Wearing many hats here at Campfire, Jake has found great alignment for his many skills and interests working with us. Jake grew up in the Tucson area enjoying many of the outdoor adventuring opportunities from running to climbing. But more recently Jake has gone all in into the world of cycling and bikepacking.
We gladly yanked Jake away from REI where he had gotten himself established as a bicycle mechanic. Now he is wrenching for us and along with taking care of our event and product photography.
Another great bikepacking business skill that Jake brings to the table is bike bag sewing. Jake builds great bags under his brand Good Dog Packs.
Copper Creek – July. 19, 2024
On this weeks episode of Jacob searching through his photos to find a tidbit-worthy story; we find a photo of Toby and Henly on a scouting adventure in Copper Creek walking over a sketchy bridge over bright turquoise water in late spring 2022. On this adventure we set out to find the remains of the Sibley castle built in the early 1900’s and a way over the Galiuro mountains. We rode and hiked many miles up steep and rocky mining trails, found some fresh spring water to stick our toes in, took a nap under a shade tree. On the satellite images you can see the copper creek (under this bridge) is filled with bright blue slag from the copper mine, we had to stop and see the creek for ourselves,
Bicycle Mine Cart – July. 12, 2024
This last weekend in Reno, I had the chance to visit an old mine in Nevada city. In the opening of this mine they had some antique equipment. This mine-cart adapted bicycle caught my eye. This single speed mine cart comes with a carbide lamp, a basket and of course a helmet for those low hanging beams. What more could you ask for?
Soma Wolverine Build – July. 5, 2024
This week I had the honor of building a Soma Wolverine for our friend Bear. Bear was looking for a steel bike that could do it all and then some. From city commuting to the rough trials of bike backing, I’m excited to see where this bike takes bear. Soma does know how to make a beautiful practical bike.
Commuter Cuddle Puddle – June. 28, 2024
For this week’s Tid-Bit we are admiring the Campfire crew’s commuter cuddle corner. If you’ve been in the shop, you are sure to have witnessed the ugly corner of dirty, well ridden commuters in the corner of the shop. This pile is a stark contrast to the many shiny new and freshly tuned up bikes adorning the showroom and workstands. These are the trusty steeds that get your favorite campfire employees to work and back everyday.
Crust Bombora Build Completed! – June. 21, 2024
Last week I showed this bike and all of its parts. This week I reveal to you the completed bike! I must say this bike is quite easy on the eyes and rides like dream. I can’t wait to see this bike on the road. Getting to put a dream build together is always such a treat!
Summer Time Rides – June. 14, 2024
It’s not often we get to work on Crust bikes but it’s always a treat when we do. Here’s a sweet custom wheel-up build for a customer. Our customer wanted all of the fun colors and picked out an amazing color selection from Hope. I’m stoked to get this bike together and rolling. I just might have to post a picture with wheels built and everything installed next week.
Summer Time Rides – June. 7, 2024
Summer riding in Tucson means early morning rides or late night rides if you wish to escape the heat. I’ve recently been reminiscing on the full blood moon mtb ride that our friend Chris planned two years ago. We expected a bright full moon and the surrounding area well lit. To our surprise, this full moon also happened to be during a lunar eclipse. The moon hid in the Earth’s shadow as we rode in the darkness. We all had a great time dodging the grasshopper mice and hunting for scorpions with black lights on the 50 year trail. Here’s a picture of Toby flying through the darkness!
Shiny Wheel Build – May. 31, 2024
Our pizza-slingin’ customer Tommy is gearing up for an Alaskan tour on his trusty Surly Disc Trucker. After a couple long tours his OEM rims were shot and he needed something fresh. After some back and forth we decided to build him up some of the shiniest wheels in all the land. With Velo Orange Voyager 36H rims and some matching polished Velo Orange hubs this wheel set is stylin’ and ready for what ever Alaska will throw at him.
Custom paint job and build – May. 24, 2024
This week I want to highlight one of our customer’s fresh 2016 Salsa Spearfish. Logan, a local high school mountain bike racer, wanted to refinish and rebuild his Spearfish to get ready for the race season. Bored of the bland colors on the field, Logan took it upon himself to bring a pop of color to the trail. Taking some exciting and bold colorful inspiration from the 80’s and 90’s, he painted his bike with contrasting and bright yellow, pink, blue and silver. Logan painted and built his bike himself, Campfire can’t take any credit for this build, but when a bike comes in this beautiful it’s well worth a highlight.
