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.”