Gravel Bike Part 1: Frameset

A custom frameset built by John Fitzgerald (http://www.fitzcyclez.com//). This is my second custom frame (the first one by a single-person custom builder... I own a custom Serotta CXII, a tri bike, that was built by multiple people at Serotta). This bike was built primarily for gravel races, especially Trans Iowa, and for general fun rides and light touring.

I used the following bikes as the starting point and added a few personal requirements based on my experience at TIV9:

• Black Mountain Cross (http://www.blackmtncycles.com/p/black-mountain-cycles-frames.html)
• Jay's Gunnar Cross Hair (Custom): (http://chromeforkcrown.blogspot.com/2013/04/gunnar-cross-hairs-gravel-prototype.html)
• Ari's Gunnar Custom Cross Hair (Custom) (http://ari-fixed-gear-pages.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html)

Specifically, my requirements were as follows:

• Extra tire clearance (at least 40mm with fender, if not 45mm)
• Single speed option (sliding drop out or horizontal dropout)
• Extra bottle cage bosses on the bottom side of the down tube, if there is an enough space. 
• Low BB
• Cantilever brake bosses
• Extra bottle cage bosses on the fork
• Rack & fender eyelets 
• Accept 1" threaded (quill) stem 
• 27.2mm seat post preferred
• Lugged frame 
• 700c wheels

I was searching for the right frame builder during the winter, but all the frame builders that I found online were out of my budget (less than $2,000 for the frame + fork with lugs), until I found John's website (http://www.fitzcyclez.com/). I immediately liked his style, experience, and pricing. I emailed him on March 5th 2015 and I placed an order on the next day after just on email exchange. I filled in his surveys to determine the right geometry and materials (tubes), and we exchanged many emails to follow up. It was very clear that he pays attention to all the details and experienced enough to digest all the information to determine the optimal frameset for a given condition. 
After a few revision, this was the final geometry: 

Given my "riding style" (probably it just means I am not a super strong cyclist/sprinter) and height/weight (5'7" and 140-145lbs), John decided that following tubes specs:

• TT: 28.6 True Temper OX Platinum (.7/.4/.7)
• DT: 31.8 True Temper OX Platnium (.7/.4/.7)
• ST: 28.6 True Temper S3 (.5/.4/.6)
• HT: 31.8 True Temper OX Platinum: (.9)
• SS: Dedacci
• CS: Dedacci
• Lugs: Pacenti

I was personally super excited to see S3 for ST -- given the plenty of use of OX and S3, this was going to be one of my lightest frameset! (Not that I measure the weight of my bikes...)
Oh, also you've got to love his "Mithril" decal!

One of the nice things about having a single-person custom builder building a bike for you is that you sometimes get photo-updates:

The frame came in on July 1st.

In the next post, I will describe how I built up this frameset.