Bob- Remodeling is kind of like when you meet an old friend from college and offer for them to stop by and stay for a weekend and then you find yourself talking to your wife about ways to get him the &^%$ out of your house & life 2 weeks later... it can be endless. Hang tough, you'll make it through it! Have a great weekend (well, sorta right?) and don't worry... we'll cook for you next week when we see you on the East Coast. -Me (Large Fella)
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What a great weekend here in the cities. It was warm and sunny the whole time, absolutely perfect. So naturally, I spent all day saturday indoors, putting up wall tile and cabinet hardware in the kitchen.
But after doing my home-remodeling-pennance Saturday (forgive me father, for I have agreed to remodel my kitchen), a long ride was in order Sunday. Beth took off early to head to Taylors Falls for some nice early season outdoor climbing, so I had the day to entertain myself (which is pretty easy). I couldn't truly just let myself play all-day, I hate not getting something accomplished at home, so I did a few small repairs in the shop, then sanded some drywall in the kitchen and added a second coat of mud. I had to let the mud dry now, so that seemed like a great excuse to head outside.
I rolled out of St. Paul about 11:45 and decided to head north a bit towards Stillwater. I felt great on the way out there, the 48-18 fg was treating me well. Got to Stillwater and was feeling pretty darn good and figured I better do something about that, so I headed across the lift bridge into 'sconny. Now the Wisconsin side of the river at the stillwater bridge is pretty much a sheer cliff and it only gets steeper once you turn off onto County Rd E halfway up. The nice part is County E is actually a designated bike route with a nice shoulder for riding, so when you collapse halfway up it, you can fall onto the shoulder and not impede traffic.
I wasn't even in Wisconsin for 2 minutes when the first redneck approached. I'm halfway up the County E climb (on a 71" fixed gear) when someone behind me lays on the horn for about 15 seconds. There's no other traffic in site, I'm on the shoulder of a designated bike route, and he's got a clear line of site to pass me, but no, he lays on the horn instead. Not so surprisingly, he's driving a jacked-up full size pickup truck from about '95. Redneck.
But at this point I'm climbing what feels like about a 40% grade, and just hoping to live to see the top. Not gonna do much about the redneck, just try to keep pedaling.
Not five minutes later, riding down WI 35, a second redneck (again full size pickup) does the same thing. What's going on? Is there a new cheesehead state law that requires full-size pickup drivers to warn bicyclists of their approach by sounding the horn right behind them? I don't get it. Better get back across the river as soon as possible though to be safe.
Crossed back over on the new I-94 bridge. It's pretty nice, you standard freeway crossing, but they moved the ped lane from the north side to the south, which is kind of nice on the MN side of things since you no longer have to ride across all the 94 on-ramps to reach the ped lane from afton.
My legs seemed to have recovered a little by this point, so I figured I might as well head to afton for more hills. Unfortunately when I got to downtown Afton, I discovered they hadn't turned on the water in the city park yet, and all the usual water-filling stops were closed. That extra water-weight would have only made the hills harder, so I continued on (or up as the case may be). The hills treated me pretty good until the end of the last one, the one I ran out of water on. Leg's started to cramp a bit as I crested the top, but nothing the fixed gear didn't force me to pedal through.....
Headed home from there, but got waylayed with a flat (the fixie really needed new tires last year, guess it's time). I stopped to fix it, had one rider pass me by,who didn't even say a word, not even a friendly "hi". If I see someone on the side of the road, I always at least check to make sure they've got everything they need. whatever.
Make my way in time to clean up and head out to Billy's surpirse 60th birthday party. It was at his son's new restaurant, the 318 cafe in Excelsior. Really nice place, with a great music line up, live music from some pretty big names every night of the week. We'll be heading back there soon. Good way to end the day.
all in all, not a bad day.
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Great ride report! Must be a Wisconsin thing going on lately... seems you're not alone in bad Wisc. experiences on cycles. Jim over on his blog details a similar vibe on a recent ride... http://blog.lib.umn.edu/archives/thil0020/carfreelife/2005_04.html#018960 -Me (Large Fella)
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For both of you that follow this blog on a regular basis, you've no doubt by now noticed the appalling lack of entries from the last week or so. Well, I've been busy.
Actually, I've been in New Jersey. Infact, I'm still here. Had a little business trip to attend to, so no exciting bike news from here. On the flip side, the weather in NJ has been great, sunny and about 60-70 degrees everyday. Wish I had a bike with....
