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Bike stuff and shop cats
Bike stuff and shop cats
No babies, we swear
No babies, we swear
Buy nice parts
Buy nice parts
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"We're not too serious about what we do with our bikes...just serious about what we put on them." ~Paul

 

Quick Release Seat Post Collar

(A.K.A. The Poor Man's Dropper Post)


Best used for travel, shredding, or travel shredding.

The Quick Release Seat Post Collar is made to our same exact, bullheaded, ornery standards:
  • Tight tolerances - no sinking seat post as you ride.
  • Superb fit and finish - you know we always dial it in.
  • The classic internal cam function that's more powerful than any other QR - remember, we're known for it.
It's an easy to use, economical piece of equipment. We would say it's sexy, but it's so small, we're leaning more towards cute...

In fact, who're we kidding, it's adorable. But classy. Kinda like a bow tie, only made of metal.

If you want to see it in action,
check out this video of the Plastic Bastard if you haven't seen it already. The blooper proved our point.

Available in 28.6, 31.8, and 35 mm. Surly fans, we'll have a 33.1 down the road. Until then, hang in there. We got you.

 

Our oldest machine is from - get this...

1995!!

Here it is:
The Leadwell 610, a lathe we grew up with and that once made our derailleurs.
Paul Derailleur we no longer make.
The new Vertical Machining Center
You remember 1995, right? Smashing Pumpkins? Michael Jordan returns to the NBA? Mel Gibson was almost like the real William Wallace?

The 610 was obviously an incredible machine to have worked for so long. The past five years it's been relegated for prototype work, but these last few months, it's given up the ghost (not to be confused with the movie Ghost - that was 1990), so it's off to the great machine heaven in the sky. Or, to put it more bluntly, the scrap yard.

In all seriousness though, this is a sentimental departure. We grew up with this machine, and it made our derailleurs, a PAUL relic that's symbolic of an era we won't forget.

So we're bidding a very fond, heavy hearted adieu as we pony up for more forward momentum. Production is up, and we're undoubtedly on point - we have to have the same from our manufacturing equipment.

We bought a brand new VMC, and it's a monster (pic above). This machine is for production, not prototyping for now. In the near future, we're going to show it off in a video. But for now, we have something else for you:

Back in December we bought a mini-lathe that's responsible for producing the
Set N' Forget, and we forgot to make a fuss about it because sometimes we forget to fuss. But now we have an awesome video featuring it and our man, Patrick, who's gonna talk shop and drop a little math on our asses.

Watch. Comment. And give a shout-out to Patrick, whose only feedback thus far has been from Jim standing off camera as we filmed - "Oh my god...you are such a nerd."

 

7 Questions with Curt Inglis of Inglis and Retrotec

1. What are the top 3 most important things in your life right now? 

Spending time with Mitzi, riding my bike, keeping up with orders.
 
2. When not building frames or restoring small European cars, what are you up to?

Riding bikes takes up a large part of my free time. Driving our old cars with my wife is a fun past time that we both enjoy. At the moment I am working on a much larger car project with my dad. We are restoring his 1961 Dodge Dart that he bought new. It is a ton of work, but it also holds a lot of great memories for our entire family.
 
3. After building frames for 25 years, is there anything you have yet to try and want to try?

Skydiving?

I have had a couple of ideas floating around in my head for quite a few years. One is a modern version of a really short tandem where the stoker is basically sitting behind the rear wheel, and his crank set is directly driving through the rear wheel. Would Paul Components like to help that dream come to life? I think I need an engineer/machinist to help get that one off the ground.  The next goofy project is to build a triple but with a fairly large arc so the middle person is a couple feet off the ground. Not sure how it would all work out, but those are the two dumb bike things that I have wanted to do for quite some time.
 
4. What are you riding the most right now, and why do you love it?

I am riding a 29+  rigid bike quite a bit at the moment. Really enjoying the larger tire size and how much it opens up what you can do on a rigid bike.
 
5. What's your ultimate cycling vacation that you've yet to do?

Not sure. It might be the Moab trip we are getting ready to do before NAHBS. Jeremy Sycip, Alec White and myself are meeting some other friends out in Moab to do some riding before we go to the show. Jeremy and I are riding a couple of bikes that we will be showing at NAHBS. The first time I saw Retrotec was at the Cool Tool booth at Interbike in the early nineties. It was a pile of dirty Retrotec. I guess one dirty bike won't look so bad at the show.
 
6. What are the most exciting changes you've witnessed in the cycling industry and what are the most discouraging? 

Tire choices for all bikes have made quite a large change for the better. When I lived in Chico, I had a roommate that would take his road bike out to Bidwell Park and I thought he was nuts. He had to work so hard to ride the 23c tires up there. Now we have the ability to run 32c on a road bike; it just opens up what you can do.

Most discouraging is to watch the bike industry lose the ability to make a decent margin on most of what we sell. I know we are not the only industry this has happened to, but it is discouraging to see pricing for a certain part online for cheaper than I can get it wholesale.  Step off soapbox. I still enjoy what I do for a living.
 
7. Would you rather fold laundry or do the dishes?

Fold laundry since I can do that watching vintage rally racing on the computer.
 

 

NAHBS just happened and...

We have absolutely nothing to say about it yet. Paul was headed back from there as we wrote this newsletter, but we do have something to say about Frostbike, which has UPPED ITS GAME since the last time.

Funny story - Paul flew into Minnesota all amped to ride a fun, curvy fat bike course, but to his surprise, there was no snow anywhere. In fact, the weather was nicer in Bloomington in February than it was in California.

He took but a small case of PAUL wares with him because the last time he was there, it was a rather small event. Everyone else, however, got the memo the event had grown and was less concerned with riding fat bikes, and thus showed up with box trailers.

Still, it was an incredible show. Our parts went out on the table, and we had sizeable crowds all day (with most folks interested in our
Klamper and the new QR Seat Collar) NOT TO MENTION, a guy with our chain ring tattooed on his chest.

This actually happens more often than you'd think.

TECH SUPPORT

530-345-4371 ext. 202.

 
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