Saturdee

The look out the front of Midwest Cyclery at 6:30am . . . Yep A.M. . . . Ante Meridiem . . . Over to KKFI FM . . not A.M.

Who Sleeps in on Saturday.

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Heads Up . . . In 2 weeks Those ShiftlessBastards are brings us the Fantastic Four Alley Cat. More info on KansasCityFixed.com. Should be fun.

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I get my coffee from 2 places mainly. Benetti's Coffee Experience in Raytown, or Broadway Cafe in Westport.

This day I tried the OCIA certified Organic Peru CAVCRA Coop, not that COOP, this COOP in Apurimac River Valley.
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As you can see it's a light roast. It's makes for a good cup of coffee in the morning. I recommend it.
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As if coffee at Broadway Cafe wasn't enough, I had to go check out Benetti's , Fall Classic Concert Series

I suspect over 30 people were there. I'd have to say I liked it more than I thought I was. pictured is the closing band, "The Sunday Paper". They were pretty good. If you can get out, it's a good time.
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Oh that darn Bike

I tried to install my PowerCam on this bike. I got the lobe dialed in so the cam advanced the gear at the right place, then I find the left crankarm hits the chainstay . . . arrrrgh! . . . a lot of work for nothing.

And here's the finished product. It's been a while since I had ridden it, but I still have to say that extra brace stiffens it up.

Stiffen UP!

I say why not add a few modifications. I might have to change the name from "Green Machine" to "Battlac".

I would have like to have more angle on that cross bar, but I need H2O bottle Clearance.
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and if your stiffening the front, you might as well stiffen up the back.

It all Business

It's all business. It's the only bike I know of that you are more comfortable in the drops, then on the tops. But then I designed it that way. The seat tube is 52cm c-c, the top tube is 58cm. The seat angle is 77, and the head angle is 73. It's a TT bike with drop bars.

The top tube is 6cm longer than the seat tube. I tool some ideas from Moser's bicycle. Deep Drop and stretched out. I also figured in the dimensions from the TT frame I build as well. I think I could have gone longer. we will see. It's uncharted territory. Why build a bike with geometry for all around performance, If your building it for yourself, build it for a specific purpose.

The idea is to get a position a lot like this. Moser was KING of optimising the postion. If you look at my bike the drops are right above my tire.

Ahhh . . . the Surly dropouts . . . they are what makes the whole fixed gear to geared transition possible. Great Idea.

Brakes, Schmakes . . . I've had these brakes over 20 years, and guess what, they will put you over the bars. and believe it or not they are pretty light . . . BELIEVE IT!

No.4 is almost done

It's almost done. I've set it up fixed gear until I get some cables. I also need a seat post. I have 11 seatposts . . . none are 26.8. I thought I had at least 2. I painted it "Sage Green". It's an appliance color. I guess there are a lot of appliances colored "Sage Green" . . . and now at least one bike.

I had the bars set up for my fixed gear bike still with the orange tape, then I found some old Blackburn purple cages . . . Hey, what do you know? . . . secondary colors.

I'll post some better pictures later. For some reason my camera doesn't work well inside. Here it is setup with 28c tires. I still need to drill the brake post hole.

I'll get the first ride in this morning and see how it goes. I'm experimenting with geometry here.

The Clean Up Begins

I still have a lot of clean up to do, but here is how those stays attached. Not my best work. I'm going to get a GasFluxer soon so howfully that will help . . . that and not brazing at 2am might help.

Sneak Peak

The SeatStays are roughly done. I still have some work to do on these, but I thought I'd post some pictures anyway. I've learned some thing about bending metal tubing. Next time I'll do things a little different, one example is I won't bend them so sharply, next time I'll use a more sweeping curve, but it's a research and development project right?

Front Tri no.4

Front triangle is done. Just got to cut down the headtube. I can't find my guides (Gates hose clamps). I can cut a tube off pretty straight, just not within a 2mm tolerance. I like leaving a little work to do as possible before I face and chase it.

Then I'll have to file and sand the fillets to make'm purdy. I started on the one by the seat cluster and it's going a lot better than the previous three.

Turn-on, Tune-In, & Dropout

Got some dropouts this morning. I need to build a road bike. I know I have plans for the swing bike, but after riding around my TT bike all over the place I would really like a Road bike. Or at least have a bike more practicle for riding to work. The TT bike is nice, but it good to be able to see more than my front tire. I just want to rotate my position back a few . . . 5 degrees back.

Like Alton Brown I like Multi-Taskers. So when I saw that Surly made track droputs with deraileur hangers I couldn't resist. Yes tire changes are a pain, but how many times do you change tubes and tires. Now I can go with gears, single speed or go fixed gear. This would be the perfect Cross setup. I can race my class, and Single Speed on the same bike.

One question I did have was the location of the deraileur hanger in relation to the axel. It's not real clear in the picture, but I believe they are offset the same.

. . . and the road bike will be built around this Aluminum Fork my friend gave me. It looks like an old Vitus fork, but that's not really important. What's really important is intimidation factor. The same intimidation you might experience in the back alleys of New York if ambushed by from some 7 foot tall, tattooed freak. Since you can't tattoo your fork, this has the next best thing.

. . . Battle scars. This fork displays much as the same attributes found on a mosh-pit brawler.

Pictures don't do this fork justice. This grind mark is just one feature.

This fork just say "I Fear Nothing"! . . . and the best part is it was free!