The One in Which I Whine About Things

1. Do you have any idea how tough it is to justify building yourself a Pugsley/Moonlander bike when it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever really ride in the cold/snow? Man, it’s tough. A past history of frostbite and hypothermia rendered me highly susceptible to cold injuries. Even having to do things in gloves here in February can leave my hands hurting so bad it feels like they’re being crushed in a vise. The chances of me getting a fat bike out in the snow are pretty low. But I still keep thinking about it.

2. I really, really need to stop looking at the workshop pictures of other framebuilders. I get envious. I know I should be thankful for what I have, and I am. But man, I look at some of these setups on Flickr and all I can think about is how much awesome stuff I could build in there. The name of the game is bootstrapping, and that involves patience. I’ll get there. Eventually.

Weekend To-Do List

• refill acetylene tank
• finish Erin’s CX frame
• build final fillets for Paul’s frame
• finish fillets on Justin’s 26er
• email Jamie re: his road frame
• add Google +1, Facebook Like, and Tweet This buttons to Gallery items
• update existing Gallery Items, add Paul and Justin frames

Experimentation

So I’ve been monkeying around with the idea of building a gas-welded (not TIG’ed) aluminum frame. This would be one of those one-off experiments, just to see if it’s viable. I’m pretty sure I’d want to build a dozen or so, just to see if it’s a worthwhile endeavor. (Plus I get the R&D write-off on my taxes, right?) If any framebuilders out there have any commentary, opinions or insights on the matter, I’d love to hear from you.

Does this mean that I’ll be offering gas-welded aluminum frames in the future? I wouldn’t hold your breath. One of the points behind tinkering is to learn stuff. And one of the things that I don’t think people spend enough time doing, in-general.

When the time comes for titanium experimentation (and it will be coming), it’ll be with the intent of making titanium frames available to buyers. Due to the specialized equipment needs and the need for me to take a TIG welding class, that’s at least a couple of years away, yet.

This Week

Given the “hangover” from Minnecycle, I’m using this week to catch up on a bunch of smaller tasks that I’ve been meaning to address — things like cleaning the workshop, doing the finishing work on my workstand, transcribing a bunch of blueprints into BikeCAD, and planning the growth and development of Pallas Athena over the course of the next 14 months or so. Friday, I’ll have my acetylene tank refilled and order up some raw materials for upcoming projects, and spend Sunday wrapping up Erin’s CX frame and Justin’s 26er. (Saturday? That’s for the housewarming party we’re throwing.)

Incidentally, I’ve started using Delicious again now that it’s under new ownership, and will be filling that up with a bunch of framebuilding links. As always, all my social media links are down there in the footer.

Minnecycle Recap

Well, it’s over, and man, I’m exhausted. Before I do anything else, though, I really need to thank a few people:

• Alex from A-train Cycles, who kept me in good humor in the craziness leading up to the show, and who loaned me his fork fixture.
• Josh from Three Stars Cycles, who helped me figure out how to assemble the Bringheli fixture, and gave me time on his fork blade bender.
• AJ from Victory Circle Graphix, who got decals to me at the last friggin’ minute.
• Rob from Rob’s Custom Powdercoating, who re-did my 29er with much shorter-than-usual notice and didn’t complain about having to chemically strip the old paint.
• Josh Braaten, who gave me a bunch of his and his lathe’s time. I owe you a ton of beer.
• And most importantly, Kate Bailey, my wife. For being supportive and understanding and not yelling at me when I left dirty messes in the sink. For being in good spirits when she had to drive me to the ER for stitches in the middle of the night. For being my best friend, and for being a part of my life. I can’t thank her enough. Though I don’t look forward to saying “Minnecycle 2012″ around her. <g>

Things started coming to a head on Monday the 19th, when my automated email reminder for the show went out. Good open rates. Decent clickthrough. I started thinking about what I had to do that night, in addition to working my shift at the bike shop.

After a minor case of hyperventilation, I realized that three of the six tasks slotted for Monday night were going to take a grand total of about twenty minutes. The other three might take a total of about two and a half hours when combined. Panic averted.

The fixture set up and in the home-built stand.

Tuesday, after a ten-hour day at the office, I stopped by Josh’s place to bend the fork blades. Then I went home and capped seatstays, which was a little time-consuming, but the results were exquisite. (My new business cards arrived on Tuesday, too. Which, strangely, was the same day I finally decided on a head badge design.)

Finished seatstay cap.