I did get to catch up with a few friends out here, so the trip can't be viewed as a complete loss of time.
Well, I'm keeping it short, look for more after the plane touches down in Minneapolis tonight.
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Make it back home yet?? Should Amy, Chloe and me send out a search party?? ;-) Great seeing you again... -Me (Large Fella)
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Well, it's good to be back in MN. The weather has sucked since I got here, but rumor has it the rest of the week will be very ride-friendly, which is good news since I haven't been on a bike in a week now.
I got back to work in the shop last night, with some major clean-up. I've been working on building a new dedicated tube mitering machine, and it's been a messy process. There's aluminum chips everywhere from the mill, motors, gears, belts and actuators laying on every table. I can't wait to finish it up, mostly because I'll have my shop back then.
I did get a chance to snap a couple of pictures of the Pacenti-Wound-up 30.6mm carbon seatpost project. The pictures don't do the polishing job on the head justice, but you get the idea, they look nice! Perfect compliment to that campy record carbon crank you've been wanting.
Here's a closer shot of the head:
I hope to have a frame to put this on pretty soon, it's on the list.
In other news, the kitchen continues to consume a big part of my life. We're nearing the end of it though, as the last of the replacement cabinets come tomorrow (don't ever buy Kraftmaid cabinets!) and I should get them installed this weekend, along with grouting the wall tile. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but then an even bigger darkness which is the soon-to-come-addition to the house....
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Geez, got lots to write about today, so go get that second cup of coffee now.
It was a long weekend for me, took some extra time off work to make up for working the whole previous weekend. It helped since I’m falling behind a bit in the shop due to the kitchen remodel ( I know, you keep thinking “when’s this idiot gonna finish his kitchen” I’m wondering that myself).
The good news is I got finished up the nature lover frame. It looks good, I’ll get some pictures this week. Once I get the fork built, it’ll be ready for paint. I also made some good headway on the super-secret slant-six frame project. Can’t say much about it, but it’s got killer lugs, and it’s really light. If I keep bustin’ my hump in the shop, look for it out at Opus this year yet, you’ll know it when you see it.
Got in most of the tubing for the next tandem frame up in the que. Should be a good one, it’s a road frame for two of the hardest-core women you’ll ever meet. They’ve already got an off-road tandem I built for them, and they’re the only woman-woman team to ever attempt the Leadville 100 on tandem. Gotta get moving on that one.
Weekend ride report:
Rained all day Saturday here squelching my plans for the first off-road ride of the season. But I got in a nice road ride Sunday. Guess it had to happen sooner or later; I rode my geared road bike. I figure Opus and the rest of the road-racing season is coming up fast. I don’t do a lot of road races anymore, but I wanted to at least remember how the geared bike feels just in case.
It was a nice day, sunny and about 70, but with a decent wind from the southeast. I planned on heading to Afton, but wasn’t feeling great, so I modified the route. Thought I would just do an easy 35 miler to keep the legs loose, but I ended up taking a wrong turn and rode to Afton anyways. Took Valley Creek out of Afton instead of the Coulee hills though, and had some guy in a pick-up follow me at 20 mph for about 4 miles (on a 50mph road). He stayed back about 100 ft behind me, which I appreciate, but why on earth would he keep going so slow. I’d look back every couple of minutes expecting him to be nearing me, but he never did. Other cars passed him, and me, but he kept going slow. Odd. Eventually he did pass me, I’m not sure what prompted it, but he drove off never to be seen again.
About a mile after he finally passed me, I passed 2 guys from “Bicycle Chain” out riding. They weren’t moving too fast and I flew by them on a climb, didn’t expect to see them again. Well, half a mile alter I could hear someone riding behind me.
I don’t know about you, but I absolutely hate it when this happens. It’s not that I have people drafting off me, but I hate people who I’m not riding with just assuming it’s ok to jump on my wheel. I know I certainly wouldn’t draft off someone I don’t know and trust, it’s just not that safe.
So these two guys keep riding behind me, never saying a work, presumably they think I don’t know they’re there. I finally looked back and make eye contact after about a mile, thinking they’ll probably pull around wanting to take their pull and I could just drop off and lose them. Well, after another mile it became apparent that they had no intention of taking a pull into this wind, and that they were doing everything they could to stay in the draft. I turned off that road, they didn’t follow, I was happier.
