press.

Last week, customer and now good friend Scott Cutshall was interviewed by the 'strib for an article about his weight loss and life change. I didn't know when it was going to be published, but whaddya know all kinds of 'strib readers let me know this morning:

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/16782826.html

I checked my email to find I was inundated with requests for information about Scott's bike and what it would take to get one. Most of them probably won't make the commitment (money and lifestyle) that Scott did, but man am I overwhelmed at how many people his story is affecting. It's great!

As most folks in that situation will probably not like my current custom bike pricing and lead times, I'm working on a way to put together some lower priced options for people just looking for a bike that will hold up and give them a comfortable way to exercise. So if you happen to be one of the many folks who read the article and got inspired, then looked at my website and became terrified by the prices, email me and let me know what you're looking for. I might still be able to help you find something more in your price range, even if it's not a Bob Brown Cycles frame.

I'm getting worried now, because I know there's another upcoming large publication coming out with a much more detailed account of Scott's story. I suspect I'll get even more inquiries then.

So far my favorite emails have been the ones from well-meaning folks thanking me for touching Scott's life and giving him this incredible means to transform his existence. Hmm. I just built him a bike. Really. He's the one who did all the work, made the commitment and followed through on it. He did pay me for the bike, so really I just did my job. So thanks to the folks sending me emails, but really Scott is the one who made the magic happen, my hat's off to you my friend.

I've been slowly update the website. I'm adding a FAQ to the information page to help answer the emails I get most often. Updating content here and there as well. Nothing big, but trying to keep it current.

Also have a couple of big tools I'm looking to sell if anyone out there in blog-land is looking. First is my Miller tig welder.

Model SR-150-32 industrial DC tig machine. Make no mistake, this thing is truly industrial duty. It's currently wired to run on single-phase 220v power, but can be re-wired to run single or three phase, 220v or 480v. Range is 0-200 amps, but when running off single phase power it peaks out about 150 amps (still plenty for most welding). The machine has switchable high-frequency start built into it (on-off, or continuous hi-freq), adjustable post-purge timer for changing the length of purge after the weld. Remote contactor and amperage adjustment via foot pedal. Both contactor function and amperage adjustment are switchable. The unit is mounted on the original Miller factory running gear to it's very easy to wheel around. The running gear also has hooks for hanging cables/hoses and a stand for the argon bottle on back, so you can wheel the whole welder around as a unit easily.
I am planning on keeping the Smith argon regulator and the weldcraft torch, but I'm willing to negotiate those into the price if you like.
The machine is quite heavy, so shipping my be impratical. I think it weighs about 400lbs. I can deliver locally if desired.
Just to clarify, this welder runs on single-phase electricity, so it can be run off most household 220v power. There are many 3-phase only welders with the same model # in the miller line.
Anyone interested is welcome to try it out in my shop, it's all wired up and ready to burn some metal.
$800/obo

Dumore 1/2 hp tool-post grinder kit.

This is a complete interior/exterior Dumore tool-post grinder with a large selection of spindles, wheels, pulleys and belts. Most people won't even know what this is, but if you're insterested in it, you know what you're looking at. works perfectly, fits my 13" lathe, but would also work on bigger machines. email me for complete specs and a list of what is included.

pretty heavy, so if shipped, it probably needs to be 2 boxes. Includes the original steel case as well (not pictured). $1000/obo. This kit sells for over $2800 at J & L!

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whattaweek

I had to do some traveling this week and found myself in Las Vegas for a convention. A big convention, the Con-Expo show (2.2 million sq. ft. of show!)
My feet still hurt from walking, I spent 4 days walking the show and still didn't cover all of it. Lots of neat stuff, but none that really pertains to bikes, so I'll spare you the details.
The bummer of it was getting home though, my flight got canceled due to a mechanical problem with the plane. crap, 300,000 people trying to leave vegas and me without a flight home.

I spent about 2 hours on the phone with about 6 different people and went through getting booked on 4 different replacement flights, each one getting changed about 15 minutes after I booked it. Northwest finally saw the light and got a replacement aircraft en-route to get all the people they stranded out. The highlight of all that must have been the gate agent that simply turned around and abandoned her post on us. She literally flipped out and started ranting about working three hours with no break, said she couldn't take it and left the counter unmanned to go take her break while we stood there. And amazingly enough we were in the first-class/elite check-in line which is supposed to get the "good" service from Northwest. nice.


On to bike stuff. I managed to get a big frame refurb job shipped out before I left town. Long time readers might recognize this as there are a few pictures of it on my regular web-site. The owner had a little spill and wanted a couple of changes, so I did that brazing work and repainted the whole thing. Came out pretty nice.

I've been inundated with fork requests as of lately, so I've also been cranking out forks. Three of them in the week before I left! I'm not sure what's happening, but there must be a world shortage of steel forks this spring, I've never built so many.

