Hellbilly Huff is hard on bikes. He’s not a big dude but he rides his singlespeed a lot and while loaded (gear, that is…) and as you can see in the photos he broke the driveside chainstay of his singlespeed about 2 years after i built it. He also broke the fork steerer tube in half while 20 miles away from the road while riding the Kenai 250 and had to carry his bike back…yet he still came back to buy 2 more Meriwether’s!
This is his first frame an fork built as a dedicated singlespeed for the riding and bikepacking around Alaska. Lots of custom touches from the use of the Niner bottle-cap holders on the fork blades to a bottle opener on the chainstay. One contributor to why the frame failed at the chainstay was because I brazed the scallop instead of welding it. The driveside chainstay gets a lot of stress especially when it’s a singlespeed frame, and any added stress risers along the driveside chainstay will increase the likelihood of a failure. I paid for the shipping back, swapped out the entire chainstay for a mildly dimpled one with a thicker wall than the previous tube, and didn’t include a CS bridge. While i was at it I added some custom gussets to the head tube area and made sure there were not other issues on the frame. I stripped and re-powdercoated it with a new color, Ford blue, and shipped back up as soon as i could. Every builder goes through stuff like this and we adapt accordingly. He named this bike Betty. Long live Betty!
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