Public Transportation and the Whirlwind Life

I just recently wound up circling the whole country with no plan and perhaps more notably, no bike.  While I did ride a few people's bikes around over a few days of the trip, I did not bring my own, and these borrowed steeds did not constitute any measurable length of my travels.  Instead this trip happened via planes, trains, and automobiles, buses and light rail, public transit and the no plan.  I'll attempt to give you all a proper recap and analysis of these systems without getting too much into the gooey, sappy details of the life adventure that brought it all on.

I went riding with Roni (moustache #6) in Sedona the day that I got on the train.  All signs that day said that I should go, though I had my doubts.  We took her car, Scooby, that she had recently acquired for free as the original owner had driven it to the moon and decided to give it up to her.  Roni and I have a history of proper train sendoffs and tonight would be no exception.  We got back up the hill from Sedona and I drove Scooby to my house and threw some things (actually way too many things) into a backpack and headed back into town for supper and drinks.  I bought my ticket on the way to Mia's Lounge.  "I'd like one ticket to Portland please." "For when," the lady behind the counter asked.  I told her "tonight" and she looked at me funny and then charged me $175 for the trip.  The train would be here in less than an hour.  It was the same lady that sold me the ticket the last time I took the train to San Diego to kick off the Baja Tour last spring.  I was glad to see her and I told her so.  She said write your congressmen because the new Republican house wants to cut funding to Amtrak.  What a shame.  I grabbed a few whiskey drinks at Mia's with Roni and Dre and Ray who stopped by to give me a deposit on Moustache #14, and when we looked out the window the barricades to the railway were coming down and the train was coming to a halt.  I made a mad dash with all my things crossing the tracks illegally and jumping on board to go pass out in my seat and arrive in L.A. early the next morning.

I had a four hour layover between trains in L.A., so I wrote my congressman.  Fund rail transit in the United States.  I boarded the Pacific Surfliner bound for Portland and beyond....the long haul.  The train is awesome.  Its like being teleported back to the 1800s.  The stretch that this line travels is absolutely stunning, and its made even more amazing by the fact that none of your technology works outside of the cities along the route.  You can charge your phone or your computer, but there's no cellular signal or wireless connection.  As we chug along oceanside I am forced to find more primitive interactions.  I talk to my neighbors.

Overall the train is a very social vehicle, and is so by design.   Reservations for meals are taken by car attendants and when you show up for the reservation you are seated at a full table with other passengers.  There is a chef on board, the menu is pretty tasty, and no one ever dines alone.  There is a snack bar below the observation car that sells not only snacks, but also beer, and good beer at that.  The observation car is filled with booth tables and also chairs fixed into semi-circles looking outward to the passing landscape.

My coach seat is spacious and it reclines a fair way and has a foot rest and pillows are provided by the attendants.  Sleeping here leaves a little to be desired as I was going for a full night's (rather two full nights) worth.  Next time I might just spring for a sleeper.  The route was absolutely beautiful and wound us up the Southern California coast, through the central valley's rolling grasslands, and through the mountains of Northern California and Southern Oregon.  The whole trip to Portland was 42 hours including the layover and the train arrived on schedule.  Driving this in a car would have taken two 16 hour days and I would have been much more exhausted and not been able to read, write, or talk to people.  Everyone I talked to was stoked on the train, and for the same reasons I was.  The train is a great way to get around, its fun, relaxing, there's no TSA, metal detectors, or body cavity searches, its more bike friendly than any other means ($15 for a full size bike box, free on commuter trains), it is the most efficient and environmentally friendly of any other mass transit network, and lastly its rooted deep into the history of our country.

My time in Portland was over quickly and soon I found myself on a commuter train up to Seattle and my time in Seattle was over quickly and I found myself buying a plane ticket seven hours before I was to be on a plane to Atlanta so I could make it to an old friend's wedding.  City buses and light rail delivered me to the Sea-Tac Airport by 7:00 AM for an 8:30 flight.  I really loathe flying but sometimes it is the only option, particularly given my inability to make an sort of plan.  I find rushing around and being completely subject to the whims of the airline to be equally exhausting as a full day of driving.  I managed to make it through my security screening (read: complete intrusion of all privacy) unscathed despite having plenty of items that I know were questionable...Bike tools, a knife, an LARGE tube of TOOTHPASTE, a CO2 inflator.  I was forced to check my excessively large pack at the gate, but by doing so was able to dodge the luggage fee.