Product review: I picked up a Chrome backpack in Feb and I've finally had a chance to get in a few rides with it. I got the Ranchero, which is their medium sized bag. Overall the construction is very good and it fits incredibly well (as it should for the price). The bag conforms perfectly to my back and doesn't move around at all when riding (even off-road). It's definitely harder to dig through than a typical messenger bag since it's pretty tall and thin (read: it's a big, deep pocket instead of a wide open pocket). But that's simply part of being a backpack instead of a messenger bag and it's also why it stays in place so good.
Every store I've gone in with it had yielded comments or questions on where someone else could get one, which seems like a good thing. Overall, I'm really pleased. The one big (in my mind, really big) thing missing is a good way to carry a u-lock in a handy spot. Chrome could really take a lesson from Bailey on all their bags when it comes to the design of pockets. The Chrome outer pockets don't hold much of value so you have to resort to storing medium-small things in the main pockets. Not having a quick way to access a u-lock annoys me, especially when it would have been so easy to sew on a low pocket for it. Maybe I'll add my own.

Well, I'm tired, till next time.

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Breaking the silence

My last posting was on Feb 1, I thought it fitting to write one on the last day of the month as well since I didn't get any in between! I'm going to warn you right now this may be long, not have any pictures, maybe be depressing, and most of all be erratic. I suspect most folks that read this regularly know what's going on but I feel like I need to say something.

I was traveling for work the first week of Feb, down in Little Rock as usual. Got back to town late Wednesday night and Beth left town for a girl's vacation the next day. Thursday night I got an unusual call from her from Colorado (where she was on vacation). She said my cousin had called her cell to ask if she knew that my Mom was in the hospital. Seemed like an odd call, but she had gotten a call from our Grandfather telling her my Mom was in a hospital. So via this message that started in MN, went to WI, MN, CO and finally back to me I found out that sure enough my Mom was up at Mercy Hospital for somewhat unknown reasons.
Turns out my parents thought I was still in Little Rock, hence they hadn't called. Besides at that point she was just having a really bad headache and they were simply trying to find out why.

A day later (Friday) they determined that she had several brain tumors that were putting pressure on her brain causing the headaches. They didn't know much more than that without a biopsy, but no matter what the tumors were composed of, they had to be removed to relieve the pressure on her brain, so they scheduled her for surgery Monday morning. Yikes, thinking about someone opening up your brain and removing part of it isn't the best thing to have on your mind for a whole weekend while you sit in a hospital bed. It was a rough weekend for my Mom and for all of us trying to make her comfortable with this notion that someone was going inside her head.

Monday came and they got her prepped and rolled her in early for surgery. We spent what seemed like an eternity in the waiting room (it's about a 4 hour surgery). They finally released her into recovery late in the afternoon and into the ICU about dinnertime. The surgeon came and spoke to us afterwards and told us they removed three tumor masses, and that the tissue he removed did look cancerous, but pathology would need to confirm that. However you have to know if the surgeon it bothering to tell us now that he "thinks" it is cancerous, it probably is.

Days went by in the ICU and she slowly recovered from the trauma of surgery. The actual incision site healed up really well, but through the process she has lost much of the function of the left side of her body. She was pretty heavily medicated for pain this whole time, so it was difficult to see how her brain was functioning, but when the meds would wear down, she seemed to be pretty alert and sharp so it seemed like things would be ok.

The pathology came back later that week and confirmed what we feared, Glioblastoma-multiforme, which is a level 4 cancer (or at least if commonly referred to as cancer, but by definition isn't cancer because it does not spread outside of the brain).

The hospital had recommended transferring her to Abbott Northwestern for physical therapy after surgery to re-learn how to use some of that left side which wasn't working. Abbott all has one of the only brain tumor centers in the cities, so this seemed like a good match. I spoke with the neuro-oncology department there and really felt it was the right place to get treatment.

Sometime about a week and a half ago, she moved to Abbott and started physical therapy and meetings with the neuro-oncologist. So far she's doing really well when they can get her to stay awake (they had her on a bit too much narcotic and it was sedating her heavily all day). She walked with a cane this week and seems to be on her way to at least being somewhat independently mobile. Her left hand hasn't regained much fine motor control, she can move it but not do anything precise with it. That really drives her nuts since she's left-handed. I don't think she'll ever be able to write with that hand again but she can hold some things with it while she uses her right.

The good news is that she should be able to come home fairly soon (maybe next week) and sleep in her own bed. As anyone who's been in a hospital knows, they're no place to rest! She'll have to make daily trips in for radiation therapy and she'll start chemo at the same time, but she'll be able to sleep in her own bed.

So between many, many trips to various hospitals, trying to get my parent's house ready for her to come home (she needs hand-rails in a lot of places), I've been pretty tied up. So if you've called or emailed there's a reason why I'm pretty slow responding right now. Please be patient.

