The Abyss

It's Christmas Eve, and I managed to get myself a 22oz bottle of The Deschutes Brewery out of Bend,  Oregon called Abyss 2010 Reserve.About $10-12 bucks a bottle. I popped the top and it is going to be a good Christmas. Abyss is an Imperial Stout that comes out in a Limited Run each year and it can be hard to get your hands on a bottle as it is quite good. It is also quite evil at 11% ABV. An Imperial beer is normally double the grain used in the wort, which means it has twice the kick. I think I will make this my yearly Christmas Tradition. I might regret it in the morning but that's why Santa helps me out. Lets me get up dazed and lets my kid take control of the morning, all I have to do is get out of bed and rip open some presents. I can do that. This year is really good, a bit sweeter than last year but very well balanced considering the ABV thats in there. I give it a 9.4 out of 10.

Giro d' Italia Board Game

So I have considered buying this board game about the Giro and today I pulled the trigger.

I bought it from Amazon and the game itself is made by Rio Grande Games

Photo above from Amazon.com

Here is the product description directly taken from Amazon.com

Product Description

"In this simple yet fascinating cycling race simulation you decide the placement and energy management of your riders facing all the elements of the Giro d'Italia: sprints breakaways falls cracks punctures bonus time made and broken alliances final sprints. What is your specialty? Will you be best on plains and sprints? Will you fly in solitude on the mountain top? Or will you display a charismatic leader talent? At the end of the track only the finest strategist and the humblest hard-worker will win entering with Giro d'Italia games in the legend of the greatest Cyclists of all time. There are three differences between Leader 1 and Giro d'Italia the game. The latter has the real time rule special cards to be played once during the race and an Appendix with pictures showing how to build all the stages of the 2009 Giro d'Italia."

There is also a review over at board game geek on this too. Here is that link:Boardgamegeek Review

When I get my hands on it I will do a review heavily slanted on a bike nuts perspective.

Photo above linked to Board Game Geek

Photo above linked to Board Game Geek

Photo Above linked to Board Game Geek

Home Made Pot and Pan Rack

This is some more information on the previous post. It is a list of materials so if you wanted to make your self a rack of similar capacity you could.

All materials were purchased from Home Depot. All fittings and pipe were 3/4" Inch

6  3/4" Floor Flanges, the round part with 4 pre-drilled screw holes that you can screw 3/4"pipe into.

6       3/4" T's

4      3/4" Street Elbows

6        24"x 3/4" pipe...2 were cut, I took off 1" 3/4 so that the center to center measurement would be 24" on the shorter ends, remember I made a rectangle 48"x24"

6     3 1/2" x 3/4" pipe also called Nipples

I used # 10 Philips wood screws at 1 1/2" length

I screwed everything together with no teflon tape or Pipe Dope, It's not going to hold water so it does not have to seal. Just start threading things together an the only real tricky part is the last piece. What I did was mount everything in place and I saved one of the short 24" pieces of pipe for last. The one I cut 1 3/4" off. This goes on the short end of the rectangle into the 2 street elbows. So I threaded one end as tight as I could and used a pipe wrench to tighten it up a bit. Then I lined it up with the other end and backed it out a bit so it would thread into the other end. Perfect, no need for a union and plenty strong to hold up some pots and pans...If you have questions, leave a comment and I will reply...Ed

Latest Project

So Christmas is almost here, and I have had a really hard time trying to find my wife the best gift. She is a cooking, Foodie, Chef person, but does not need any more cookware. I finally decided upon a pot rack. After a lot of time drawing things out, it became obvious it would be best done and also $ ahead if I used 3/4 inch pipe as the medium of choice.

We have an island that is 4 feet x 3 feet and the roof rafters run 24" on center so I decided to use a 48"x24" design to help fit the roof format and to match up with the kitchen island. This way I could mount the support flanges firmly into the studs and not have to worry about extra support means.

I was going to hand forge the holders to attch the pots and pans to the rails, but it turns out there are shower curtains that do the job nicely and are less in cost than just the materials to do it by hand.

