Honeman Flyer: One Year Review

Image courtesy of King Fabrications

A year ago now I was frantically trying to find all the parts I would need to build up the King Fabrications frame and fork I had received at the beginning of March. I had a short window of time to get it done before I had to leave for Mid-South. Everything had to be right in that time so I would be safe and confident to ride this bike in Oklahoma's Red Dirt hills for 50+ miles.

Fortunately for me, it mostly worked out well. I know many of you dear readers know all about this project, but in case you haven't been here long, this bicycle design was a huge risk and had the potential for being a very expensive mistake. 

The genesis of the design idea was based upon an advertisement I came across on social media for a 1930's track bike ridden by National Champion Willie Honeman. Why this design? Because this time period was a unique one in American bicycle history. Riders often could not afford a training bike and a racing bike, so the race bike was the training bike as well. 

This meant that the bike, often ridden on unpaved roads due to the scarcity of pavement in the 1930's, had to handle gravel and dirt well. Now you may see why I was keenly interested in how something from this era would ride in modernized form. Even Steve Garro, of Coconino Bicycles, a noted frame builder who originally posted the ad I saw, said the geometry for this track bike design was "almost modern day gravel geometry". 

So, with some nudging from story-teller/photographer/instigator Erik Mathy, I took the plunge and spent over a couple thousand bucks on a hunch. Now many of you know how it turned out for me. Short story: It is one of my favorite bikes I've ever owned. 

The current state of the King Fabrications "Honeman Flyer".

As I stated, this is a direct copy of the 1930's National Championship winning track bike geometry, extrapolated to a size 58cm to fit me. Willie Honeman was slightly shorter than I! But the main angles which determined handling are all intact. 

I love the way this bike handles and I love to ride it. It is safe to say that the gamble paid off in spades. However, there are a couple of things I would change, given the second chance to, and one recurring, weird issue I had with this bike over an odd component. 

The first iteration. (Image by Erik Mathy)

Oddly enough, it was the seat post which caused me some real head scratching early on. I kept thinking the seat collar was not working when in fact, the seat post I originally chose for the Honeman Flyer was slightly undersized. Instead of being 27.2mm it was more like 27 and some change millimeters! 

This discrepancy caused a constantly slipping seat post until I figured it out after Mid-South. Then I got a Redshift ShockStop Pro seat post to review and I used the chance to run the post in this bike. After this experiment I ended up swapping over to a Salsa Regulator Titanium post and I have not looked back since then. 

Now for the two things which bother me about the bike. One, and the main thing I am regretting, is that I did not spec clearance for up to a 47mm wide tire. The Honeman Flyer will accept a 40-42mm tire with clearance to spare for mud and whatnot, but it would have been nice to have had the clearance for a bigger tire. I know I stated originally that I already have a big tire single speed gravel bike, but ..... you know.... Bigger tires rule. 

My other nit is that I did not spec a third bottle cage in the inner triangle and one underneath. Budgetary reasons came into play there, because more braze-ons mean more expense. I was pretty tight on this project and the fact that it may have been a bust was a factor in this decision as well. 

This bike has a painted to match Salsa Cycles Waxwing carbon fork on it. There is an issue with the through axle being ever so slightly oversized to the point where I had to hit the through axle with a dead blow hammer to get it in and I had to really work to get the axle out. Other through axles worked fine. So, I know it is the Waxwing through axle which is slightly out of spec. It has gotten better over time and now is only a slight annoyance. I have noted the anodized finish is worn away in a few places though. I probably should just get a new front through axle and use that Waxwing one as a pencil holder or something. Anyway....

The bike just is smoother, inspiring to ride, and with the 76mm of bottom bracket drop, it rides lower and more stable on looser gravel. It has an uncanny ability to allow me to do really hard seated climbing efforts, which, honestly, it doesn't make any sense at all why this would be the case.  There were those  early issues with slipping seat posts. Yes, but......

Summer 2024

Now I am very much okay with where I am at with this bike. The main changes since it was first put together are the aforementioned titanium seat post, a Redshift ShockStop Stem has been added, and I've been through a few saddles and three sets of bar tape since it was new. I was running Teravail Rutlands and now this bike sports Ritchey Speedmax 700 x 40mm tires which measure out at 45+mm on my Blunt SS rims! 

So, I think things have settled down on the changes and this year I want to put in some longer rides on the Honeman Flyer to see how things go. So, hopefully this will happen in 2025.