Gilmour Morph Bicycle
(All pictures can be clicked for a larger image in a separate window)

Noel and I had to opportunity to travel to Ghent Belgium to watch the famous six day bicycle racing event and would be in Europe for two weeks. This turned out to be a wonderful trip, however it presented a problem in that I felt that I could not afford to miss two weeks of riding without suffering for many months later to try to regain my fitness. After much research, the best solution seemed to be to obtain a bike that could travel with me. Rather than obtain a bike specifically for travel, I decided to go with a racing frame that could be converted to travel. A visit to my favorite frame builder, Andy Gilmour in Tucson, led to the fabrication of a track bike utilizing the Ritchie Break-Away lug system. This allows the frame to be disassembled into two pieces for smaller packing. Then at the end of the building, I decided to have Andy add a derailleur hanger for shifting, spreading the rear dropouts from 120 mm to 130 mm (road width), drilling the rear bridge for a brake, and adding cable attachments.

This resulted in a top notch bike I can pack into a 26 x 26 x 10 inch suitcase (meets airline 62 inch total rule for checked baggage without a surcharge), plus have a track or road bike that could always go with me. It also resulted in a killer Criterium bike, since the frame has a high track bottom bracket, single chainring, and a narrower than normal bottom bracket spindle, it's impossible to hit a pedal when pedaling through a corner.

I've been able to fit an old style freewheel (SunTour Ultra 6) onto my track training wheel, since the dropouts are spaced out at 130 mm. Thus I can take the one rear wheel with me on my travels and race the track with the fixed gear and race a crit with the 6 speed. I had to put a 2mm spacer behind the freewheel to have it clear the spokes, which then required a 1mm spacer on the axle to clear the frame on the other side. The freewheel is a 13-19 and the 13 is too tall to clear the seat stay, so I basically have a 14-19 5 speed, but using a 53 up front, I have a range of 75.3 to 102.2. Had to set the cable such that the last inward click stops on the largest cog (to stop it going into the spokes) as the limit screw was not adequate, but the upper limit screw stops it on the 14 just fine. Although the Ultra-6 spacing is 5.0mm, the 10 speed index of 4.12 works just fine if I center it on the 15 tooth cog (although I do have the cam for an 8 speed that would set the indexing to 5.0mm, but it's a pain to change out).

Ready to Road/Crit race with Zipp 404 tubulars. 16.6 pounds.	Ready to race in TT fixed with Zipp 404 tubulars. 16.0 pounds.	Ready to race in TT w/ Gears with Zipp 404 tubulars. 18.0 pounds.

Typical fixed training setup with aero bars	Fixed gear training with double brakes.	Fixed gear wheel with Ultra 6 freewheel.

Ritchie Break-away lugs. Seatpost holds frame together. Brake reversed for cool factor.	Ritchie clamp. Remove clamp and frame separates.	Front End.

Small screw prevents wheel slipping forward.	Water bottle bosses for Cable guides.	Chain guide for single chainring.

Track dropout with fixed gear wheel and hanger.	Rear derailleur setup 10 speed with Avid Rollamajig (last produced 2007).	Optional rear brake.

Ultra 6 freewheel on track hub.	Bolt On skewer for track racing.

Suitcase for a bike.	There's a whole bike in there.	Add some padding and bracing and off we go.

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