Somehow I always end up flying Phoenix based US Airways as they seem to offer the cheapest last minute flights to the places I need to go.  $315 from Seattle to Atlanta with a short layover in Phoenix.  This, folks, is the worst served, most crowded airline you can possibly fly...and when you buy last minute, you're definitely sittin' bitch.  In the two and a half hours from Seattle to Phoenix I flew right past my mountain, my home, though I wasn't on my way there.  Air travel is discouraging like that.  Its a big tease.  All the ground covered in fourty plus hours of trains zipped past underneath me in a mere two and a half hours of way more stressful travel experience.  The flight to Atlanta, even worse.  As I wedged my long legs into the space between the seats allotted for your lower body, I noticed that the woman next to me was overflowing into the seat reserved for me.  I decided to spare her the embarrassment of trying to put down the arm rest and figured I had about four and a half hours to get cozy and immobilize myself.  At least my giant backpack made it to Atlanta with me this time.

I've become a big fan of taking MARTA from the airport when I fly back to Atlanta.  Its the kind of cultural experience that you just can't get in Arizona.  Always exciting.  I had Dr. Gonzo meet me at the Decatur station for proper libations and filling in on the details.  It was much needed.  Getting around to see the friends and family in Georgia is best done in a car, but if you're clever you can manage to link up car trips with bike rides.  I borrowed back my old GT Tequesta from my mom and Courtney brought me up to Athens where we properly drowned our sorrows.  In the morning I took care of the bike @ The Hub and headed off for my sister's new house in Bethlehem.  I forgot to fill up my water though, so thinking of were best to do this I decided to drop by Jared the Black's house unannounced on a Saturday morning.  Now if I had to guess out of the blue, I would have had to guess that The Black would have been in bed with some random girl on this particular Saturday morning, and the strange truck in the driveway made me believe it.  I made a ruckus as I passed by his bedroom from the outside on the way to the front door where I knocked loudly and waited before letting myself in.  Jared!, JARED!  What are you doing?  Who the FUCK is that?...Is that fucking RICHARD?  Well who the hell do you think it is?? What are you doing?  Nothing?  Am I interrupting something??  Yeah.  I just need to fill up some water. Well you know where the sink is.  You wanna drink that bourbon?  Hell Yes I want to drink that bourbon.  The girl that emerged out of the bedroom a few minutes later had brought over a fine bottle of said bourbon and they'd barely touched it that night.  So given that it was eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning we got to drinking it.  The girl had the look on her face of Who in the hell is this guy and why are you OK that he's here and interrupting us.  Nothing was said.  You just wouldn't.  Everything was understood.  I took her to be the one from prior stories as "the young one," though again, nothing
was said.  After some whiskey and some exchanges I hit the road, bound for Kevin's wedding.

Leaving Atlanta came quickly as well.  I didn't need to sit around and wait for people to have weekends. I also was over the idea of flying back home to Flagstaff.  The Amtrak that runs to New Orleans and then to Tucson was only running Friday and Saturday and I didn't want to wait around for that either.  I found an ad on craigslist that someone wanted their car driven to Dallas and would pay what sounded like $100 on top of reimbursing for gas expenditures.  I have friends near Dallas.  This could work out.  I called Monday night and made some sketchy arrangements.  The Russian said he was performing with the Cirque du Soleil in Dallas and would be there for a length of time I did not understand but that he wanted someone to drive his car from Atlanta and deliver it to him in Dallas  I would pick up the police car from a "friend" at his "shop," but only if he could meet me tonight.  He said he could if I could come after eleven.  I got my mom to drive me over.  The friend didn't exactly say much, but more grunted and pointed with his nose.  I think the only words he said were "write some words" as he wanted me to write a contract of sorts.  He gave me the keys and said the front headlight was out and that was that.  I drove it to the nearest gas station and inspected it not too thoroughly for drugs, weapons, insurance, registration.  It all seemed OK.

After a poor night's sleep I departed for Texas but not before getting coffee and donuts for the trip.  What better fuel for making a road trip to Texas in a police car.  Fourteen hours.  Two stops for fuel.  Headphones in.  People around you drive like fools when you're in a retired police car.  They'll ride up along side you and won't pass even if you're doing less than the speed limit.  They'll leave you boxed in. They'll pass you and then slow down to way way slower than either of you was going to start with.  Its never ending.  Your best bet is to point it straight in the left lane and never move.  People get out of your way then.  I wouldn't speed due to the unknowns of the situation, and given the situation thought up every possible turn in a police encounter to avoid a sticky situation....The Russian is my friend, we've known each other for a while...no I didn't know there were bricks of coke in the trunk.  Avoid police entanglements.  That's just good life advise.  I made it to Will and Laura's around dark and caught them up on life and my fateful adventure.  I made contact with the Russian.  A storm was rolling in--The Russian wanted his car tonight instead of in the morning and I wanted it out of my hands.  Will and I would deliver the car to Sherman, TX.