So children, the moral of the story is, don’t draft off people you don’t know, it pisses them off (especially if that person happens to be me) and it’s not safe. Draft off your friends on group rides, draft off that MTC bus downtown, draft off those 18 wheelers on I-94, but don’t draft off me unless I know you!
If the earth dry's out today, the Kenwood Monday night rides start up tonight, so see you at 5:30 at the shoppe.
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Go "old school" on those non-pulling, drafting bastards... check up and drop your pump through the spokes on their front wheel. That'll teach 'em. Any word on that seat lug?? May 2nd approaches!! Also, we need to chat about something I recalled from your visit out here last week... I'm thinking you are thinking that the upper head lug is only about 8th notes when in fact it only has 2 8th notes cut into the lug. Remember the 3 main figures were Frog, Butterfly (actually that French Papplion I sent you) and that modern looking Dragonfly. -Me (Large Fella)
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not bad eh? I like it.
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Well, there's lots happening in the shop. I finished up the nature lover frame this week, it's ready for paint. I'm already trying to figure out how I'll have time to paint that baby. It came out great, I really like the dragonfly:
I think I'll have my work cut out for me masking those little legs for paint.
Well, it's time to unveil a project that's been in the works for a while. I got a good start on my first slant-six frame this week It's a complete experiment in an area I don't build in very much, really, really light bikes. I like light bikes, I think they're neat, and as an engineer I appreciate appropriate application of performance materials to improve performance. To that end, I decided to do a little experiment with a carbon rear end parts.
Now before you go off looking outside to see if beelzubub is firing up his Toro snowblower, don't worry, I'm not going into carbon bicycle production, heck my huge stock of bikes doesn't even feature a single carbon fork. THIS IS AN EXPERIMENT!
Now being the die-hard lug type guy that I am, I couldn't just jb-weld some plastic tubes to the back of some tig'd steel frame as nearly everyone else does. No, I gotta make this a lot harder, I want lugs with my carbon. Not just headlugs either, the whole shebang, lugged BB shell and seat-lug. I mean really, columbus was nice enough to make the parts for their carbon rear ends in steel, the BB shell is really well-made, why not put some lug sockets on there.
So, here's a sneak peak at some of it. The main triangle is all ready to go, I haven't put any pic's of the seat-lug on here yet as I want to do a little more shaping to it to match the other lugs a bit better, but here's the BB shell before any clean-up ( I hate putting pictures of stuff up before I clean it, but I thought some of you might like to see what these things look like in the rough form).
The keen observer will be able to pick up my secret technique for making lugs like this from the photo. The lug sockets are 4130 tubing turned on my lathe to the proper diameters, then I cut them to fit the shape of the BB shell, then I put the whole thing in my jig with the tubes in place. Then in the jig I can tack-weld the sockets to the shell, remove the whole thing and fillet braze the joints (that's why you see some area's of steel in the brass of the fillet, that's the tack-weld). After brazing, I mount the shell in the mill and clean out the sockets with a boring head. Then I file and shape the fillets to look like an investment casting. That's how I do a lot of my hand-made lugs (note: usually the inner surface of the lug socket isn't quite as smooth or perfect as an investment casting, so on a lug like this I tend to err on the generous side with the silver to make sure any pin-holes in the brass are filled. That's why you see a bit more silver around the lug edge and inside the shell compared to the other photos). Making that one BB shell takes about the same amount of time as it takes me to make a complete front triangle using off-the shelf lugs! It's a pile of work, but hey somebody's got to do this stuff or bikes would all look the same.... ugly.
I used the Slant-Six lugs for the rest of the frame, the seat-lug took a lot of work as well. I had to extend the rear tang of the lug then tack and braze the seat-stay connecting tube to that. I'll have pics of that soon, but for now, here's the lower head lug after quite a bit of shaping it down:
That pic was taken right after brazing and just soaking off the flux. A quick shot with the blaster will clean up that silver flash, and some final sanding on the lug and it's ready to go. These slant-six lugs were really nice to work with, they fit the tubes perfectly, and I really like the shapes I can make with them. Here's the upper headlug:
For those still reading and not asleep with their face on teh keyboard, here you can get some insight into my brazing. The area on the side of the top-tube your'e looking at with more silver flash on it is where I fed the silver from. I braze the whole side of a lug like this from that one spot, flowing it through to the head-tube. That ensures that I've got good penetration all the way through the joint. It also helps avoid building up excess silver along the lug edges, by pulling it through from the other side. Hard to explain in words, but it works. If you're keeping track, the tubing is a mix of Columbus Spirit and True-Temper S-3. Good stuff.
well, I guess I'll get to see how my epoxying skills are when I find time to add the rear triangle. I'll probably throw it on the alignment table and take some stiffness measurements for my records before I build it up. I'm a bit worried the carbon rear end may not be as stiff as I like, but that's why I'm doing this experiment. If it's a bust, I already have the steel rear triangle parts to put on there instead, but it'd be a shame since I spent so much time making those lugs.
