Blog

September 23, 2011

Tyler Wren’s custom Boo cyclocross frames for ’11 season

by Nick Frey

Watch end enjoy as James Wolf, around the world in Vietnam, gives you a sneak peek of Tyler Wren’s new A and B frames for ‘cross this season.

 

I’ll be posting a race schedule soon, and of course a full bike review as soon as possible–likely the end of October, after the Boos have been raced a few times.

 

 

 

Custom details to note on Tyler’s rigs:

 

1) we’ve moved to the Press Fit 30 bottom bracket standard, utilizing a 46mm ID carbon tube as an internal sleeve.  Around this sleeve, we wrap with unidirectional T700 carbon fiber in our proprietary (i.e. sorry, no pics of that step!) layup.  The PF30 setup shaves almost 100 grams from the frame alone–but the stiffness increase is significant.  We can use larger OD tubing and have a great wrapping area for the carbon fiber.  The crank and BB themselves are stiffer and a cleaner design (without ugly bearing cups sticking from the gorgeous Boo BB), but the best part is the increased heal clearance–in extremely muddy conditions, it’s quite common to see both normal (non-BB30) crankarms completely worn by the inside of the racer’s shoes.  It mars the finish, is quite uncomfortable or even painful, and surely can’t help transfer those watts to the rear wheel.

 

2) we’ve also used a FULL 1.5″ head tube on Tyler’s Boos.  Yes folks, not a curvy, tapered HT…it’s a full freaking 49.61mm ID from bottom to top!  This means ridiculous stiffness, lots less weight, and lots more fork/headset options.  We’ll run Enve Composites tapered Cross fork, which from our experience is the stiffest, most precise ‘cross fork on the market.  Then a Cane Creek headset composed of a normal external-bearing lower cup and a trick ZeroStack internal top cup.  The headset stack height is reduced, allowing us to run a slightly longer HT–you want that for the stiffest front-end possible–and the top cup disappears into the frame for a very slick look but without the generally crappy feel of “integrated” headsets.  If you’re curious why Chris King has never, and will never, make an “integrated” headset, read it from the horse’s mouth.

 

3) the stuff you cannot see…James has almost 200 Boo frames under his belt now, and every single one is better than the next.  As we work together to improve the integration of various components into the overall bike design, we’ve also optimized our tube sizes (both outside diameter and wall thickness) and our joint-specific carbon layups.  These details are ours to see and to know, but for our customers and racers to feel–the newest batch of Boo bikes has been getting rave reviews from customers, which I’ll be posting as soon as I get some good looking pictures to go along with!

 

So check in as we ramp up for a great 2011 cyclocross season and show what Boos are capable of!