The Russian was calling me frantically, as if he had lost all hope that this would work out.  I pulled into our designated meeting place with my phone ringing.  He was running towards his police car with his hands up triumphantly.  Ecstatic.  The stranger had come through.  He handed me $200.  Then he unburied some vodka from the trunk and poured me a triple shot as his Russian friends made jokes about how many bodies you could fit in the trunk and the M-16 in the trunk...I would have figured him for an AK I told him.  We drove away, Will and I, free of my burden, in a blur, as Texas closed down due to snow.

I spent the next two days here doing what I could to run and ride and trying to buy a truck to make the last leg home before admitting my being stuck and getting on the Greyhound.  What a shit show.  Its a collection of shady people from Americana (and Texas Americana at that) who've very little hope in the world...and....they're all disgruntled.  Nobody wants to be there.  Drivers, passengers, throwers, no one.  You'd probably encounter equally sketchy folk on the Amtrak, but everyone's in more or less a good mood.

Here's a brief list of things you might want to acquire before taking the Greyhound to improve your chances of fitting in:

1.  Neck Tattoo--something to the effect of "Make Momma Proud"
2.  Camouflage--boots, jackets
3.  Screaming children
4.  A gunshot story
5.  A feeding tube
6.  Bruises on your face
7.  Sunglasses so you never can get looked in the eyes
8.  An ill temper
9.  Fluency in Jive

24 hours of being jerked around by Greyhound.  I made it home.  Again with all my belongings, though this time even more magically.  Sherman, TX to Dallas, TX to Amarillo, TX to Flagstaff, AZ via I-40, $185.   So, SO not worth it.  Rent a car.  Buy a car and sell it.  Hitch hike.  Everyone around you on the bus would agree.

Side Projects

My life is a side project.  I bounce around from one activity to another in an ADD kid sort of way.  That's OK I dig it that way.  I've been working on some projects that I've been wanting to do for a while now...handlebars and stems and eventually racks.  I got some sweet new stem steerer clamps from PMW and have been super excited to turn them into something.  First up is a pair of Bull Moose bars for Scott the Hobot.  I figured this would be pretty quick...man was I wrong.  I think all told it took three days....maybe more.  The coolest part about all this though was the brain puzzle.  It involved breaking down the elements of steering geometry into its axes to change very minor design elements of a handlebar (width, rise, and particularly sweep) while keeping the hand position of the rider essentially the same.  Bending the bar alone took the better part of a day.  I bought a mechanical bender for 7/8" pipe off of ebay for $100 a year ago and have yet to really use it.  After a little modification to the holding mechanism, it works pretty well.  It bends accurately and consistently and the bends are pretty smooth at that.  I wanted to keep the moose bar consistent with the look of Hobot's bike so I sleeved the stem interface and bulged them out with fillets on either side.  The pictures will probably explain the rest but not one bit of this project was easy.  Hopefully the next set will only take a day or so.

Elder Heinchez' bike got colored in real nice with sky blue and a shiny clear coat.  I left the moustache rather scruffy to offset the sheen.  Check it out.

More soon now.

A year has gone and a year has come.

Welcome to 2011.  Its really an arbitrary number but I like new years and I like the fresh start that I feel it brings.  As well as the reflection and the opportunity to improve things...yes I'm talking about resolutions.  No, I'm not going to blabber on about mine either, at least not here.  I don't always have them, I just like them.  I am going to reflect a little bit though.  2010.  6 frames and 7 forks (you could probably count the truss fork as some combination of the two).  I definitely learned something new in doing each one.  I'm still honing my process in this experiment, but with each bike or fork I feel like I spend less time at each step and have a better "feeling" as to what will work and what won't.  I developed new ideas, techniques, and methods by pushing through projects that I would never have known if I hadn't just gone for it and as a result built some of the coolest things, bikes, whatever, that I've ever created.  To me what makes this worth it though is the interactions I get to have with the people who commission me.  In the waning hours of 2010 I found myself in a conversation with Elder Heinsius, whose frame I finished only an hour before. He's somewhat new to riding bikes, but not at all unfamiliar with them.  He's been getting increasingly excited about his build and was always stoked to check out his work in progress.  What he told me that I think in the end was that over the many conversations we had in conceptualizing his bike, we didn't talk about bikes all that much.  I mean we did the measurements and the jargon and whatnot, but we really talked about guitars, music, movement, how the Elder gets into things, what fuels his passions.  And through those conversations I really got into his bike.  I think I cranked it out in a week even being laid out two days with a cold.  Not to toot my own horn, this is just what makes it worth it for me.  Getting to know someone in ways that I otherwise wouldn't through building him or her a bike.  Translating conversation and abstract ideas into functional art that I hope represents that person's personality.  I think I can say that of every frame I built this year--it represents its rider's personality.