TimberJackHackSaw – May. 17, 2024
Toby and his freshly trimmed head of hair, saw vigorously through a damaged Timberjack frame. One of the many things Toby is an expert at is thoroughly inspecting frames for frame damage. With this well used Salsa Timberjack, Toby found a small hairline fracture in the bike’s seat tube that would surely cause some issues down the line. Salsa warranty-replaced the frame and tasked Toby with sawing straight through the top tube to destroy the frame for good. No matter how many times we destroy frames it always hurts just a little.
Fork Seal Love – May. 10, 2024
This weeks tidbit is a friendly reminder to take care of the part of your mountain bike that is with you through the ups and downs, loves you unconditionally through the roughest of times and knows how to be supportive through those big hits. That’s right I’m talking about your suspension fork! Fork maintenance and service are often a daunting thought and over-looked until it’s too late. So, wipe those seals after dusty ride to keep your stanchions fresh and clean. If it’s been a while since your last service, some fresh oil and seals really breathe new life into your forks performance.
Mt. Lemmon Season – May. 3, 2024
The warmer temperatures during the Tucson summer always push the outdoor seeking locals out of town in search for more favorable weather. With Mount Lemmon being the closest, most accessible cool weather location, many of us flock to the top of the mountain riding the same short, rocky and rooty mountain biking trails over and over again. The views and trails never cease to amaze.
Ratio Conversion – Apr. 26, 2024
After 4 years wrenching and seeing just about every repair, very little in the bike world excites me as much as shifter ratio conversations. Ratio Technology, a UK biased company, has taken it upon themselves to create aftermarket 11-13 speed ratio conversions for many drop-bar levers on the market. These allow riders to run mullet drivetrains, road shifters in the front and mountain derailleurs in the rear. I’ve had the privilege of installing these converters on a few of our awesome customer’s bikes and the process is always exciting. I’m currently using one of their spools to convert my old Sram Apex 10 speed shifter to an 11 speed shifter for my upcoming monstercross build!
26inch Brunch – Apr. 19, 2024
This last weekend Tucson’s new 26in Brunch club sprung into action on our first adventure of many to come. The only sanctioned satellite of Saint Louis’ 26in Brunch, this Tucson chapter, created and maintained by Tucson’s favorite Chris Koty and Zoe Erb, is a once a month, all people and all bikes welcome (26in preferred) under-biking adventure ride from town with an elaborate BYOB (bring your own brunch) stop. Meeting up the second Sunday morning of the month. This last Sunday we rode around the foothills of Tucson and stopped at the DeGrazia Gallery in The Sun Museum for brunch a a touch of Tucson culture. We had homemade blueberry waffles, eggs, hash browns, pastries, fruit, coffee and sausages. After brunch, with full stomachs we gleefully descended one of Tucson’s classic mountain biking trails into town. If anyone wants to join this event there’s an Instagram (@26inchTucson) with more details.
Feeding Ghosts – Apr. 12, 2024
It’s rare to see all 4 campfire mechanics work on a bike together. This carbon road bike had a stuck Seat-post and the customer had just flown into town to do some training. To yank this seat post out we had Ellie stabilizing the table, Toby pulling the seat-post and David and I twisting the frame to gain momentum. After many minutes of hard tugging, twisting, laughing and swearing the seat post popped out and we celebrated our victory
Breakfast by Berm – Apr. 5, 2024
For this months Breakfast by Bike, we took the party to the Lost Barrio bike park. We had our handcrafted Toby pancakes with a side of Shred. There’s no better start to the morning than berms, coffee, friends, kickers, pancakes, bikes, pump tracks and eggs with hot sauce.
Social ride at Ruta Del Jefe – Mar. 29, 2024
Here’s a fun picture I took of Ellie and Josh on one of the Ruta Del Jefe social rides! The hilly landscapes and bumpy roads really made for a great adventure in such a beautiful place!
Bike raft day dreaming – Mar. 22, 2024
With the weather warming up in the desert, I’m dying to get back on the water for some bike rafting will buds. There’s nothing nicer than floating down a river on a warm day.
BasketPackin’ – Mar. 15, 2024
Working at a bike packing specialist shop means we get lots of customers and friends coming asking our opinions on bikepacking setups and gear. In an effort to understand all of the ways one can pack a bike and travel, I have been trying to experiment with every style of bikepacking. My most recent trip I decided to throw a basket with everything I need on my commuter and go. This had to have been the easiest setup to pack and unpack, no funky bags to mess around with. The bike handled surprisingly well on the road even with all of the weight on the front wheel. When it came to off-road travel the basket preformed as expected, bouncy and tough to control, loosing my luggage one or two times.
