brilliant S&S couplers so Jeff won’t get dinged with an exorbitant baggage fee when he flies to Paris in August.

PBP won’t be Jeff’s first 1200km brevet. He completed the Cascade 1240km Grand Randonnee last year. Jeff’s bike will be one of four Boxers ridden in PBP this year. That a very nice feeling, let me tell you.

Bon voyage et bon courage, Jeff!

There’s a gallery of some detail pics of this bike. Just click the picture above.

As usual, I’m late to the game, but here I go jumping on this tired old bandwagon…

This is my first try at making a video of my brazing sequence for the front triangle. It’s more like a very fast slideshow, rather than an actual video. My DSLR is a bit of a dinosaur and doesn’t have video capabilities, but for my simple documentary use it’s fine.

brazing front triangle from Boxer Bicycles on Vimeo.

Sorry no kittens or super chubby babies. Pretty basic, but it seemed like it might interest somebody to see it.
I delivered a new bike yesterday, but I’ll share more about that later.
I’ve been off the randonneuring habit for a while now. Between building bikes, raising my son and being a decent husband, it’s just been too much to fit into my schedule. Until recently, I haven’t missed it that much.

Well, that’s all changed. Get a load a this!

http://lemilledusud.blogspot.com/

This brevet has my wheels turning again. No chance of riding it this year, but next year perhaps?

Katie and I rode through the southern parts of this region and went through some of the exact same villages on this 1000km brevet. The blog has a nice pictorial cue sheet of places along the route. Might be a little repetitive to the un-initiated, but got me excited. It looks like a great challenge with 43000 feet of climbing in 1000km. Such a gorgeous part of France, though.

Ahhh, to dream again…