The outpouring of support from family and friends has been overwhelming. The hardest part is keeping people from visiting as she needs to sleep as much as possible and lots of visitors really tire her out. It's great to know that there are so many people out there thinking and prayin' for her. I don't think I can write much more about this right now as it's still kind of draining and hard to think about. I know many people have been down this road before and I'm sure some of you reading this have been through cancer yourselves. My heart goes out to you, it's so sudden and so life-altering. Makes you really take a look at how you live life.

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racked

Been a while since I talked at you. In that time I managed to finish up the fancy-pants fully luggest stainless steel bike racks. They're really neat, but I'll be glad to see them go, they've been a much bigger pile of work than I anticipated.

There's 2 of them, the one pictured is 4' long and the other is about 6.5' long. Should hold about 10-12 bikes total.

Doesn't really seem like there's much there, but all the lugs had to be custom carved, shaped and added onto to get the look the architec was after. And since these are all stainless that meant all the lug additions had to be tig welded on instead of my usual method of brazing them on. And well, I'm not a very proficient tig welder, so it took me a while to get things looking good.

The lugs started off as 4 sets of Llewelyn mini-six lugs. The upper head lugs had additional side points added and a front center point added then were filed down to shape.

The lugs for the second cross tube were seatlugs with the binder bolts cut off, the slots filled in and then the whole things filed down.

I had to make up the hooks too. They're bent from 3/8" 316 stainless round bar. Pretty beey, but I thought it looked more appropriate. They simply hang from the bars, so they're fully adjustable or position.

That thing has really consumed a lot more time that I thought it would, so I'm, stuck playing a bit of catch up in the shop, but I'm doing that well. Kept going on the stainless bend and finished up a dropout replacement and some stainless braze-on's on a BBC frame in for a repaint. Still have to give everything the final polish, but it's close to being ready for new paint.

Finally got in my latest order of 953 tubing, so as soon as I wrap up the three forks and one other frame I have in process, I'll be back to working on stainless. Reynolds has been a bit hit and miss on delivery of stainless yet, but I've learned to just keep ordering tubing about 6 months ahead of time. That strategy seems to be working well.

In other news since the last time I wrote, I froze my a$$ off a few weekends ago riding to the Cash tribute show at the Cabooze. The good news is the show was more than worth the 2am ride home at -20 degrees. 5 bands covering nothin' but cash all night. spectacular, especially with Thorny and Stone for entertainment.

That's about all for now.

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rack 'em

Yeah, I'm still building bikes, but in between I've been working on a side project for a local Mlps Architect. It's a fully lugged stainless steel bike rack. Not a rack to go on a bike, but rather a rack to hang bikes from indoors! Actually I'm making 2 of them and I'm pretty excited to see how they come out.

It kinda looks like some kind of odd long wheel-base recumbent in this shot, but eventually that'll be hanging on a wall.

Click on any of these for big. The lugs started out as mini-six stainless lugs, then I've been adding points on them all over and reshaping them. Adding material to stainless lugs adds a whole new challenge because I have to tig weld the extra material on instead of brazing it. Otherwise you'd see the silver line on the lug where the extra material was added.





It's also pretty thick tubing, .0625" wall, which makes silver brazing the much thinner lugs on a bit of a challenge too, but so far so good. I've got one of them mostly brazed up, but I've still got to clean it up and then make another one!

This rack project is taking it's tool on the shop, it's a mess. I've never spent so much time grinding with so many tools. I can't even see the bench through the grinding dust.



I've also been working on a another frame and a frame repair. Spent a little time this afternoon fancy-ing up these stainless steel dropouts by carving out the windows.
I've still got to polish 'em up and clean them, but I think they'll look pretty nice. These dropouts used to come with windows cast-in years ago, but they stopped doing that, so now I've got to cut them out by hand to make them look nice. Sigh, just more work....

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too long

Sorry, it's been a while. The holidays catch up to you and I just never got around to posting anything.

We've had great snow till yesterday and I've been trying take advantage of it as much as possible. Been skiing Battle Creek a lot and it's the best skiing I've ever done there. The volunteer groomers really deserve everyone's thanks, they're doing a hell of a job out there.

Skied yesterday with Thorny, must have been about 45 degrees, the skies were pretty well stuck to the snow, glide was non-existent. But it was still fun to be out, I just hope the warm weather leaves soon and we get a couple more inches, otherwise the season may be over soon!

Still going strong in the shop, got Billy's mtb about half done now. Coming out pretty well for a bike with some serious lug tweaking. He needed about a 15 degree slope on the top-tube, so I needed to really "adjust" the lugs to make things work. Came out great.

I'll get some more pictures up here soon.