horseshoe chainstay brace, clearance for 26x2.5s, mud, and a triple.

That being said....at this point I have a hard time with the idea of expanding on what I'm doing.  I kind of like it just where it is.  I already spend entirely too much time in the garage and am at the point where the other things I want to do take a back seat.  I give myself cabin fever here in the winter.  I get kind of freaked at the idea of filling 10 or 20 orders, even knowing what that means.  Right now I have one bike in que and I'm so OK with that.  I need to do something else, have another job, figure things out, go outside more, whatever.  Right now everything in my life comes in very intense waves and then I sort of freak out and have to get out.  I wonder what part of it is my personality and what part of it has to do with spending the four intense summers fighting fires and completely throwing off my balance.  Anybody have any thoughts?

Happy New Year.

Head tubes (warning: this is probably gonna be dorky.)

I started Elder Heinchez' bike the other day and it features something I don't usually incorporate on most builds....a short tube.  100mm.  This is the shortest I've ever put on a bike....29ers included.  I like to leave them as long as possible, and, well, this one is as long as possible.  Longer head tubes just make sense from a physics and engineering stand point.  They diffuse the stress on the headset cups and bearings from the leverage of the fork and the varying forces applied to it as the front wheel rolls over and impacts the terrain and braking forces are applied.  Imagine the lower headset cup as the fulcrum of a lever in the simple machine sense of things and the upper cup as the object being moved by this machine.    The closer the upper and lower cups are together the easier it is to stress this area (loose headsets, ovalized head tubes, etc.)

A number of factors will dictate the length of a head tube in a bike's design, but ultimately the build of the rider is going to be the limiting factor.  A rider will have a maximum seat height and therefore a maximum or minimum handlebar height.  For most mountain bikes I figure a handlebar height that is equal to the saddle, unless the rider knows he wants handlebar drop.  The other considerations immediately affecting head tube length are:

fork length (axle to crown)...longer travel forks are, well, longer

bottom bracket height--raises/lowers the rider over the axles.  A taller BB warrants a longer head tube.

seat tube angle--a slacker ST will lower rider position

component choices--a riser bar leaves less room for a head tube.  Usually this is not critical but is definitely something to be considered when that space is going to be at a premium.

you could probably also argue that ETT length and head tube angle will affect head tube length, but it seems negligible and these are both design considerations that hold a more important function.

there is no reason to have an excessive stack of headset spacers on a custom bike unless a wide variety of positions is desired by the rider.  To me over 20mm of spacers is excessive (think of the lever and fulcrum, your headset, being worked from the handlebars, too).  Allow for dynamic adjustments for comfort within a range.  Most people as they age, though, fancy comfort (higher handlebars) over speed (lower, more racy position).

The Elder's bike is interesting here.  He is built stout with a long torso and long arms and carries a very good portion of his weight in his upper body.  He wanted a bike that is stable and that gives him confidence on the descents.  Until now he's often felt like the front end on the downhill is a precarious balance point.  This bike will have slacker angles and a lower BB than most that I do, but given his build and experiences, I think this will suit him very well.  He's also the type of rider to barrel through the hard parts, no compromise to parts, so stability is key.  This was a tricky design to work out but the overall lower center of gravity left me with a 100 mm head tube and probably not much room for rise in either the stem or the handlebars.  Now here's where I think this shorty HT is just cool:  with the oversize tubes (31.8 TT, 34.9 DT) and giving myself enough room for a nice fillet on top and enough room to swing a Fox Fork around on the bottom, the top tube and down tube intersect.  This is coming out to be the most precisely mitered bike so far.  The pics below are of the build sequence so far.  I ended up tacking the top tube and head tube and will clean it up as a sub assembly before tacking the down tube.  The seat tube and BB are already tacked and sleeved as is pretty standard.  All said I'm pretty stoked on it.