Well I hope the wife likes it, total cost was well under $150 and I think it looks quite nice. I could have saved about 25% by going with just black pipe but the galvanized just looks so much better....Ed

My wife's blog

I thought I would take a moment to brag about my wife's blog she has been steadfastly working on. It deals with how to grow cook and raise all your own food and livestock. Shows you ways to deal with things that might pose problems for new comers to the world of self sufficiency. She has only been working on it for a few months and it is starting to gain some popularity.

                                                        www.mysuburbanhomestead.com


Check it out, spread the word. It has something for everyone.

It has been some time.

I finally got the frame and fork out the door to AMS in New York, gosh that took forever. Sorry. Since my last post I was unemployed, Summer was approaching and I thought I was going to be cranking out a frame a week. Oh dreaming is so much fun. I got back in the saddle looking for work as our health care costs were more than my unemployment. The daily grind of looking and applying and all the bull shit companies make you go through to fill out THEIR forms and the drug tests. Blood, Urine and hair. Needless to say I did land a decent job and have been working for the last 6 months. I loose two hours of my life in a car every weekday which really digs into my bike time and my personal and family time. Summer goes by fast and when it is 80 and sunny you have no desire to be in an unconditioned garage, you want to be outside far far away from a welding torch.

AMS updates

I have finished AMS's fork and front triangle. Will be working on the rear triangle this week/end. Photos soon.

Need a bike?

Creatures at our house (Native)

So we moved into our new house in Aug of 2009. As spring rolls around the wild life here is amazing. Here is what I can list in no order.


Rough Skinned Newt

Pacific Tree Frog

Gardner Snake

Mountain Jay

Humming Birds, So far we have seen about 4 different types.

Dove

Band-Tailed Pigeon

Raccoon

Robin and her eggs and babies.

Moles

Mice

Yellow Jacket Wasp

Multiple other birds, but I have not 100% ID'd them. It's kind of funny, I used to make fun of BIRDERS out in the park. Pretty sure my wife did too. Last night we both were on the couch with binoculars looking out the window at birds. I'm getting old.

Things we have heard but not yet seen. Multiple Owls and Coyotes.

Bikesnob

I bought the newly released book by the famous Bike Snob out of New York. So far it is great. He slowy breaks into the history of the famous two wheeled contraption and then migrates towards the different worlds of bicycles. Roadies, Cyclocross, MTB's and Contraption Captions, The Messenger, Beautiful Godzilla, Lone Wolf and such forth. I will do a formal review when I finish but so far it has been very entertaining.

I will leave you with a quote from the book.

"Well we cyclists are often subject to similar ignorance. And when it comes to cyclist slurs, there's one that towers above the rest. It's the "L" word. I'm not talking about the TV Show the L WORD about the lesbians-or as my old boss might have called them, "Gertrude Steins." No, the L word is "Lance Armstrong."

   Everybody knows who Lance Armstrong is. He's easily the most famous cyclist in the world. But what most people don't know is that we cyclists consider "Lance Armstrong" a slur."

Book Review

Lugged Bicycle Frame Construction: A Manual For The First Time Builder by Marc-Andre R. Chimonas.


I bought this book a few months ago from Amazon

I bought it because it seemed like a simple process to building a frame and the price was very fair compaired to the over complicated Paterek Book Paterek Manual for Bicycle Framebuilders Don't get me wrong, I own and love my Paterek Book but for the novice it is a lot of info to digest.

Marc's book is a quick read and offers some neat and simple ideas to building a frame. I do have a small issue with his love of power grinders for the novice builder. Dremel and bench grinders. I use grinders from time to time, but it is so very easy to really detroy a tube or lug with a grinder. I would recomend buying some quality files instead. Nicholson Files
The other items I was disappointed in was the lack of custom fit information. There also seems to be a lack of charts to help decipher critical information. Overall this book is well worth the money and sits proudly on my bike book shelf. It does what it says it does. It helps a novice build a frame with limited resources. I have recommended this book to several friends and loaned it out on several occasions... I would rate it an 8 out of 10.