Wednesday another grueling day, but it had it’s upsides. The decals arrived via FedEx just as I was getting ready to leave for the office, and they were perfect. After the office, I hit up the bank and then went to Rob’s to pick up one of the 29er’s I planned to show. I stopped by Peacock Groove on the way home from work to talk to Noren a bit about space, timing, needs, and so on. After that, I hauled ass home and buckled down hard on the build for Erin’s CX bike. Fork finished. Top tube in, all the small bits (water bottle and pulley mounts, cable stops) installed on the front triangle before I soaked everything for a bit. While it was soaking, I started slottign and prepping the chainstays and rear dropouts. What an awesome night.

Erin's cyclocross frame in the fixture.

Thursday, I had the foresight to take the day off from the office, and things did not go as well as all that. In the morning, I finished slotting the dropouts and chainstays and started fitting everything together in the fixture. Around one, I went over and spent a bit of time at the Bicycle Chain getting bikes prepped for the show. I re-faced the black 29er’s head tube and put everything back together. Then I spent some time on the sandblaster, cleaning up lugs on Erin’s CX frame. Then A-train and I loaded up a minivan and hauled a bunch of shit over to the Vine Arts center and left it there overnight. I dropped him off at home and then cruised back down to Savage. I got home around 1:30 in the morning and got back to work on Erin’s CX frame, with the intent of having it rideable (if not completely finished). I got the fixture set up, the chainstays brazed in, and had started to bronze the dropouts into place around 4:30 that morning, when the flame guttered out and died. Out of acetylene. A brief moment of profanity ensued before I realized that the real implication here was that I was able to go to bed. I shut everything down, and I think I was actually asleep before I even reached the bedroom.

Cleaned-up HT/DT lug on Erin's CX bike.

I snagged about four hours of sleep, waking up just before 9 a.m. on Friday morning — not the ideal situation, but whatever. I ran around like mad, getting the last of my stuff together, and printing out hang-tags and so on. I cruised over, picked up A-train and we hit up the Fix Studio so we could pick up the last of his bikes. Then we got over to the Vine Arts Center and started setting up. By 4 p.m., I was more-or-less squared away except for a few small things. Knowing the show would start to pick up around 5 p.m., I was dispatched for photocopies and food for the newbie corner. When I returned, things were starting to pick up and within the hour, they were noticeably hopping.

People start showing up.

Met a ton of people on Friday night and saw a bunch of old friends — including Hicks, who I hadn’t seen since college (pre-1998) which was a pleasant surprise. Todd, a teammate from Birchwood and all-around good guy, showed up, too and it was great to see him. We shot the shit quite a bit, and he was as much an advocate of my work as I was. We also talked about getting my logo/headbadge on the team jersey in 2013, as a supporting sponsor, and I was pretty heartened by the way that conversation went.

Saturday was a little slower than Friday — at least during the morning and afternoon. I took advantage of the slower time to spend some time chatting with Dave Anderson, who sparked some seriously good ideas. I also got a chance to meet Mark Stonich of Bikesmith.

Pics from this year’s show.

People really loved the blue color of Fang’s 29er, and the cable routing on the fork of my 29er were both big hits.

I’m looking forward to next year. There’s a few things I want to do better — I’ll have headbadges then, and I’d like to have a banner and t-shirts available. And whole retinue of new bikes to show — at least one of which will be a personal bike.

(Old photo sets: 2009, 2010.)

Minnecycle Hangover

Holy crap, it’s over. I’ve got a lot to do today:

1. Import all of you who signed-up for email and schedule a thank-you email.
2. Upload images.
3. Go for a short ride.
4. Clean up garage/work area.
5. Spray paint the welding stand. Matte black!
6. Watch the Vikings.
7. Write recap.
8. Begin preparing October e-newsletter.

Lunch Break

Proceeding swimmingly on Erin’s CX frame. Beautiful, if somewhat time-consuming, job of slotting the chainstays. (Mental note: in 2012, invest in a slotting saw.) The work you see here was done entirely by-hand, with a knife-blade file, followed by a flat file.

Chainstay and dropout.

Going to take a quick break and get some lunch in my stomach, and then get back to this.

Capping a Seatstay

I got asked how it is I create the fluted ends on my seatstays. I struggled to explain it in a 5-minute, spoken-only venue and struggled a bit. Seeing as just the night before I had photographed the process, I put myself in a position to write this post.

Starting out, I have a pair of seatstays. I find a piece of scrap tubing (you do save your scrap tubes, right?) that will become the caps themselves. Then, I figure out how I’m going to miter the seatstays to fit the caps and do it.

Reminder

Sure, you’ve heard all about this show lately, particularly here and in my personal blog. I’m still going to mention it here, anyway.

Minnecycle is this week! Friday and Saturday! It’s going to be awesome — and this year, four builders are brand-new to the show. You should come see everyone’s work!

The 2011 Minnecycle Flyer.

Hope to see you there!

New Biz Cards

Part of my ongoing preparations for Minnecycle.

I must have double-checked that QR code a good two dozen times.