I'm starting on another neat project as well, a stainless steel bike rack. Not a rack that mounts on a bike, but rather a rack for hanging bikes indoors. It's a project for a Mlps architect, for a new office building downtown. I'm pretty excited to see how it comes out.

Band had a good show Friday night. We played at Memory Lanes in Minnapolis. Great turn-out for us, but unfortunately they cut us pretty short, so we couldn't fully rock the place. But we'll be back there soon with a longer set, so keep your ears open.

Been playing with my new camera a little too, and with trying to get better lighting for shooting bikes. I rigged up a little light booth with an old light diffucing shade and took the pictures for an ebay auction I've got going. I think I'm starting to get better at this and hope to apply it to a bike frame soon!

write at you later

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Lalondage (the Marko kind!)

Snipped from the KCCX national's website, photo from action photos:

Single Speed Champ Beats Star-Studded Field

The Singlespeed race - the only non-championship event of the day - featured a star-studded field that included Travis Brown, the first-ever winner of the World Single Speed Championship (in 1999), and local favorite Cameron Chambers of Lenexa, Kan., the reigning NORBA 24-Hour Solo national champion.

But at the end of the 45-minute race, it was Marko LaLonde of Madison, Wisc., who rode away from them all - turning some of the fastest lap times the course had seen the entire event up to that point. LaLonde finished 28 seconds ahead of Brown.

Marko LaLonde of Madison, Wisc. beats a star-studded field of cyclocross single-speedsters

"The main thing was staying upright because it was so rutted," LaLonde said. "You had to stay really light on the handlebars and let the ruts take you. If you tried to fight it, you were going down."

LaLonde said he spent much of the last half of the race looking back, knowing that one mistake would open the door for someone else.

"I realized if I made a mistake, Travis (Brown) was going to catch me because he was pushing pretty hard. Toward the end, I was starting to play it safe and at least keep upright."

The website forgot to mention on other thing that you need to look through the results closely to see. Not only did Marko win the Singlespeed race by 28 seconds, he went out again that afternoon and finished 51 in the Elite Men's race. Damn!

Marko, congrats on a hell of a season! Now go get some rest, I can't wait to see all three of you brothers duke it out next year.


Big bike:

infact it's the biggest ever for me. 74cm with a sloping top tube. If you're wondering, yes those are 700c wheels with 28 c tires on them.
The headtube was so long that my headbadge looked silly on it, so I made a vertical logo to fill it up using some chrome paint!





I'm about out of time, so more later

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one more thing

I just found out there's a Route 29 frame and fork up on ebay:

Auction link!!!!

This one is non-suspension corrected, and the smallest size made, 17" Might be a great chance to get one for cheap since that price includes the fork.

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winter has sprung

What a great week in MN! we got about 6" of the white stuff this past weekend, then another 4-5 Tuesday. This is the first time in years that I can remember having good skiing in MN in December. I got in a few laps at Battle Creek Sunday after the first snow and I was amazed how good it was with just that little bit. After Tuesday's snow it's now downright great! My hat's off to the volunteer grooming force at Battle Creek these days, they're doing a hell of a good job.


With snow also comes snow riding. I finally threw away my old studded tires last year but not because the studs were worn after 10 years of service, but rather the sidewalls had rotted out so bad I could no longer latex them up to repair 'em (that's a testament to how long home-made studded tires can last!) So I made up some new ones, but this time I went big. I started with a pair of Kenda Karhma 2.2" 29'er tires and put in far less studs this time, only 50 per tire. That's still enough that there's always at least one in contact with the ground. I may add more later if it doens't feel adequate, but after one ride I'd say they seemed to hook up about as good as my old ones which had a couple hundered studs each.

Usually I line the inside of the tire with a few layers of duct tape to protect the tube and that works great and weights a lot. Never worried about the weight before because these home-made studded tires were always heavy anyways. This time I used far less studs, so the tires weren't too bad for weight, so I decided to try a new approach. Tubeless.


Yup, I'm such a fan of the Stan's tubeless system that I thought I'd give it a go here. They claim the sealant won't freeze until -30F, so I figured it should be ok. Mounted them up on some Bontrager 29'er rims, stans'd 'em and went for a ride. So far they seem to be hold great, even at low pressure. I haven't gone super low pressure yet, but I'm going to try soon. Rode them Tuesday night in the fresh snow with the Large Fella, and they seemed to work as good as any other studded tire I'd used, but weighed about 2lb's less (for the pair). I like the big 29'er tire in the snow too, I think it helps. I ran them at about 25 psi, which worked well, but I'm going to keep trying lower and see if the Stan's holds up.

Last weekend I finally got around to cleaning up the Nuke-Proof rear hub I picked up from the Vitch at his last-of-Kenwood-Cyclery-garage-sale. I also happened to have a Nuke-proof front hub which makes this a set. Not quite a perfect match since the front is the Bombshell suspension hub, but close enough to be cool.