Kitchen update: not much here, more trouble with Kraftmaid and Lowes. We were supposed to get all three remaining cabinets last week in a single shipment. Two arrived. The third one is somewhere, but nobody seems to know where. We got an automated phone message from Lowes Monday night saying it had arrived at the store and was ready to pick-up. So Beth made the 30 mile drive up there to get it only to find out it hadn't actually arrived. Appearantly they have a new automated notification service and it's malfunctioning and they're know it! if you knew your automated notification service didn't work, would you leave it on? I wouldn't. I think I'd rather have people think their delivery is late than have them all coming into the store and getting irate when the product isn't actually there. I must not see the big picture.
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You weight weenie... working with carbon!! ;-] Man, you sure have been busy Bob! Great looking stuff... Beth's bike looks incredible so far. She's gonna love it!! -Me (Large Fella)
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Well, Sunday officially opened the greatest season of the year, mountain bike season. But before we go there, let's go back a few days and get things in chronological order since I've been so negligent in keeping up this blog.
Thursday: Great road ride with kenwoodies, out to Wayzata for coffee. Saw Greg Lemond out there, strolling around by the lake.
Friday, no ride, but progress on the plastic weight weenie frame. Tried out my JB-weld skillz and I gotta say, I think I prefer a torch and silver. I glued the rear triangle on (it's weird even just writing that, I GLUED the rear triangle on...) on the half steel half plastic bike. Figured I'd let it cure in the jig the rest of the weekend.
As you can see, it's pretty neat looking. I was somewhat concerned about how stiff the epoxy would end up since that's really what's connecting the carbon to the steel. It needs to be very stiff if you want the rear triangle to be stiff.
Once it cured for a couple days, I pulled it out of the jig and chaecked the alignment. It was spot on, so I did a good job setting up the jig accurately. I then did a defelction test on the alignment table, the same test I've done on almost all the frames that have come through the shop in the last year. This frame's rear triangle members measured out almost exactly the same as the other thin walled steel frames I'm measured. It's was equal to a frame with True Temper OX-platinum chainstays and seatstays with ritchey dropouts. Stiffer than any of the light aluminum frames I'd tested, and flexier than the more standard wall (around .8mm) steel road frames I usually build. I was fairly surprized.
I was also farily surprized by the weight. The carbon rear end parts themselves do weigh a bit less than their steel counterparts (very light steels like Columbus Spirit or True temper S-3), but by the time you add in all the epoxy that's used, that margin really does shrink down. Once this was all build up, There was only about a 50-75 gram difference between this super-muscle rear end (about the lightest out there) and the Spirit rear end with breezer dropouts. And my measured stiffness was roughly a wash, so you're paying big bucks to save a few grams and for some elusive mysterious ride characteristic that the carbon is supposed to provide. We'll see....
On the plus side, I really like the look of the slant-six lugs I used. Nice general shape, and enough material on them for me to do a little shaping to get it just right.
Saturday: salve labor; help friends move most of the day, no riding, but one hell of a workout. Got the final cabinet for the kitchey though! exciting.
Sunday: The big day. 7am: met some fellow kenwoodies in minneapolis for the season opener mountain bike ride. I figure if you gonna start the season, start the season. So we headed out on 3+ hour ride. Covered fort snelling, the lillydale trails, cedar off-road commuter trail by the MOA, then down to the riverbottoms, up back through fort snelling and into Minneapolis. It was a great ride. For those of you still concerned about me becoming a weight weenie with this carbon bike, I'll have you know I rode my 1995 Bontrager Race mtb with the original Judy XC (with bontrager crown of course) and all the vintage trimmings. Weighs in about 26-27 lbs, which was probably heavier than the 2 full-suspension bikes on the ride! That bike is still a ton of fun, but it's definetly not my 29'er!
