pics

I've been working on a strange project lately. I was approached by a publisher from Australia about being part of a book she's publishing on "Bespoke Bikes". How could I resist. Part of the deal was needing some large-format pictures of my work. Unfortunately a lot of my pictures from the past are sized for web-applications not large-format printing. So I went through and pulled what I could from my archive and then set out to take some new ones. I didn't have time to get an good action /riding pictures, but I thought I'd share what I had. At least give you something new to look at on this blog! I'll warn you, if you click for full-size, they're big files.

Shop in B & W

Stainless lugged BB sport tourer with Campy Centaur triple group. This one is for sale, email me for details or watch the blog for more into. it's a 60cm seat-tube x 58 top tube.

Artsy seatlug shot.

Stainless slant six lug gettin' the file treatment

Fitting up fastback seatstays prior to brazing

Custom tandem Eccentric shell, I like the contrast of the paint to the grass!

dragonfly in copper.

warmth. finally

The weather seems to finally be warming up around here, hopefully we're done with the late season snow...
I got out for a few rides since last I wrote. Last weekend I met up for the ride Thorny and Chef set-up, somehow it ended up being just O-tree and myself. We rolled pretty much everywhere it seemed. I think it was somewhere around 5 hours of fixie riding and remarkably, it felt great. until the next day.

Paid for that for a couple days, then spun some errands Tuesday since it was nice out and I had places to go. The leg's weren't feeling great, but I was out and enjoying it. Thursday I decided to hit some hills and see how that felt on the fixie. Headed down to Cottage Grove on one of my usual hilly rides and that went pretty good, but I kept it short. An hour and a half later I was back at home and my legs were shaking. Guess I have some work to do, but at least I didn't feel like I blew up completely while riding, just afterwards.

I spent a couple of nights this week wresting with my car. It's a good car, but just rolled 100,000 miles in Feb and a few things were starting to show a little wear. First off I knew I needed new tie-rod ends, so those went in Monday night. I quickly learned the price of parking the car on a busy street for 7 Minnesota winters. Every driver's side nut or bolt was completely rusted in place, while all the passenger side fasteners we're easy as pie to remove. The car get's a lot of road spray on the driver's side while parked on the street, causing the excess corrosion.
The tie-rod ends got rid of most of the clunking up front, but there was still a little play due to a bad lower ball joint, so Wednesday night that came out.

Unfortunately I had to grind off all the bolts including the main knuckle bolt due to all the rust. Left a few dings in the control arm which I wasn't thrilled about, so I figured I better fix that. Good move, as I was removing the lower control arm I discovered the sway-arm mounting bolt was broken, broken off in the blind hole in the sway arm! yuck, either replace the arm or do some drilling and tapping. This is about the time it comes in real handy to have a full metal shop at your access.

Drilled out the bolt remains, retapped the hole, replaced the bolt, welded up the damaged end of the arm and reground it to shape. Seems like a lot, but it took less time than driving to the dealer to get a new one (the dealer was closed anyways). I love having tools.

Get it re-aligned today and it should be good as new. Even with paying for an alignment, I think I came out about $500 ahead. Not bad for 2 evenings time.


I've got Billy's bike all ready for paint, hopefully get that squirted soon and get him out riding on it as soon as the trails dry up. Now if Spot would just get me the carbon-drive system parts for this bike that they claimed would be in production Jan 1, I'd be set.

I started in on the next 953 frame as well. Why not, I can use a few more things to juggle around!

20 days till fruita, 8 days till FDM08.

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rollin

Finally got in a couple rides this week. The mercury hit 55 Wednesday so how could I possibly resist. Rolled around St. Paul mostly, across summit, through minnehaha falls, to fort snelling and over to lillydale. The lillydale trail doesn't get plowed so it still had a good layer of glacier on it so I opted for the hilly road route instead. While my legs were not ready for any hills, the view was good. Perfectly clear day, nice view of downtown coming back home. I managed to drag this one out for almost 3 hours of fixie action. felt good. felt bad.

Thursday was warm again, but not quite as warm, about 45. The forecast was for big snow Friday though so I figured I might as well go for another spin before I was snowed off the roads. Road north this time through roseville to run an errand. Felt great for the first half, till I figured out I had unknowingly been reaping the rewards of a tailwind. The ride home felt brutal, and to make things worse I popped a rear spoke abotu 2 miles after I turned around which threw the rear wheel waaaaaay off. Rode home into a stiff headwind with a rear wheel rubbing the brake and frame. Oh well.

Got home, fixed the offending spoke and re-tensioned the wheel. Hard to complain when it was a wheel built from used parts about 20,000 miles ago. I just can't escape my inner cheapskate.

I had to pull off the cog to change the spoke. It's probably been 3-4 years since that cog came off, I was amazed that I got it off without too much ordeal. But I was amuzed enough at the appearence of the gritty cog to snap a pic. I love how much crap is caked inside, yet the teeth are nice and polished (and hooked!) from chain wear.

Ahh, the little things in life..

And pushing on with all my forking lately, finished up three more forks this week. here's two of them.

I've felt like all I've done the last few weeks was build forks. Don't know why, but people keep asking for 'em. It'll be good to get back into some frames next. I've got a whole slew of stainless frames coming up in the que.

enjoy the snow you locals, happy Easter.

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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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