Turns out the rear axle was bent (nice sale Vitch!) but that was fine by me because I never inteded to use it. I bought the hub to make it a singlespeed hub. So I turned out a new solid stainless steel axle for the rear and intergraded the drive side spacer as part of the axle to strengthen it up even more. I needed to move the hub body over towards teh driveside to allow the cog to be in the right spot for good chainline, and to get rid of the dish in the rear wheel Came out great, very Phil Wood-esqe rear axle. They're not super light, but I think they're super cool!

Haven't decided what I'm doing with them yet, I have a set of rims in need of single speed hubs, but I might throw them on ebay first since they're so unique. If any reader is interested I'll sell the pair for $200. You'll have the most unique singlespeed wheels around! (both are 32 hole, rear is bolt-on style)

Hopefully I'll be taking a bunch of pictures this weekend with my new D-SLR camera (if it arrives), so look for some pictures of the homebrew 29'er studded tires soon (and the frame I finished up last weekend).

Till then, enjoy the snow!

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CX recap

This weekend was my last CX race for the year, and I'm just finally getting into my groove...

MN state CX championships happened at Basset Creek Saturday with a slightly modified structure. They split the B race into 2 race, B1 and B2. The B1 race was cat 4 and singlespeed classes 35 minutes long, the B2 was Cat3 and 45 minutes long. This brought up a dilemma for me, race singlespeed class or do the cat 3 race on my singlespeed or do both. In the back of my head I was thinking the both option would be best, after all it is the last race of the year.

Now backup a little: I was traveling for work most of the previous week which prevented me from riding or really getting in any exercise at all the whole week. I had flown back to MN Friday and the band had a late show at the Terminal Friday night. I had gotten up at 5am Friday morning and went straight thru till 2am Sat morning with the show, so by 10:30 am when I rolled into Basset Creek, doing 2 races was losing appeal. Also since I was running late and would have had to just jump right into the singlespeed race, I opted for the cat 3 race.

I think I made the right move. The start was a little odd, there weren't any of the familiar faces I was used to, I think everyone I knew raced the B1. Having a singlespeed race drew a lot of people out, there were only 2 of us (that I saw) in the B2 with singlespeeds, but that's fine gears don't help a ton on a course like this.
Gun went off and we rolled out the dirt road. Seemed like a surprisingly slow roll-out to me, so I weaved as much as I could to get towards the front. Got boxed in most of the first lap so I stayed where I was and rode comfortably, getting a feel for the group. After that I decided I should pick it up and just started slowly picking people off. The stairs run-up was really my friend this year, all that running training really paid off. I finally got to the point where it seemed I was riding with the folks who were at my same speed after about 4 laps, I stuck with the same guy for the next 2 laps. At the end I decided I had a bit left in me, so I did what I could and passed a few more on the run-up and coming in for 20th place. Doesn't sound impressive, but for me these days that's pretty good. Looking through the results it looked like I was about 15 places higher than most of the folks I'd been finishing with all year, so I went home happy.

I'm pretty sure I owe it all to Rowntree. He loaned me his BKB "metal" skinsuit right before the start and as soon as I put it on I could feel the power. In fact at the start line someone asked me why I was riding a singlespeed in the B2 race, if I was "too good" for the singlespeed race and another guy piped in that he knew I must be fast 'cause I had BKB across my chest. I guess that guy didn't really know me, or that my last name isn't Lalonde.
I had no choice but to go all out, didn't want to shame that skinsuit. Thanks for the load Rowntree.

Also apparently I must really dig in on the run ups, this is the second pic this season of me looking really pissed off running up the hills, it's where I make up my time.

The Lalonde brothers made the drive up for the race as well, which really added to the fast contingent in the A race. I got a lot of comments and compliments about their bikes and their super-star skillz. They didn't disappoint, Marko coming in 5th and Jesse in 6th. Nice work fellas!

Another interesting note, a guy nobody seemed to know finished third. I kept looking at him on each lap thinking I knew him, but couldn't figure out specifically who he was. Turns out it was Kurt Refsnider, who was one of my skiers back when I was coaching at Champlin Park! Nice work Kurt, good to see you've really found your stride as an athlete.

The shop is back in full swing, just finished up the biggest frame I've built to date. It's half painted right now and should be done and assembled next week. This one is a 74cm (yes, that's not a typo) frame. It's got slant six lugs, so the sloping top-tube helps make it look slightly smaller than it is. The headtube is 35cm long, which made for the longest fork steerer I've ever seen.

I had to make the steerer from straight guage 4130 tubing as I couldn't find a butted steerer long enough. Amazingly I was able to find butted main tubes long enough thanks mostly to the popularity of 29'ers. So the frame is mostly Reynolds 631 tubing, double oversized.

