2.08.2009

road trip

19 days and counting till i drive down to visit the good doctor in north carolina for a little bike vacation. hopefully he has fully recovered from the most horrible thing ever and is in a good frame of mind to show me the trails he rode for that event


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the plan is to leave on friday at noon, and weather permitting, make it as far as madison WI before i stop for the night. the next morning i plan to get to indianapolis in time to take in the north american handmade bike show. after a couple of hours there i will try and make the push to mr. dr's place. the next 5 days will be spent biking on the road in the mountains before i make the long journey back.

2.03.2009

i ain't no engineer

so, i had two goals for the new brake mount that i was getting mike to mill and and put on my 29er frame: one, allow me to use the full range of the paul dropouts on my bike; and two, allow me to remove the rear wheel without taking any bolts out of the rear brake bracket. based on a photo i saw of the fisher superfly singlespeed, i tried to find a brake mount similar to what i saw in that photo. since i could not find one i asked mike if he knew of anything, he told me he could make something as long as i provided him with a drawing. cool - all i had to do was come up with an sketch and i would get my brake, one that would allow the brake to pivot on an arc which would allow me to do the things i wanted with my rear wheel.

after some time fooling around in the with the brake on the frame i came up with a design and sent it off to mike. on monday mike sent me the photos of what he did based on the drawing i sent.



















the first photo looked pretty good, showing the mount that he had milled for me.



















the next photo - oops. seems like i forgot to take into consideration the cylinder for the brake and as you can see in the next photo i don't quite get all the use of the slot i designed for the brake mount. this is why professionals get the big bucks for what they do, they take into consideration things like this and design and build systems that have taken these things into account.



















the good thing though, i had put in a longer arc than i needed. mike saw that, and positioned the brake mount in such a way a that it works - thank god for people who help me solve problems that i create for my self.