NAHBS 2012 – Co-Motion, Form, and Black Sheep’s 36″ Wheeled Bike
The Co-Motion Divide has been high on the wish list of personal bikes I want to own for a while now. It’s a go anywhere, do anything rig, and this special NAHBS build makes me want one even more. This is the first Divide to come out of Co-Motion with a Gates Carbon Belt Drive and Rohloff Hub.
For the full build details, plus a full suspension fat tire bike from Form and a 36″ wheeled monster from Black Sheep, hit the jump.
It uses a prototype cog from Gates to be used with their center track belts on a Rohloff hub.
The E-Werk charger from Busch and Muller is a great addition to this rugged touring bike. It takes the electricity from the front hub and converts it to an output that just about any electrical device can use. In this case, the Garmin GPS is being chaged by the E-Werk device.
The Rohloff hub is shifted by this Gilles Berthound after market shifter imported from France. It is made to fit a smaller diameter bar, so this Divide is fited with a 26.0 bar. It slides up in three separate pieces, and is then clamped just before the flare in the bar.
Also powered by the front hub is a permanently mounted light.
Form
Hailing from Arizona, Form Cycles cranks out some pretty interesting titanium bikes. There was one definite stand out in their booth this year though. The full suspension fat tire bike.
This soft tail gives the rider 44mm of travel in the rear by implementing an internal, custom made, steel spring and flex from the ti stays. Sure, 44mm may not make a huge difference when you have a fat tire bike like this on sand or snow, but hit some rock gardens and you’ll be glad it’s there.
From has also designed and built a custom offset lefty front end that gives the rider 110 mm of front travel.
The custom lefty mounts provide the offset needed to run such a huge tire. Want one for yourself? Good news, Form is planning on selling a complete front end conversion for your fat tire bike.
They also took a Surly rim, stripped the paint, and drilled new spoke holes to allow for the custom offset in the front. Would I do this with a road wheel, heck no. But when you have a 4″ wide tire, I am told that you don’t notice a difference. The rims are tubeless bead socket technology using Stan’s No Tubes design and come polished from Fatback Cycles in Anchorage, AK.
Black Sheep
Black Sheep showed up with one of the craziest bikes at the show. This 36″ wheeled monstrosity nabbed them the award for best experimental bike. They also took home best tig construction. Not to shabby.
Oversized headtube…Check.
At five pounds per tire, I don’t think these are going to catch on any time soon.
Black Sheep had one of the first Paul Hubs spaced at 170mm with a 36 whole drilling. It was crucial to make this wheel work.
Also on display in their booth was this snazzy fat tire cargo bike.
The rear of the frame splits at both the seat stays and chain stays so that the entire back half can come off.
Complete with growler!
Last but not least is their Fat Tire single speed just hanging out.
Comments
What kind of tire is on the 36″ Black Sheep? And is it really 5lbs each? I think that a 700c version would be cool on a cruiser or something similar.
Coker tires. I believe they make them primarily for unicycles, if I’m not mistaken.
Is that blacksheep 36er the same one (with different parts) they brought last year? Or did they actually sell two of them?
I got to see that bike in person….it was awesome….even for a road bike snob such as myself.
Unicycle tires?!
This is a different bike than last year as they built one for each of the 3 guys in the shop for the new year. There is a better write up on the NAHBS site about what made this one different. I’ve had mine for 9 months here in NC and I know they’ve sold a handful more since in varying configurations. There are roughly 30-50 in “circulation” worldwide by our estimates.
Yes, they are unicycle tires and yes they are 5 lbs each. The rims are also overbuilt and heavy. Even with the slightly better Nimbus tires my wheels are 10lbs each for a 35lb bike. There are a few of us that have been working together on producing lighter weight tires which is moving along nicely, but we have gotten to some dead ends on rims so far. Once the tires are out that may hep speed up the rim discussions. The new tires should drop 2lb per wheel but we are just now receiving the first prototypes so lots of work to be done still.
@MB
Can you give some more details or links so that we (the people in the internet) can order some?
I’m looking to build a 36er soon for a fun/townie bike, but the wheel weight is definitely a detractor. Fixing that would make me very interested.
Blacksheep – I’d argue they’ve got the best headbadge in the biz….
I am also very keen to get more info on these 36″ bikes, Have had an interest in this for a while now.
Please give us a contact or link
Is 36″ the same as 650B?
@brett – No, 650B is a smaller wheel than a a 29″ wheel. 36″ is bigger than a 29″ wheel.
The new wheels are still in prototype stage, but I’ll post here when we have more info. They will be for sale through a builder once we all agree on the prototypes.
The current tires are available at unicycle.com (Nimbus is their house brand) and are fine for a cruiser IMO, but less than ideal for trails, especially if any mud is present as they cake up like crazy. For me, even as a 35lb bike the 36er is the ultimate flatland/rolling cruiser as once you get to speed the wheels as act flywheels and keep you rolling and rolling, especially with some nice hubs. Hills suck, but hills suck anyways.
Search for the poll we did on mtbr for 36er tires and you’ll find a LOT more info.
@ Speedy – I just measered my 650B Scott scale and the wheels were definitely bigger than a 29″ wheel. Like 34″