I'll try to get some pictures of this up here once it's built up, it's hard to visualize how big it really is without wheels on it! The owner is one tall guy, I'm glad he'll finally have a frame that actually fits him! Just can't find frames this big anywhere anymore.


Happy Thanksgiving everyone, cheers to another great CX season.

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shop n rant.

long time between postings lately. Too much going on to have time to write...

Lots of big happenings though. The biggest of which is I'm pretty much done with my big shop move/remodel. It was a ton of work, but the end results were worth it, I love the new space. It's actually not a lot bigger in total area, but much cleaner, brighter and properly laid out.

Most of my tools now reside in cabinets and drawers instead of hanging from every corner and wall possible. That should help keep the expensive tools clean and rust-free.

I installed suspended ceiling in the shop and insulated above that, so it's nearly sound proof to the living area above. It's also physically separated from the house utilities (furnace, water heater etc...) and from the living area, so the dust should be contained a lot better. The lighting is probably the single biggest upgrade, between more lights and the white ceiling, it feels like daylight in here now. gotta love that.

Hopefully sometime in the next month or two I'll have time to update my web-site and include a proper virtual shop tour!

I've also consolidated some equipment to save space. Got a bigger belt/disc sander and no longer need and bench grinders. Got rid of some overlapping metal and woodworking stuff, etc... All in all it's a lot less cluttered.

Speaking of that, I've got 2 bench grinders that I have no need for if anyone needs one. Local would be better, but I suppose I could pack & ship. First one is a nearly brand new Craftsman 6" grinder. 36 and 80 grit wheels and I can throw in the best wheel ever invented, 3M scotchbrite deburring wheel ($25 wheel). Great for deburring and polishing. It's got a handy light too. I think I've used it about 3 times, just never needed this one. $35

The other one is a little bigger, it's a home-made 8" wheel grinder/polisher. It might look a little rough, but it works great, especially for polishing. I've got 2 or 3 grinding wheels and several polishing wheels to fit it. 2 speed belt drive. High speed for polishing is great, the motor has plenty of power for polishing or grinding. it doesn't have a switch, I just had a switched outlet, but you could easily add one or just plug it in as needed. $20, take it home today!

'cross. 2 races since last I wrote: powderhorn and Ham Lake. They were about as different as 2 courses could get. Powderhorn was incredible. The Hub did a stellar job setting the course and running the race. Spectators everywhere, huge hill run-up, what more could you ask for. Thanks to lunaticbiker for the pic.

All the running I've been doing really paid off on the hill, I felt like I really made up time there, but the long rolling part of the course was tough with the gear I had. Oh well. (yes, the hill is as steep as it looks in the pic)

Ham Lake this past weekend was completely different. very flat course with a ridiculous 2 single barriers. This was another SPBRC race, and while I appreciate the fact that they're putting on races, I hate what they consistently do to perfectly good 'cross courses. Seriously, 5 years ago this course would have had 5-6 barriers on it staggered throughout the course. Now there were 2 about 30 seconds apart on the whole damn lap. Lame.

The only thing left to give the roadies any grief at all was the twisty sections of doubletrack where it seemed everyone forgot (or didn't know in the first place) how to handle a bike off-road.

Seriously, this really gets me fired up about MN 'cross in general (not ripping SPBRC here, I'm ripping everyone). 'Cross courses around here used to be really good and offered a real advantage to those that actually had some 'cross skill. Now all the whiny roadies set up the courses to be as easy as ridable as possible because they don't like gettin' off their bikes. If you want to do a road race on grass, go do Chequomegon and stay home for 'cross season. The whole point of a 'cross race course is supposed to be to prevent the riders from getting in a rhythm, that means variations, hills, barriers, logs, whatever. Yeah I know UCI rules and all that crap specify # of barriers allowed, but come'on here none of these local races follow the other UCI guide lines and they don't need to, we're not racing for UCI points here. I don't think I've been on a course yet this year that met the UCI minimum width guide line for the entire course, not to mention all the folks with disc-brake equipped bikes out there, etc...

Every race should have at least 3 sets of barriers or natural obstacles that require you to break your rhythm. Triple barriers are even better. Stop softening up 'cross to try and get more riders, there's already too many out there for the # of race divisions we have. Powderhorn was the closest thing to a real 'cross course I've seen this year. Nice job Hub.

end rant.

end post.

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5 daze

seems like more time has passed since that last post, but lots has transpired. chronology here.

Thursday night, greatDerailleur show at the 400 bar. We played the middle spot between two other bands, two bands that should thank their lucky stars we were there otherwise they woulda been playing to an empty room. First band literally played most of their set to the 5 of us and a couple of our friends that showed up early. Last band (speaker speaker) was from Seattle and consisted of a couple of just out of college age guys clearly just trying to make it across the US getting shows anywhere they can. No local fans since they weren't local, and loud as hell. I think they were good musicians, but the sound dude had them way too loud for the few people that were left in the room. Drove me to leave 3 songs into their set. Thanks to all the fans who came out for our show, we had a great time. Thought our set went really well.

