Bi-Polar Psyclo-CX

Well . . . I'm at it again. How about a Cyclo-Cross Bike. Tenative plans are as follows with twin down tubes, top tubes, and split seat tube. I thought the twin top tubes would come in handy shouldering the bike. . . . well it's an excuse anyway to experiement and get rid of some tubing sitting around.

I haven't decided yet if twin tubes will work as crud collectors. On my CD fixie crud does accumulate on top the bottom bracket. I just might make it a fixie project.

But if I don't, so how do I mount a front deraileur to a 1/2" tube. Ahhhh gott'a go old school with one of these. I can make something and have it attach right to the frame.

The final drawing will be done tommorow. I will be building something tommorow.

Talk Like a Pirate Day Ride Sept 19

The next Ride I'm organizing is the "Talk Like a Pirate Day Ride" Septempber 19.

For a little back ground
http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

This will actually be the 3rd time I organize this ride. We meet at Midwest Cyclery in Westport and set sail from there. Oh a marry band of scallywags we will be. We then meet back at the shop for a little Pirate music, Pirate beer, or anything else "Pirate".

It's silly and it's fun. If you wondering why I'm not having an August ride is because I'm planning on doing the Summer breeze century.
http://www.kcbc.org/ride/annual-rides/summer-breeze/
So if . . Y'all would like feel free to join me for a fast century in August

Practice

Thought I'd practice a joint before I venture on to a new frame. I had these pieces laying around, so I gave one the miter treatment.

After cleaning both tubes a level of clean reserved for operation rooms I applied the flux

To keep things from shifting you need a little weight to tack it down. Weight is where you find it.

This tack got a little hot. That's why we practice right. Normaly I'd tack this joint in 4 places, and I'd have a fixture to permit that, rather than a could weights. . . . It's Practice.

Then I tin the joint. It's basically a thin layer insuring it's sealed. Also you turn the torch up a bit more than you do when you lay you fillet.

Then I lay the fillet.

After soaked off the flux I gave it a once over with the files. Once again I got a little hot on the left side and the brass ran a bit.

After sanding out the file marks there you have it. Not perfect.

The process is a learning experience. You have to learn how heat effects the way your brass flows.

Rainy 80 . . . errr I mean 90 miles of the SouthEast

It started raining as soon as I got to the coffee shop, and it stopped as we got back. So who wants to ride 80 miles in the rain. I guess me and one other person Dave. It's wasn't too bad, more of mist, but just enough that it made riding behind each other a problem. Now I know why the randonneur guy use fenders. We all ride from time to time in the rain, but having to put up with it for 5 hours is something else.

When we got the the gas station in Lonejack to fill up we met about 5 riders. They said they were going to Strasburg, but they ment they were heading toward Strasburg. We we all left together and headed south for a while, then they headed back west for a while . . . Hmmmmm . . . We're in Stringtown. Arrrrgh now we added 10 miles to our ride.

So we made it to Strasburg to discover a new store. Strasburg is a town of 136 people, so these thend to stand out. In fact it's the 3rd business in Strasburg besides the post office and "the bar".

We met the guy who runs the place. Beside from being real nice and running the only convenience store he's the city's Road Crew, and Mayor. We also met the police Chief, He's a good guy also.

I like stopping in the small towns to find "Ma and Pa" stores to support. We got Snacks, Gatorade and and some great conversation, then they gave us some shirts.

Not much to take pictures of. We got down the Big Hill doing 48Mph . . . and that was into a head wind. The wind was coming out of the North instead of the South like it does most of the time.

The most intersting thing on the ride were these Shaved Lamas. . . . Have you shaved your Lama?


Do they bite?


They look nice enough


got eye shields?


Side View


. . . and the "Get the camera out of my face, with the ears pinned back" look. . . . ahhh lets not find out if they bite. I have a feeling they will be playing for keeps.


Then we were approached by the one with the camouflage face.

I think it was a pretty good route. Maybe next year it will be better weather. I'd like to get a group togther for the downhill. I think last year io made it to 53Mph by myself. I'd like to get a group together and break 60Mph.

Tubing

This is the frame tubing I'm considering. (I'm also working on a fork). The list is just a list of Tubing diameter, and thickness. The one thing I'm leaving out are the butt lengths. . . . What are Butt length you might ask. The tubing I'm going to use is double butted, that means the tubes are thinner in the middle then on the ends to save weight.

