Jen’s Porteur

Jen was looking for a comfortable bike with a generous amount of standover clearance. She was also interested in a bike that could easily carry a lot of stuff for her daily commute/grocery trips/car-free lifestyle.

The Wald 137 front basket has enough capacity and it’s easy enough to just simply toss things in (like a grocery bag or two). We also had Reload make us one of their Waldo basket bags which is perfect as a daily commuter bag. Fortunately the Sim Works Wonder bars chosen during her fitting have just enough clearance with the bag and basket nestled between them. To hold all this I made a custom platform rack for a solid, secure, and wiggle free setup up. The low trail front end geometry will make handling heavy loads easy.

The extra standover clearance came with some additional challenges. Fortunately I’ve been making my own lugs so getting the angles required was no problem. I decided to forgo my normal side attached seat stays as they looked a little weird with these angles, where the fast back seat stay style looks quite nice. A bit of forming here and there was required to make the tires and fenders fit and just enough room to squeeze a cable hanger in there for the cantilever brakes. Definitely one of those builds where I needed all parts in hand to test several different setups before deciding on what works.

The thin walled Kaisei tubing, Rene Herse 26″x 1.8″ Natches Pass tires, and Sprung Brooks flyer saddle make this one smooth riding bike.

Last but not least, these colors! Vibrant colors and semi-gloss finish perfectly done by Black Magic Paint.