So that got me home by noon, in time to get to work on the kitchen. It's almost done, we hung the last cabinet yesterday and trimmed out the window. I got toe-kick in place, just some smaller floor trim left to put in. We're gonna have an operation kitchen soon. We even got the old fridge out of our dining room (thank Dean) so we can walk through there now. If we're not careful it's gonna look like a house again soon.
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Before I get into it, I want to direct your attention to the Large Fella on a Bike website. He's been doing a neat project surveying a variety of Framebuilders lately. I'm up there, check it out here.
Well, I think the kitchen project is just about wrapped up (for now). I installed the last of the trim after work yesterday and Beth began moving stuff back into the cabinets last night. So now we wait till summer for the house addition to begin....
But that means more shop time now. I got in some quality time last night, just me and my needle files. This is for a frame to be built alter this summer, but I needed to get one lug carved for a sample. Personally I love the way it came out:
I've got a little work to do yet, but not much. I'd like to add some tiny eyes on him though. I still have to shape the lower part of the seat-tube socket as well.
Check out the details though, I wanted to make sure all the feet were shaped just right. Then I shaped the lower side points under the top-tube in kind of a web-like shape, keeping with the webbed-foot theme. I like the look.
There's a few more shots of the lug in the photo gallery under Amy C (the lucky recipient). I hope she's thrilled with them when it's all done.
I'm becoming increasingly font of carving things found in nature. Most carved lugs are abstract shapes or curves, which can look great, but there's something really fun about being able to make a little tiny realistic sculpture in steel then integrate it so nicely into a frame. Makes me really feel like I'm putting part of my soul into each frame, I don't know how to explain it.
One thing that has really helped with these carvings is having access to Pacenti lugs. Those things are so great for projects like this. Before the Pacenti's were around, I'd have to add little bits of tubing to existing lugs in order to have enough material to carve. Now I find I can fit most of what I want right onto the casting with the Pacenti's, that saves me quite a bit of hassle.
I may do some BB carving this week too, I've got a frame in process that needs some neat intials carved into the BB shell. Since I'm feeling the groove maybe I'll keep going with that one. Gotta budget the time though as I'm getting behind on paint jobs. I have 5 frames waiting for paint now, I think it's time for some spraying very soon.
Speaking of paint, it's also time for a new edition of Kenwood Racing team paint jobs. For 2005 we're going gold! The new Kenwood team paint job will be a gold frame with the cream downtube panel. The "Kenwood Racing" lettering will be red, and there will be thin green and cream strips at the ends of the panel. Should be hot!
Alright, that's about enough random ramblings for now.
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Damn!! That Amy C. is ONE LUCKY chick!! Boy, if she's married she must have one helluva husband... I can't imagine what kind of husband would take the time to think through such an elaborate project with so many details, then be smart enough to enlist a frame builder brilliant enough to pull it off!! WOW! Seriously... Bob, it's just killer and Amy is going to absolutely freak out on our anniversary!! Wonderful work! -Me (Large Fella)
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Well, almost. The kitchen is practically done, so I'm going to count it. I've had requests from two people now to post pictures of when I'm done. I figure that's at least 3/4 of my reading audience, so I better keep 'em happy.
So after great amounts of toil, I present the kitchen.....
Looking Northeast:
Looking southeast:
Looking straight north:
Yes, the keen observer will note that there is a section of countertop missing and that might make this project seem like it's not finished. Well too bad. I can't install that counter until we finish the addition on the house. The wall behind that counter will cease to exist once the addition is done and that will be a penninsula cabinet and counter with a little breakfast bar at it. So it's as done as I can make it.
We've got about double the amount of cabinet space that was orignally there, and it's amazing how easily we filled that up! not that it's completely full, but we used most of it. That gives you an idea of how crowded we were in the old kitchen.
It's pretty much a night and day difference from what we had. Without a doubt this is the biggest improvement we've made to the house since I bought it.
Well, that's about it for today, I'm gonna keep it short. I've got lots to do, so I better get to it.
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Bob- Having not seen the "Before" pics I gotta say, Beautiful!! The cabinets are really beautiful... great color. Love the fact that you can see what's in the cabinets too... I love windows in cabinets-that's what I've always wanted when we own someday. Countertop looks amazing... I really love the whole look. Nice balance between dark, light, open, cozy, inviting & homey while nice & functional. Great job you & Beth did!! 10 thumbs up! So when we stop by... who's cooking-me or you? -Me (Large Fella)
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