Now the trick is to determine how those tubes are going to flex. Henry James has a butt length chart for True Temper tubing.
http://www.henryjames.com/butt.html

I'm not really to concern myself with tweaking tubesets just yet. I'll just take the tubing kit as is because this frame will be more of an assembly exercise, than frame performance exercise.

The Crustacean Part 2

Trail is the horizontal distance from where the steering axis intersects the ground to where the front wheel touches the ground.

Trail = (wheel radius X the cosine of the HTA - rake) divided by the sine of the HTA. (HTA=Head Tube Angle) 50 to 70 mm of trail is the generally accepted range with 50 being quicker steering and 70 being slower.

Since the wheel radius changes by 8mm, this changed the trail of the front wheel. so in order to get the bicycles to handle similar, you want the trails to match. Since this bicycle isn't for racing and more for leisure I want the bicycle to have more stability.

These are the numbers I'd like to use. Since the trail is higher than the Caad9 the handling is going to be slightly slower, on the way I put it it will have more stability. It's not a race frame.

But just for the fun of it I ran the numbers to match the Caad9. First I changed the rake to match, then in the next I change the Head Tube Angle.

So to match the trail I either have to change the rake to 48.5mm, change the head tube to 74.1, or I'd have to change them both. This begs the question, does it make a differencewhich one you change. In short the more rake you have, the longer the fork blade has to be, so it's more flexible/comfortable. If you want a more ridged front end you change the head tube angle. Many factors to consider, none right or wrong, just different philosophies.

Tommorow I get to pick the tubing and small parts.

Crustacean part 1

The project: Create Crusty a randonneur/gravel frame & fork based on his Cannondale, Caad9. I think I got it all, but the fork's axel to crown isn't adding up. Tomorrow I'll have to get a physical measurement instead of dimension manipulation. One problem is they don't give you the frame size center to center, instead they give you the size center to top of top tube. However they tell you the stand over height is 822mm to the center of the sloping top tube. All my other measurement work out. It's that axel to crown measurement that is wrong in my drawing.

These are my tentative plans for the new frame & fork. One liberty I took was to lay the head tube back 1/2 degree to 73 . . . I might some more depending on what happens when I get a look see at the real axel to crown measurement.

It's pretty simple. I just need to take the Caad9 dimensions and make accommodations for Jack Brown 33.333c tire and fenders.

For the tires and fenders it's going to take longer chain stays, and longer fork blades. To maintain the same bottom bracket height with the big tires, I had to lower the bottom bracket. Lowering the bottom bracket also shortens the head tube.

The head tube is also going to be affected by longer fork blades. Also the Cannondale has a internal headset. Most headsets have a lower stack height of 13mm.

I had to shove a few other dimensions around . . . well you can see for yourself.

Once I get the dimension ironed out I can select the tubing. . . . Yep not straight guage 4130 like my last 3 frames, but tubing design specifically for bicycles. I see Dedacciai or True Temper in Crusty's future.

TIme for Timer

I rode the new bike on my 50 mile course. I posted the fastest time I've ever ridden on it, and I haven't really been training. That probably explains why I cramped up at the end.
The bike rode like I thought it would . . . or actually the postition performed the way I wanted. Back Flat parallel to the road, head down. Not the most confortable ride, but that's not what the bike was designed to do. It was designed to put the rider in the most aerodynamic and powerful position.

Another note about that time is that the month before when I rode it at 2:40 I did that on my TT bike with nicer wheel and TT bars. This bike has 32 spoke wheels with drop bars.

Well anyway it was a test for the 80 miler next week. Looks like I'll be fine.

Hmmmmm

Well I think it looked better in my mind. It's another twin seat tube bicycle, only now I'm adding 2x (1/2") down tubes, and 2x (7/16") top tubes and stays.

One problem I have is how I'm going to add a front deraileur. Suntour used to make a front deraileur that used to bolt on like brake levers with the strap. I could forget the strap and bolt it directly to the tube.

Holy Wiring Closets Batman

Yep! . . . Thems a lot-o-Cables!

Complete with Dia-Compe Factory"Drillium" Brake Levers.

Works for me.