I love this quote.

Eddie Merckx who said “Don’t buy upgrades; ride up grades.”

Sunday Morning

Bees

I recently dove head first into the world of Honey Bees. Beekeeping. I had received a book "The Backyard Beekeeper" by Kim Flottum. It is a very glossy and pretty picture book. Needless to say it got my intrest in keeping bees to the top of my priority list. I did some reasearh and found a great bee supply store called Ruhl Bee Supply nearby in Gladstone. I decided on ordering a package of bees (A starter Pack of about 10,000 bees) called Carniolans (Apis mellifera carnica) in January. The bees would arrive the first week of April. The reason I choose this breed was due to the fact that the can with stand colder weather than the classic Italian Bees. The Carniolans also ramp up there population quicker and slow down production quicker based on the weather. Seeing that the Willamette Valley has some wacky weather, it seemed like the better breed.
April 6th, I picked up my bees with my son. Man he was excited. The box they came in was like a little heater, the bees were making themselves warm for the queen. I had purchased a Langsforth 10 frame hive, with two supers and one medium frame for the honey. I set the hive up the day before their arrival and painted it white. Once we got home I sprayed them with a mist bottle full of sugar and water mix to keep them from flying, pulled the queen out and dumped them into the hive. I tried watched some videos on You Tube about the proper way to do this. In retrospect, I did a shitty job. One thing, buy the more expensive bee jacket with the bee veil built in. I bought the bee keeper hat and the veil you add over it. Two bees promptly figured out how to get inside and stung me in the ear. Wear the long sleeve white jacket, not a white t-shirt. Promptly stung in the belly and also wear white leather gloves. Don't wear black, cool on the construction job black gloves, two more stings. Also keep your little black dog away from you during the transfer of the bees into the hive. My poor dog got stung at least 10 times yelping all the way back to the safety of the house.
 Spend the money on the equipment, don't go cheap.
    I also totally screwed up the placement of the feeder bucket.Pull the top Inner cover and place it directly above the super that is setup on top of the base. The second super is added on-top of the inner cover that is sitting on the base super. Leave all the frames out, this way the feeder bucket is inside of the hive, no animals can mess with it and it makes less air space for the bees to heat. Put the roof onto the second super.

Anyways, the bees are really cool and I'm starting to get into them more and more. I recommend a good book put out by The University of Georgia Center for Continuing Education. It is called Honey Bees and Beekeeping: A year in the life of an Apiary. Third edition by Keith S. Delaplane.

Next

Hello NYC...The next frame will be built for AMS in New York City proper. It will be an internal hub and internal drum brakes allowing for a clean look. It will be a daily rider with some extra duty as a long distance bike. It will be lugged using Richard Sachs Nuovo Lugs and BB and Forks Crowns by Mr. ATMO. Rear Drops will be track/horizontal. This current rendering shows a larger than normal Seat Tube Angle of 79 which might need to be modified depending on how much I can stretch the lugs. Kind of excited to build this one as it is very similar to the Retro Metro I previously built. Still working out some final details on componets and tubing size but I figure by Wednesday we will be ordering some parts to get this thing going. Yeah.

Another one down

Finally finished another frame and fork. This one seemed to take forever. Sorry Greg.

Anyways, it is a pretty nice Track Bike, with nothing special except the lugs. No braze ons what so ever. Gotta love that. Simple. Built the fork and used my Marchetti bender to rake the forks, took like 10 seconds, blam... done. Perfect rake...built the forks straight, welded up straight then raked as the very last thing. Pretty cool way to do that. Frame weighs 3 pounds 10 oz

It's just around the corner.

http://www.gent-wevelgem.be/fileadmin/DOCS/parcours-gw-2010.pdf

Have I won a Blue Ribbon?

It's been awhile.

Well looks like the shop is almost setup in the new house. I hooked up the gas torch lines last night and fired up some acety and watched the black particles float around. I'm back baby. More news to come in the following days.