2005's bike: takeapart roadster
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Every year I try to build one bike frame. Right on schedule, with 2 months to go, I finally started on this one. I've been wanting to build a bike that breaks down into two pieces for travelling. There'a couple different ways to do it and I've been mulling over different couplings and styles of bikes. In the end I finally decided I was going to build something simple. If I'm going to travel to a city most likely I'm going to want the bike to explore around. So I wanted something that I could ride around in sneakers and relax. So I based it off of the old 3 speeds, though mine will probably just run a coaster brake.

The coupling method is a combination of the classic Rene Herse style slip fit and the modern Ritchey Breakaway. Dual seatpost clamps will allow the frame to separate near the top, and a telescoping coupling is installed near the bottom bracket.

Because the lower joint already looks like a long lug, I thought I'd build the frame with lugs. But to make the frame fit into a 26x26x10 box, I had to slope the top tube. Plus I decided to run 590mm wheels. The bike became unconventional enough that I'd have to fabricate my own lugs. That means that I'll almost have to build every joint twice, but I think the final product will be worth the effort.

Here's a screenshot of the frame in Autocad. The green box is the 26x26x10 envelope.