Spend two minutes guessing what it is, and then be completely surprised and amazed! Well worth the wait.
Archive for January, 2011
Precision Engineering
Sunday, January 30th, 2011The Offices of Tree Fort – Office 1: Alan
Wednesday, January 26th, 2011We despise cubicles and corporate America. Our work space consists of one simple rule: if you want an office, you build it. This leads our offices to be pretty creative, with such features as climbing walls, tapestries, and even a peep hole (more on that when we get to Adam’s office). Starting now, and continuing every week, we’re going to post a video and some photos of each office until they’ve been exhausted. You’ll get to see a little bit into our company and get to know each person and their space a little better. Hope you have as much as fun with this as we did!
Office 1
We’ll start things off with Alan’s office. Why? Because he rocks. His roles include:
- Being awesome
- Writing blog posts
- Customer service
- Web analytics
- Wheel building
This office is located in the loft, with a ladder leading up to it. While a great space for pretending to do work, its downsides include being extraordinarily hot in the winter when the heat is blasting. Check it out!
Thanks and More Thanks
Thursday, January 20th, 2011This post is a conglomerate of sorts. Think of it as three posts condensed into one (actually more like three posts that were just too short to post on their own…).
Blog Props
First off we’d like to give a huge thanks to our friend James over at GTWORT (Get to Work or Die Tryin’), who visited our shop location a couple weeks back and posted up a killer review of what he found. He’s a really cool guy from LA and we were pumped to have him come by. Check out his write up and awesome photography here. Also, a big thanks to Snow Biker Chicago and More to Life than Bikes for your support as well. You guys rock – thanks for keeping us afloat.
USA Today gave us a shout as well, which is downright awesome. They’ve been covering the manufacturer pricing policies that have started a massive takeover of the entire retail industry, and featured us as one of the companies effected by, and able to overcome, these policies that favor big business, retail giants, and big-box stores. Check that story and video out here.
Fans of Ours?
Tuesday, January 18th, 2011Went to listen to “The King is Dead” the new ‘The Decemberists’ album that just came out, and when I glanced at the cover, I noticed it looked a lot like some of our old promo material from 2008. Kind of cool if you ask me. Maybe they’ve seen our work and were inspired. Click on the image below and take a look. Also, check out the album, it’s really good. It’s going to be on my playlist for quite some I’m sure.
If we ruled the world…
Tuesday, January 11th, 2011every city corner would look like this. Vote for Tree Fort!
Bicycling Science
Thursday, January 6th, 2011I recently received a copy of the book Bicycling Science by David Gordon Wilson, et al., and can’t get enough of the nerd infested scientific studies. This book is amazing. It details everything from the history of bicycle
mechanics, to aerodynamics, to drivetrain efficiency, to the materials of construction - and all with intensely brain spinning detail. If you have any nerd-like tendencies at all check it out!
Some fun facts:
- According to studies in the late 1980s, bicycles built with backwards pedaled drivetrain use leg muscle groups more efficiently and produce higher power outputs.
- Elliptical, instead of round, chainrings have been experimented with as early as the 1930s. However the most popular non-round chainrings, Shimano Biopace, are not elliptical or circular. The major and minor axis of an ellipse are at an angle of 90 degrees, while Shimano Biopace chainrings were built with the axes at varying degrees depending on the position of the ring.
- The first bicycles (called velocipides) did not have pedals, or the ability to steer.
- The invention of bicycles has led to the growth of many industries:
- mass production and use of ball bearings
- production and use of steel tubes
- mass production and use of pneumatic tires
- good-roads movement
- Harley and Davidson (bicycle racers)
- the Wright brothers (bicycle manufacturers)
Preview it for free!
Check out a pretty hefty free preview of Bicycling Science at Google Books here. If you like what you see, buy your own copy and get ready for 500 pages of the coolest math and physics equations you’ve ever seen!
