Bye, bye Goat blog

As technology marches on, we try to keep up. For awhile blogs were going to be a great marketing tool until they ran into the Facebook juggernaut. A Facebook post just takes a couple of seconds to do and is easy to share with your friends. I always felt that a blog posting needed to be much more informative and formal which took a fair amount of time. So, I would like to invite you to "like" the Mountain Goat Facebook page and keep up with the Goat happenings there.

Escape Route update

The Escape Route has been our planned import frame. We wanted to be able to offer a less expensive alternative to our custom frames and it looked like we could offer a similar spec frame for about half of what the customs cost. We went through the design phase which includes every conceivable detail. Once we were happy with the design, we had a couple of sample frames made. We built them up so we could put some miles on them. Unfortunately, the orange sample had a quick drop out issue. The drop out was spec'ed as 4130 which should be plenty strong, but the slot was opening up. The black sample lasted a little longer but it also had a widening slot and eventually the drop out cracked. We were able to get enough miles on them to figure out 6 or 7 minor changes. We submitted those and ordered a second round of samples which were produced. This is where we ran into a snag. The factory wanted to charge us for the samples which we believed should be no-cost replacements. I started to worry that the factory was giving us a hard time about a couple of frames while they were trying to earn our business. What would happen if we had issues with 100 frames after the cashed the check??

Anyway, still not sure what will become of the project. We did make a couple of inquiries with a couple other factories but really haven't followed up with them. Watch this space for updates.

F-K-R

We had this spec frame built up by Curtis Inglis and just got it back from Russ @ AirArt. I originally was going to do a bright red but Russ talked me in to the maroon color and I think it looks fantastic. We are going be be building it up with some vintage-themed parts and will try to post some "in progress" pictures. This is going to be a very cool bike!

Ti Route 29 resplendent in bamboo!

This has been a fun bike to do. We have been working with the new owner for awhile now and have picked out everything on the bike. He wanted to do a Ti Route 29 but wanted to paint it with the classic bamboo paint. I have always thought that one of the best things about titanium was the lack of the "need" to finish it. You can always go back and brush/polish it to a like new finish. Slap on some new decals and your 5 year old bike looks factory fresh. I guess the problem can be that damn near every Ti bike looks like the next one. I don't think that will be a problem with this bike. I really like the way Russ left a little bit of unpainted Ti in the sliding drop outs. Anyway, this one will be crossing the ocean in the next day or two and I hope to be able to post pictures of the build and maybe even a couple of action shots. And oh yeah, how cool are those bamboo painted Ti Goat Horn handlebars!!

Vintage 1983 Escape Goat

Just copying this one from the MOMBAT.org blog. Figured it fit pretty easily in both places!

The early Mountain Goats used oval tubing and beautifully finished fillet brazed joints. All of the tubing manipulation and finish work drove the cost of the frames up. The Escape Goat was an effort to bring theses costs down. The frames featured standard round tubing and unfiled fillets. Parts were often less expensive as well with items such as the fork being an off-the-shelf part as opposed to the custom Mountain Goat forks found on the top models. For more pictures, see 1983 Escape Goat page.

Vintage Mountain Goat Deluxe circa 1992

All of the first Mountain Goat frames used the ovalized Phil Wood tandem boom tubes for the top and down tubes. Later, when the Escape Goat and Whiskeytown Racer models were added, this model became the Deluxe. The idea was to give the frame a little more "give" for a little more comfortable ride. This was the "RAD" or Ride All Day philosophy.


More pictures and details @ 1992 Deluxe page (Twitter and Facebook "share" links)

Goat updates

Quite a bit going on in Goat-land which makes it a little tough to post more frequently. Anyway, here are a couple of quick updates.
-The Ti Goat is at paint right now. Russ is applying a fresh coat of Bamboo pain to a Ti frame, Rock Shox and Ti Goat Horn handlebars. This one should be sweet!

-Curtis has finished up 2 F-K-R frames which are also heading to AirArt. One will be a root beer brown with cream head and fork panels while the other will be the same except in bright red. We also had to convince Russ to pain and pinstripe some rims for the brown bike. Once this one is assembled, it is off to Mountain Bike Action for some testing! The red bike is a spec bike and is available for purchase. We'll probably build it up for display at the shop.

-Jeremy has another couple of frames in line as well. One will be Team Orange and heading to England while the other is (possibly) slated for a bright Kermit green.

-The whole imported Escape Route frame has been a supreme headache. The first sample frames were pretty close but we changed a handful of dimensions after riding them. The troublesome part was the drop outs, both frames ended up with distorted sliders pretty quickly. Supposedly, they were 4130 cro-moly which should have been fine so I am unsure as to what happened. It is enough to make me wonder what direction to take next. Doesn't seem to be a clear cut direction yet.

Anyway, that is what has been happening. As the temperatures drop a bit, the shop will likley slow a bit and we'll do a better job of keeping everyone up to date.