Finnito!

Shawna's bike is finished.  Dun.  tapped and faced and sanded and all that.  Purdy too.  It'll be cool to see it under powder.  The brake bridge is an extension of the upper rack mounts and should be very stiff.  In other shop happening....I got a sweet custom one off handlebar from the Volcano in the mail this summer and have yet to figure out what to do with it but I sanded the rust off and gave it a clear coat of engine enamel and decided to turn the VooDoo into a winter commuter.  All the hydraulics need to be rebuilt though.  The brakes don't work and the fork needs new seals.  Good thing the snow isn't sticking yet.  

The photos are of something that has become somewhat of a ritual to me...as in the new bike gets shown off inside the house for a brief spell and I usually spend the rest of the finished evening staring it and marveling in its creation.  

Elder Heinchez is up next.  He's on the new side to mountain biking and has been riding on mostly borrowed (and ill-fitting) equipment.  It'll be a squat, stable 26" with a long top tube that'll barrel through tough spots in the trail.  The way the Elder described his bike to be is like his guitar playing...he does a lot with a little.  To me that says fat tires....yesss.

Progress

Shawna's bike is coming along.  It has taken a while but I really don't feel like I've put that much time into it.  Its been short days really and lots of days off last week.  Here's a photo update of the progress and a few randoms.

Paragon order came in.  I love ordering from them.  Their stuff is oh so fine.  Ten pairs of Bottle opener dropouts.

Checking things out before moving on.  Tire clearance, alignment, chainring and derailleur clearance.

The nicest of the lugs out of the soak tank.

Mock up with a 68x107 BB, a 9 speed cassette and a 26/36/48 crank, old XTR.  The chainring clearance is a little tight with this setup but I like the chainline with the 107 bb so I'm going to dimple the chainstay on the outside.

Fitting up the seat stays.  This is a piece of 1/2" x .035 chromoly.  This bike was just begging for some straight gauge here.  I looked at some tapered and other options but they just didn't look right.  This was the last piece I had though so I had to track some down.  Thanks Garro.

Dimpling the chain stay.

The dimple.

Blended the head tube extension.

Making some classy seatstays out of straight gauge.  Not the best braze here

Finished and ready for attaching to the bike.

The fork is done and now its cleaned up.  Paul U-brakes.  I haven't hooked them up to a lever yet but they feel strong.

Tomorrow I get to put these things together into something cool.  I think I'm going to like this setup.  That's all for now.  Goodnight.

Chain Stays and Dropouts

I've been tending to mitre the front triangle and chain stays together, braze that whole thing, then do the seat stays.  Here's some pics of the chain stay/dropout work I did yesterday.

Here's the addition I do to the drawing to account for tire and chainring clearance when building the rear end.  Using the centerline of the bottom bracket from the original drawing I draw the back half of the BB shell--this one is 68mm--and extend a centerline to the rear axle to split the difference of 135mm.  I draw in the chainrings by using an assembled crank and BB.  This one is an old XTR square taper with 26/36/48 chainrings that is close to what Shawna will be running and for mock up I used a 107 mm shell.  Little rings have shown to be the biggest obstacle in chain stay clearance.  The vertical line to the right of the half bb shell represents the minimum chain stay spread at that point (i.e. tire clearance).  For this drawing I wanted 55mm spread at the full diameter of the tire.  I lay the stays down and line them up to see if they'll fit how I want.  This bike is getting True Temper bent oval chain stays.  Recently I've been using the S-bend stays, but the single bend ovals are good riding stays and I think they will fit this bike quite nicely.  They will take some working though.

Into the tire clearance machine.  I came up with this along the way last winter after seeing how some bikes needed more clearance.  Here is the chain stay pre tire clearance.  I mark the block so the stays sit at the same place and check the alignment as all parts of this machine sit pretty loose before clamping.

...and after the squish.  I measure the jaws to ensure they get squished the same.

Finished product.  I drew the lines on the stays thinking that's where I would center the bend, but I wound up not using that...mostly because the machine didn't want to do it that way.

Chain stays and dropouts brazed.  This bike is using Henry James cast stainless plug dropouts.  These things are super easy to use and make for a seamless finish.  The double eyelets are cast into the dropout and are very clean.  That's all for now.  I put in a late late night last night but the front triangle and chain stays are all brazed up and its sitting in the soak tank now.  I'll probably get back at it next week, but maybe I'll get some pics of the brazing up in the meantime....peace.