Friday: head to the Vitch's for his final, clear-out-all-the-Kenwood-cyclery-crap-from-my-basement garage sale. I wanted to get in a ride so I decide to ride my bike over to chez-vitch in south Mpls. I had a couple alterior motives as well. I was going to meet TSP and Tomac in Longfellow and ride in with them, so I hauled the two suspension forks I had for them over in the b.o.b. trailer. The Vitch still had my S&S 29'er from his trip to singlespeed worlds in Scotland, so I planned on picking that up and hauling it home in the trailer as well.

Got to the sale to find a few other kenwoodies there picking through the goods. Most of the stuff I recognised from the shop as stuff I had passed on then, but I did pick up a few goodies. Most notable in my book: the Waterford sign from the shop (will look great in my soon-to-be renovated shop), a full Modolo speedy brake kit, with lots o' small parts for brakes (I can't imagine anyone else at the same could have used that one) and a super-cool aluminum chainguard that will inevitably end up getting polished out and fancied up for a BBC someday.

Add in a pair of shoes for a customer of mine, a few other odds and ends, all the extra clothing I brought and I had a really full trailer and messenger bag.

Loaded everything up into the b.o.b. with a bunch of bungee's and duct tape and set off on my way about 10pm, the temp had dropped to the point I could see my breath now. Ordinarily it's about a 50 minute ride home from the Vitch's, but that trailer kept feelin' heavier and heavier the closer I got to downtown St. Paul (probably had something to do with knowing I had 2 big hills to hit before I got home). I stopped for a short rest near downtown. I had the foresight to know I'd be doggin' it near the end, so I brought some food which I promptly scarfed down. Got back on the rig, checked the clock. It was 11pm.

Finally rolled into my driveway about 11:15. Felt good to get inside and warm up. The Xl bailey bag on my back kept that part of me warm, but my feet were getting a bit frosty.

Sat, put the finishing touches on two 953 'cross frames and got one of them ready to ship out to Oregon. This one is double oversize tubing with a neat seatlug that I'm really digging. I like the clean look of the seatstay sockets in the lug, my only grip is the lug is a looser fit on the top-tube, hence there's more silver visible between the lug and tube and it's harder to make that look clean. This one has indented 953 chainstays which I was able to manipulate to get 50mm of tire clearance between them! This one is a disc only frame, no canti mounts, and just hose guides brazed on the frame.

Pardon the bad picture placement formatting, blogger sucks for placing pictures.

The other one is heading to Marko Lalonde for the rest of his 'cross season. He's been ripping it up out there this year too, including finishing 11th and 14th this weekend at the UCI double header in Cincinnati (nice work darkness)! I'm really excited to have him and Jesse racing for me this year. And for the record, brother Jesse won the Badger 'cross in Madison this weekend

I wanted the logos to pop out a little more on this frame, so I painted in some panels instead of my usual etching on the stainless. I like the look.

This one had a whole lotta custom stuff. I had to make the track dropouts from scratch, this was the first side-tack seatstay I'd done on a 953 frame. I was worried about how much silver would show around the stays, but now that I see it done, I love the look. It shows off the inverted tube brazed in to make the scallops (no investment cast plugs here, those are for the lazy). The chainstays are the first 953 bent chainstays (anywhere as far as I know) and when combined with the indentations give clearance for 2.2" 29'er tires. It's a cross bike by design, but it's got clearance for full 29'er tires and is actually just about the same geometry as my personal 29'er. I really love these 'cross/29'er rigid frames, they're about as versatile as a bike gets, and they handle both applications extremely well.

Sunday I raced. What a day for cross, raining and about 45 degrees all morning, got the course all wet and slick in time for the start. I stuck in the B race and I think my total lack of training will keep me there this season. Started mid-pack right behind Freeride and rode most of the first two laps just a person or two behind him. There was a huge pile up right at the start and we both managed to get around it. About lap three I was feeling good so I ramped it up and passed freeride and a few others. I kept it going till the last lap, and once again I hit the wall on the last lap. I didn't lose a lot of ground, but I could tell my last lap was considerably slower than the rest. That was confirmed by the Cutshall superfans who were gracious enough to give me hand-ups during the race and unbeknownst to me were timing my laps. Thanks Team Ultra!

Good day of racing, however I will whine about the stupid course. The Ridley folks (formerly Alan folks, *wise-ass Alan comment deleted*) put on this one and they usually do a great job, but this year taking out two full sets of barriers only to replace them with a series of 12 180 degree turns (think of a riding your bike through the line que at a Disneyland ride) was 100% lame. It did nothing for the race and kept the people with any kind of real 'cross skilz from using them. Oh well, other than that it was a great race.

