Sunday, October 5, 2008

Build — Day One

Due to the maniacal pace of building today, there will only be one more day of building — or, a morning. He's nearly built up. Unfortunately, I've exhausted myself, and don't have much energy for a good post. Brief thoughts:

— Fenders are an incredible amount of work. Essentially that's what I did all day. The instructions in Bicycle Quarterly 5.2 make it much easier, though, than it would otherwise be.

— Sidepulls and fenders just do not get along. I expended much anger and physical force hammering my "hammered" fenders into a shape that allowed the brakes to open wide enough to get my front wheel in without deflating it.

— I did a pretty bad job with my fender-painting. The "masking" didn't work too well. It took up quite a bit of time this morning cleaning this up, and I'll need to do some more. From a foot away, though, those channels look very nice.

— I really like the way Niles looks. And I'm sure I will even more when I've slept and woken up.

A proper "photo session" to follow when he's done...

Update: I just snuck out with Niles for a "test ride." The front brake was rubbing, so he wasn't exactly speedy. But he certainly fit correctly. Also: even though my rear wheel ended up tensioned in the middle of the dropout, BB drop seems fine. It's way lower than any of my other bikes, but with the short cranks and TA track pedals, it needs to be leaned to about 45 degrees to strike the ground. Also: I just attached the rear brake cable, and wowee, those stops of mine are the nicest feature on this bike. (I also like the forward front fender stay. And the box lining. And the headbadge. And...)





2 comments:

Unknown said...

This is very intersting. I will be checking back on the progress.

QuickDraw said...

Beautiful, cant wait to see it fully built up and some more detail pics. that is one sweet bike.