New Boot Goofin’ – Mar. 8, 2024
After a few years and around 6000 miles of bike-packing, hike-a-biking, climbing on boulders and clacking around in coffee shops, these old shoes are ready for a replacement. I have to say, the Pearl Izumi x-alp summit shoes have served me and my adventures well, even to the last sliver of rubber
Weird Repair Wednesday – Mar. 1, 2024
This Wednesday while installing a brand new son 28 dynamo hub and Sinewave Beacon on a Salsa Fargo I ran into an issue, there are no upper fork mounting locations for a light. Most bikes will have a forward rack/ fender Mount but on these carbon fire starter forks there are no solid dynamo light mounting solutions without using handle bar space or a front rack. After talking through some options with the customer, Furey, we decided to try this rack strut solution inspired by the Fabio’s chest Pec Dec solution designed by Ultra Romance. This solution allows for the use of the fork’s cargo mounts and provides enough space for a handle bar bag. It may not be pretty but it get’s the job done.
Custom Wheel Build Month – Feb. 23, 2024
This month has been full of amazing wheel builds. Ellie, our shop’s wheel building expert has been precisely lacing these wheels together faster than you could decide what spoke nipple color you want.
This wheel was built for, Dylan’s mullet trail bike. His bike now has 29” in the front and a stellar 27.5” Spank rim laced with Monē raw brass nipples and double butted DT Swiss spokes on a brand new Hope Pro5 in the rear, making his Canyon Strive CF7 the ultimate enduro rig.
As a relatively new bike mechanic, it’s always an inspiration to work alongside, watch and learn from experienced mechanics like Ellie and Toby.
Custom Bike Build Details – Feb. 16, 2024
Mornings in the shop are for getting things done. This morning Toby is writing up a custom bike build sheet for a customer’s sweet Salsa Horsetheif build. The details are important in the planning stage of custom builds. Hubs, rims, dropper post, fork, shock, handle bar, brakes, derailleurs saddle and tires are all hand picked with the rider’s style in mind. This morning Toby must make the tough decision of what fork offset and travel best fits the customer’s riding preferences, will the rider feel more at home on xc trails with a bigger offset and lower trail or will the shorter travel with a lower offset and higher trail help the customer feel more confident and stable on long descents? Only Toby knows…
Sorting Out this Cracked Frame Bummer – Feb. 9, 2024
Rocking around the bumpy Arizona trails often leads to some issues. This particular Kona Hei Hei rear triangle had a fun-ending disaster when the rear triangle cracked. Warranties were had and a new rear triangle was installed with fresh bearings allowing the fun to continue.
24HOP SHOP – Feb. 2, 2024
Getting ready for the 24 Hours In The Old Pueblo
Tucson’s largest 24 hour mountain bike race (24 Hours in the Old Pueblo) attracts thousands of riders to the fast-rolling 17 mile competitive desert track of Willow Springs. In the month leading up to the race our shop gets quite a few bikes tuned up and ready to race. Today I got the pleasure of over-hauling Patrick’s 2015 El Mariachi 2 for the race. New fork seals, much needed brake flushes and full drive train ultrasonic clean should serve Patrick well on this race.
T-Time – Jan 26, 2024
Tidy Toby tenaciously torquing on a tandem Tuesday just a tad over twelve in the afternoon.
Birthday Half Lemon Drop – Jan 19, 2024
This weekend a group of friends and I embarked on a 15 mile day of descending the chunky, unrelenting slopes of the AZT on Mount Lemon. The day was full of snowy hike-a-bikes and bouncy descents. The trip wouldn’t be complete without a few snake bite tubeless punctures, a couple snapped chains and a tumble or two through the cacti. The stunning views and sections of flowing trails the AZT has to offer made the lung-burning haul worth the pain.
New Single Speed – Jan 12, 2024
After watching the amazing performance of the single speeders on the AZT race last October I was inspired to built a dedicated single speed mountain bike. I found a used 2018 Kona Honzo ST frame and threw on some components I had collected for this build. It rocks a 32x20t gear ratio and beefy 29×2.6-inch Maxxis Minion DHF/ DHR combo tires for tackling any trail.
I’ve installed a Cane Creek Angle Set that slacks out the 68 degree head tube angle by 1.5 degrees making it a 66.5 degree head tube angle. This allowed for a 20mm over-forked Rockshox Pike 140mm without raising the bottom bracket. Keeps the traction on the technical climbing and the descending fun and capable.
The TRP Slate T4 brakes have become a staple in our shop builds. A well priced quad piston brake set that feels fantastic and is reliable when you need them.
I have no plans on attempting the AZT single speed. After taking this bike on some of Tucson’s more technical trails I’m excited to see how it will preform on a bike packing trip.