prolix.21

traitor exile – broken in

dan — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:41:36 +0000

I’m not sure I actually posted any photos of the finished Traitor. It has a few miles now and has had most of the bugs and fit issues sorted out. Overall I’m super happy with it, so happy that I have no idea what to build at UBI now b/c I don’t want to swap this out for something else. For UBI I’m leaning towards some sort of CX/touring type bike, with cantilever brakes and whatever else I can braze onto it.

project continental – beginnings

dan — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:32:38 +0000

The frame for the continental has mostly just been sitting here staring at me over the last month or so. I’ve not had a lot of time to work on it and I’ve been rather tentative about how I even want to approach it.

Tonight I finally made some decisions and I think I’ll be putting 700c wheels on it and going with a Sturmey-Archer SX3 Fixie 3 hub for the drivetrain. I need to sit down with Erica and go over other fit details, but she seems to be leaning towards some nice VO Left Bank or Montmarte handlebars. I think VO will end up being the source of a lot of the parts once we’re done.

Vhils

dan — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 14:00:52 +0000

A few weeks back I finally got around to taking some photos of the piece he did on 5th street. Not bad for iPhone shots.

diagnostic ride

dan — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 16:52:54 +0000

Picked up a garmin edge 500 over the holiday. I had been tyring out the various apps for the iPhone but the GPS is a bit hit and miss which makes all data collection a bit suspect. This is much more spot on and I can start measuring cadence and whatever else I want. This first ride was just with the Edge 500 itself. It was also the first time I was out on my bike in 2+ weeks after being sick. I’m still not 100% and the number of times I had to stop to have a coughing fit reminded me of that. Time to get out the rollers.

project continental

dan — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:35:33 +0000

Erica has been wanting me to build her a bike for some while. After a ton of searching I found a 1974 Schwinn Continental mixte frame for the project. Haven’t fully scoped out the build, but will be posting here once the plan is set and the build is underway.

video – Roubaix

dan — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 21:30:52 +0000

I proposed a Cincinnati-Roubaix, nobody wanted to break all their bones

Bicycle Heaven

dan — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 19:09:16 +0000

In Pittsburgh of all places.

photo – random

dan — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:12:43 +0000

Some random shots from this weekend

traitor exile – process photos

dan — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:17:33 +0000

roadtrip – UBI

dan — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:48:41 +0000

I’ve always wrenched on my own bikes. The first serious (non BMX) bike I had was this heavy, non-butted steel beast of a mtb. The thing probably weighed as much as I did. I disassembled it on a weekly basis. I almost looked forward to something failing on it just so I could fix it. As the years passed and bikes came and went I probably enjoyed fixing them just as much as riding them, and any bike I bought off a shop floor often was immediately stripped and rebuilt in some way, even if I wasn’t swapping parts.

That obsession with tinkering eventually turned into just buying frames and building bikes up the way I wanted. That eventually turned into wanting to build my own frames. I’ve debated whether this is a realistic thing or not, and while that’s debatable, Erica thinks that the more important aspect of this is that it makes me happy. With that in mind I’ve applied to take a class at UBI in frame building. For two weeks I’ll be out in Ashland Oregon training under some well known frame builders and hopefully will walk away with a new skill-set, a new bike frame and a really expensive new addiction. I got my enrollment confirmation the other day and I am pretty stoked. More later…