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Opportunites to gloat over our successes arrive few and far between.

However, just as a blind squirel is bound to find a nut, Tonic Fab has encountered some good people along this safari of self-promotion, metal joinery, cutting oil, and unit known in america as the thousandths of an inch.

It's well known that hard work builds character. What's not so well known is that building bikes enables you to encounter a great deal of characters. Here are a few...

A funny interview with our UK distributor, Nigel Page, can be found here. Fast forward to the part inwhich he describes drag racing a drunk in a Cadillac on his PK Ripper.

Billy Spaceman. Rider of one of only a very few Tonic Track frames. Billy can not possibly be summarized here. This is his website. This is Billy Myspaceman.

Guy Marsh. Able to ride a Fall Guy in a manner in which I could't possibly have imagined possible.

Charlie. Charlie ran for class president last year. His campaign posters consisted of that photo and below it, a blank space in which he requested "No one write anything bad about the other candidates here." Disqualified because of that poster. Not having political obligations has allowed him to devote more time to riding his Fall Guy. 3 at Softies.

-L

"Virtual Shop Tour"

Inspiration for the the following announcement can be traced to a combination of stress, access to cheap wine, and a bleak view of the world. You can thank Tonic Fab for lacking even the slightest hint of discretion with regard to what it publishes.

Unfortunatley, you have only yourselves to blame for reading it.


We are really proud of the group of people who have decided to ride a Tonic Fab. There's a small group of people who we've helped out with bikes because they've insprired us as both riders and individuals. The newest member of our little posse is Guy Marsh. We are stoked to have Guy riding our bike, and I can't wait to heal up so I can go ride with him. If you've been to any of the recent Softies Jams, you've witnessed him in action. Speaking of action, check out these photos (1, 2) of Guy on his freshly built Fall Guy. Looks pretty comfy on his new rig...

In other news, Pennsylvanain trail boss, Chad Knavel is racing pro-dual slalom on his geared Fall Guy. He also won his class in down hill race. Congrats.


You are obviously computer literate enough to be reading this. How about using your expensive computer for a cheap laugh? These clips reminds of a certain collection of G.I. Joe public service announcements that kept me laughing for who knows how long...Get ready to laugh. And laugh some more. And some more.


Now for the shop tour. It's a cramped garage, but we've slowly outfitted in to do our bidding.

Here's a few yokes after receiving the end cuts. Before being installed into a Fall Guy they still require pocketing for weight savings, edge radiusing, and finally bending. We accomplish all of these operations ourselves. We consider this part essential to the Fall Guy. It's what enables the Fall Guy to have such short chainstays and clearance for large tires. As a finished part, it's gorgous, but unfortunately extremely time consuming to produce. Neither cheap, or easy. In fact, it's cheaper to buy a painted, cro-moly frame out of Taiwan than it is to outsource this part locally.

Tonic Fab's alignment table. Our stickers suck, our website is slow to change...at least the frames are straight. Pick your battles I guess...

Some Fall Guy's in process. The building blocks of our global empire. I think it's OK to announce we'll be buying Trek soon. Expect to see Bontrager frames in '07.

Tonic Fab's tooling department.

"Very im-press-ive Mr.Carter..." This is our Forming department.

Fall Guys: Still available and taking deposits. Commit to riding a weird bike, choose a color, throw us some money, and away you go...

L

The New Deal

"What do you mean you don't use lugs!?!?!?"

Tonic Fab operates out of a small, cramped garage. In the summer we are hot, and in the winter we are cold. Metal chips litter the floor, along with C-clamps, beer cans, fixturing and raw materials. Care must be taken to avoid injury while navigating our impossibly tiny space. We are considering submiting photos of our working conditions to a local NGO...who knows what sort of aid our shop would qualify us for? Maybe a tetanus shot clinic? Maybe we could get a grant to install running water?

Sweatshop style working conditions aside, we've managed to get some Fall Guys done.
These are the latest version, and feature:

1) Same old geometry. This seems to be working of people.

2) Same old colors. Baby Blue, Green, and Gray. Here's a shot of the Colors.JPG

3) Integrated Style head tubes. The same as 99% of decent BMX frames. The final 1% is reserved for Stricker's signature model. If Stricker ever wants a Fall Guy, he can have a standard HT...

4)Mid-BB. Compatible with any 3/4" spindle BMX crank. Like Profiles. Not like Primos.


The frames will be coming with headsets and BB's installed. The headset top cap will be painted to match the frame, and the BB will be a genuine Profile Mid-BB kit with the Hop-Up caps painted to match the frame as well. This looks really nice.

The Bad news is that we are raising the price of the frames.

New Price: $650 (this includes headset and BB)

We are also going to offer a parts package deal for people building up Fall Guys.

For $1050 you get:

Frame /headset/BB

Fork: Manitou Gold Label 80mm /20mm thru axle

Seat Post: Thomson 26.8 / 330mm

Tonic is taking deposits and color choices as of now.

A deposit is 20% down

Moving on....

Tonic was invited to attend the first annual Portland Bike Builder show at City Hall last week. Organized by bikeportland.org, pictures here.

Very attended, and nice to meet with the public. Vanilla was there, showing some very nice looking stuff, especially that trike!

Here's a blurry shot of our table. Notice the completed Integrated Bike, and some of the small parts we use on the Fall Guy in both the raw, and finished forms. tonictable.JPG

What else? I'm broken, a sprained knee will keep me from riding my Fall Guy in the near future, but things could be worse.

Now for a couple riding photos: One is Nic showing nice form over a hip on his new Fall Guy. The other is Doss having fun on his Fall Guy in some shady areas. In both senses of the term.