Swope Park Trails

I was able to get out for an hour yesterday so I went to the Swope Park Trails . You can get to them off Oldham road between 79th street and Hillcrest Road (Closer to Hillcrest) in Swope Park.

The enterance is right before the gate. The gate is closed sometimes and you might get the impression the trails are closed, but they are always open.

I thought the trails might be ridable. It rained two days ago. I've ridden in rain many times. It's usually raining though. There difference between riding in mud when it's raining, and when it's been sitting. This mud seems to Snow ball . . . How's that front deraileur working?

got mud? . . . Like I said it snow balls. Even getting off the bike and pushing it at this point didn't help. I just collected more mud every where.

Ahhhhhhh. On the sunny side it's was a total different story. It was even a little dry. I've ridden the trails on the other side. I thought they were good trails for the beginner, but this side of the trail presents a lot of challenges.

I cal this the entrarance to King Tut's Tomb.

Inside the tomb.

Do you take the trail, or the rock? Both way you have to navigate the trees. depends on what's on the other side.

I went back from where I came. and back and forth going over this section a couple times. However I'm not going though the mud again. I need to make like Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape".

I've spotted a point of refuge! It's a bar called Percy's.

. . . a hole in the bottom of the fence. (You can see how dry the trail is on that side by how clean my tires are.)

We're out.

Doeh! What bar opens at 5pm on Sunday? I thought I might some kind of information on this bar. Lengends & Lore. I found none.

I suspect this bar will get a lot of MTB traffic this summer. It's got an outdoor patio, beer, & food.

Ass . . . embled

Have you had enough of this bike yet? I know I have. I thought I post pics of the bike assembled.

Plenty of seatstay tire clearance.

Chainstay clearance is right at tolerance. I still might dimple them to give some more clearance. Good this it's painted with Krylon.

More than enough rotor clearance.

Too much crank clearance. That's because I could only find a 120mm spindle instead of 110.

But will bringing the crank in 5mm cause a problem with the granny/Chainstay clearance? . . . I did mention I was going to dimple the chainstays right?

The disc tab is in order.

Downtubes . . . that's right plural . . . tubes!

Midwest Cyclery . . . Where the magic happens. Well at least all the facing, chasing, aligning, and checking. I should have made that a blog entry, maybe next time.

Just enough fork clearance. Like I said, I might have gotten lucky by not being able to get 3.0" tires.

Paint!

The inspiration for the build. The SE, STR-1 (Stu Thompson Replica)

I thought about all kinds of paint schemes, but I stayed true to the vision. I can't see it any other way.

For $2 for and paper, $3 for primer, & $4 for paint ($9.??), I thought it came out pretty good. Some people would have had it powder coated. Like I have alway maintained, it's just a project, practice, an experiment. So why waste $100+ painting an experiment. also I might not be done building on this frame yet. That right building, not working, but building . . . you'll all have to use your imagination.



Now you can see with a DISC tab how building it with a loop tail would have complicated things. I would have had to put the mount on the chainstay . . . or who knows.
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I still have to cut and slot the seat-tube. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow . . . as in assembled done.

The frame has no cloths?

I thought I'd take some pictures before it got dark. I'm still in the middle of going over it. Over and over, and . . .

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A picture from the back. I probably didn't need that cross brace on the seatstay, but I put it on anyway. Can never be too stiff . . . Right?

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The water bottle braze-on braces. This was and endless source of entertainment.

The bottom of those tubes

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The bottom Bracket. With all these tubes you have to get creative when filing down the brass.

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Seat Stays, Seat-Tube, and my home made hydro brake cable mounts. I didn't have my camera when I was making these. A set of 4 took me around 3 hours. I took 2 pieces a square stock and started filing. It's a lot easier to just buy them. Not only that it's a lot less work you have to do. To say I'm burned out on working on this is close. Every detail you add is just more work you have to do. Take for instance the braze at the top and seat tube. Sure i could have spent more time making it look nicer, but It's just getting painted over, and as long as it make a smooth transition who knows. It's like to get to the point I'm make brass rings, but I'm sure it'll come as long as I keep practicing.

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Ahhhh . . . brake tab.

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The Bottom bracket and the chainstay brace. You thinking witht the clearance so tight how did he get a brace in. I had a problem. With 2.7" tires the front deraileur would hit the tire in the small ring, so I had to make the stays longer putting the rear tire all the way behind the front deraileur.

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This was the best Bottom Bracket I've done . . . Progress

The brass on the downtube look funny.

This is what the inside of the headtube looks like after reaming it out. My guess turned out to workout. I thought I was going to have to take a lot more out.

All in all I've learned to be a bit more patient. Sometimes less is more, and what I mean is making more work for yourself is just making more work for yourself. or maybe put another way is . . . Sometimes you find yourself wasting time working on something cosmetic, instead or working on something that could really use your attention.

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I think my brazing still has a ways to go, but I think it's better than some production frames I've seen . . . believe that or not.

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Well . . . Time to paint.

Done brazing . . . Finally

. . . but first, David Belle the man of action.


To do the braze-ons (Cable stops & such) I'm using Silver. Silver melts at a lower temperature. It's also more expensive. but flows so nice . . . So I've heard. If your going to experiment for the first time, why not let it be on a frame your working on for the last 3 months


Water Bottle bosses fluxed and ready to go


Gone and went. I got it a little too hot. A little goes a long way. and it does flow nice.

The Tab is on

After a week or two I have something thats going to work. It's not perfect, but it works and I can live with that. This is the 4th tab I had fabricated. The other three I tried to design, so if you got a flat tire, you would not have to take the caliper off. However I decided to stick with the 40mm, 78mm, 51mm triangle. to do that the slots have to run parallel to the dropout.

Notice one bungle. The caliper could hit the top tab when push all the way forward. In fact to get it to work with the wheel all the way forward in a dropout, I had to file a contour giving the caliper about 1mm clearance. The caliper is not all the way forward in the slots, and I guess it doesn't need to be to clear.

Notice one bungle. The caliper could hit the top tab when push all the way forward. In fact to get it to work with the wheel all the way forward in a dropout, I had to file a contour giving the caliper about 1mm clearance. The caliper is not all the way forward in the slots, and I guess it doesn't need to be to clear.

Well nothing rubs, the brakes work, and nothing makes noise. . . . On to the next