Alright, I'm outta time, so write at you later.

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Derailleur tonight

Don't have a lot of time to write today, but thought I'd post that my band (derailleur) is playing the 400 Bar tonight in Mpls at 9pm. There's a cover, but not much, swing by and check us out.

Pic's very soon of the two 953 frames I'm finishing up this week. It's been crazy, but I've managed to get three frames cranked out in the past 4 weeks!

Lake Rebecca CX mini recap: Hot, too hot for cx. Felt like I rode well for not really training much, finished mid pack at 27th. I was in the top 20 most of the race till I hit about 40 minutes, then I popped. bad. Cramped both legs, struggled to make it up the final run, but I'm sure got stronger in the process. Hopefully I'll last through the last lap next weekend.

Thanks to sideburns for all the great pics on skinnyski.

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catch up

I've had so many things I wanted to write about lately, but never had the time...

Friday: JL and friend KT make the pilgrimage up to St. Paul to get JL's new frame. I meet them at the shop about 11 and they get into building it up. JL simply brought up a big crate o parts, added in with a new frame and fork and we ended up with a bike.
Pretty great build if you ask me, 29'er wheels with crows on 'em, drop bars, Sram brake levers with pink hoods (where does he get this stuff?) White ind. eno crank, pauls brakes. Swank.

Afterwards I had the pleasure of sneaking in a nice ride at wirth with these guys. Thankfully JL and KT took it easy on me and it was a really fun ride. I hadn't been to wirth in a while and man were there trees down everywhere. Still, it was good to get out on my 'cross bike and ride with these guys.

JL was rockin the 'crows on his bike and seemed to really be flowing well at wirth, but honestly I think he could have been riding on rims and looked smooth. KT was on the soulcraft cx bike rockin' it out and making it look too easy. I was psyched to try out the Stan's/panaracer tubeless set up would work on the hardpack at wirth. Happy to say it was good, I ran 'em low around 28psi and while I did hear the rims hit a few roots, they stayed true and held air perfectly the whole time.

After that, I headed back home to pack up some stuff and head north to my folks cabin to help them out over the weekend.

Sat: Got slots done up north, we pulled up all the boards off the deck in order to refinish them and correct some design flaws the previous owners installed. Then cut up a big oak that had fallen the previous week.
Sun: finished up my trip north helping my dad set up a big shelving unit in the new garage they're building. Quite a lot of change up there, can't wait to spend some time up there next summer.

Side note: driving up and back I got to try out my new stereo in the jetta. In short it was awesome. The ipod integration is so seamless, I can now see why their next model up is an ipod only receiver, no cd player. It sounds at least 95% as good as playing an actual CD, which is a night and day improvement over every other ipod playing scheme I've tried in there before. Just set it on shuffle and you've got an instant roadtrip soundtrack.

Mon: usual day at work, but Beth and I decided to celebrate our anniversary a day early with a nice dinner. We headed to a new place in Minneapolis (although they're in plenty of other cities), Fogo de Chao. For those that haven't heard of it, they bill themselves as a Brazilian Steakhouse. The set-up is a bit unusual, but really pretty sweet. There's not really any menu, everyone gets the same treatment. There's an incredible salad bar to start off with, fresh everything, cheeses, salads, veggies. All top notch fresh.
Once you get through with that, you're given what looks like a coaster, but it's red on one side and green on the other. Set it out green side up and they start bringing around the meat. They've got about 10 different meats, mostly beef, all exceptional. They literally walk around to your table with a spit of meat and carve whatever you want off right at your table. I truly don't know how to describe how good all of it was, I can't even pick out a fav. We just ate, ate and ate some more. They'll bring as much as you want.
The only thing that was better than the food was the service. Truly the best service I've had a restaurant. Period. I think I've got a new favorite restaurant.
Price was even quite reasonable for the quality of food and service you're getting. Dinner is $42 per person, or they have a lunch for $24. Definitely not applebees pricing, but trust me, this place is a great value.

alright, I better stop writing about this, I'm getting hungry. who's up for lunch tomorrow?

Finally today: spent some time giving some 953 chainstays the magic hands treatment. I needed some extra tire clearance for one of the 953 'cross frames I'm building. Reynolds has had a lot of difficulty forming these stays and I think I've worked out a method for reshaping and ovalizing them. Wish I could tell you, but for now, gotta keep that under wraps. I'll be pushing this one step further this weekend working on the worlds first 953 bent chainstay frame. This stuff isn't easy, but the more I work with it, the more I learn. Gotta love learnin'.

Reynolds will be happy to see what happens this weekend too, they've been great to work with on this project supplying me with raw materials for testing out a few methods. I think they're as eager to find a way to provide a bend 953 stay as I am to have one. coming soon (hopefully): 953 29'ers!

That's all I have time for now, gotta go find me a steak.

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