Happy New Year!

Sharing one of my avocations

Happy New Year!

Taking a break from writing about bikes over the holidays, I thought I would share with you my hobby of making tiny things out of metal. For 50 years, I’ve sporadically made silver jewelry (I did grow up 35 miles from Santa Fe, after all!), especially over the holidays. Since moving Zinn Cycles out of my garage a couple of years ago, I have room to get out my silversmithing tools, and whole days fly by while I become completely absorbed in making things out of soft metals (instead of the hard metals – titanium and steel – that I made a career out of working in).

Here are some bolo ties I recently made.

This is a bolo tie I just made as a Christmas gift for a dear potter friend who is known for making whimsical ceramic watering cans like this one. It holds water!

I made this bolo tie for a whitewater kayaking buddy of mine who was an Olympic ski jumper (in Sarajevo).

This space used to be filled with bike-building equipment, and now it is a blank canvas for me!

We celebrate El Dio de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) with my family every year!

We love aliens in our family.

Belt buckles are utilitarian, not just decorative.

Earrings are fun to make out of silver and copper.

Happy New Year! I hope your holidays have been wonderful.

If you have a question that you would like me to answer, please email me at veloqna@comcast.net. You can also put questions in comments on Substack. I think I get all of the comments, but I don’t know, and I don’t know how to search them like I can with email.

― Lennard

Send brief technical questions to Lennard at: veloqna@comcast.net.

As a frame builder, Lennard Zinn has been designing and building custom bicycles for over 42 years; he founded Zinn Cycles in 1982 and co-founded Clydesdale Bicycles in 2017. His Tech Q&A column on Substack follows his 35-year stint as a technical writer for VeloNews (from 1987 through 2022). He is a former U.S. National Cycling Team member and author of many bicycle books including Zinn and the Art of Mountain Bike Maintenance, Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance, and The Haywire Heart. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Colorado College.

Follow Lennard Zinn on Substack, Strava, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook.