Speedbird Update

It's been a while since I provided a Speedbird update. One of the primary features of the bike has always been a reproduction Triumph girder built by Jake Robbins. AIt can be frustrating but almost every project has some element of third party dependencies that fail to meet agreed delivery time lines. Jake is one of the worst cases of this I've ever been aware of. 3+ years is a long time to deal with repeatedly missed deadlines, excuses, hardships, ignored emails, unanswered phone calls, etc. Ultimately my buddy had to get a family to repeatedly show up onsite at Jake's shop to get him to complete the fork. That said he seemed to have zero trouble getting around to depositing the sizable payment checks. This is the sort of stuff that often torpedoes projects forever. I'm so glad the fork has finally been delivered. It's very difficult build a frame and do mock-up without a fork. I've said it dozens of times but despite the hardships the Speedbird is going to be an absolute work of art.

 

This photo of the fork's packaging as delivered is kinda representative of the whole experience. Jake does amazing work but I certainly wouldn't recommend doing business with him based on the Speedbird experience. The guy is just a flake of unparalleled proportions.

 Just for comparison sake here is the case Stephen built to ship the fork on it's final Trans-Atlantic shipping leg.