Broken

On my way home from work on Christmas Eve I managed to crash and blew up my shoulder. Broke clean through the clavicle (Collar Bone) and fractured some other stuff in and around the tip of my right shoulder. I was coming down Hawthorne Bridge headed home in South East and I had a green  light coming down off the ramp, 16-18 mph and yes there was ice. I thought the intersection was slush and I pulled the front wheel up just a tad in case it wasn't slush. It was a rut of solid ice and it bucked me into an endo position and when the front wheel made contact it was too late, it slid out under neath me and I hit my right elbow and slid across the intersection of Grand or MLK. I got up and tried to pick up my bike with my right arm but massive electrical like shock and weird nerve damage made me stop. I moved my arm around and it seed like I was somewhat alright , but I knew I needed an x-ray. I tried to think about where the nearest Clinic was and decided to ride down 12th towards one. I made it about 1.5 miles and could not go any further. I stopped at the fire station on Powell and they called 911 and off I went in the ambulance high on 100mg of IV pain meds. Sat around for several hours in the emerg room getting shots of Morphine. Got the results of the x-ray and it was broke. I got a sling and some pain killers and sent home. My friend Matt helped me find a ride home with his nephew Chuck. I have been pacing around the house sucking on pain pills and enduring a lot of pain. I go see the ortho doc sometime next week. So another delay in production and man I'm sorry folks who are waiting for their frames.

The Jig is here

The Jig arrived. It is a little late but better late than never. The UPS guys were a little rough with it and part of the wooden box was cracked open. I called Joe to let him know and then put together to make sure all is there and square. Looks good. So this weekend I will start knocking out some frames.

The Shop

The shop is coming along. The tools have arrived, The Miter Drill is setup and working. I have my 400 lb flat stone work surface. The drafting table and work area are setup. Still debating on moving some stuff around and waitng for a bridgeport mill to show up on Craigslist for under $2 grand. Things are starting to take shape and it's kind of exciting.

Uggggg

So I ordered a frame jig but I don't get it until November, Damn, that throws some slownwss on my projects... I order a jig from Joe Bringelli  and Joe is great but like many of us he is a one man shop and sometimes things just take time.

Bike 006

Bike 006 is going to be built for Martin B and I'm not sure exactly what he wants. I assume it will be a Cyclocross or Single Speed Trainer bike for the early wet season, fenders and bottle bosses and all that good stuff.

Got an e-mail from Martin "Yeah - I'm thinking traditional 'cross geometry but with horizontal dropouts so I can go SS or fixed. I want to be able to race the occasional SS 'cross race but mainly fender it up for some fixie fun."

Bike 005

Bike 005 is going to be built for Rich C and it will be a Cyclocross Frame built that will be able to accept 29er hubs and wheels. Not sure if I can get super fatties to fit in there but we are going to try.

Bike 004

Bike 004 will be a Single Speed Cyclocross built for John M. More details as it is built. The fitting will be next week sometime.

John has been fitted and wanted a lugged frame. I finished up the drawing and due to the larger head tube to accomadate a 1 1/8" fork and not having any 73 degrees lugs for seat and top tube we decided to fillet braze this bike. This will allow me to widen the rear tire clearence and create a more clean look on the bike. I'm planning on getting this bike done fast so John might be able to race it at least once for a cyclocross race this year. We are going to run Henry James Dropouts plug style.

Bike 002

I finished assembling the UBI bike and it looks pretty good. It has a few small problems that I need to work out. I built up the wheels and got the tires mounted. I like the size of these tires. I can't make up my mind if I want to paint it or not. I need to modify the rear rack cross piece as these tires are a lot bigger than the ones I used to size the bike on. I rode it around and it feels nice and really handles bumps quite well. I will consider changing the handle bar but right now this is the Metro Retro Commuter. Sorry for the low quality photo, my phone camera, more photos soon. I will also add the numbers for Head Tube Angles etc.

The first small job

So I got a call from a friend that wanted to mate two rakes together for sampling aquatic life. So he dropped off two rakes and I managed to figure out a slick way to brass weld them together. I also had some leftover Chevy engine spray paint which matched the rake's color perfectly. Anyways it was a fun small project but had absolutely nothing to do with a bicycle.

The first sale: Bike 003

Well, I have the web site name, the DBA business license, working on some wholesalers to do business with and my Friend Michael has asked me to build a cargo bike for him. He has made a deposit and I told him to expect his frame no later than Jan 1st. I have fitted him and started doing some calculations on rake and trail and BB height and Chain stay length. This will be quite the project. Looks like we are going to build a 20" front with a drum brake with a Dyno and a rear 26" wheel with an 8 speed hub with a drum brake. Going to make the cargo bed somewhat of a wood bed with side slats to adjust cargo, kind of like a old Radio Flyer wagon. More info to follow. I'm in Alaska right now spending time with my parents. I'm reading the Paterak book again, this time I actually understand what he is talking about.

UBI Graduate

All finished with the schooling. Man that was a pretty intense two-weeks. Spent about 90 hours working on bike frames and about 30 hours driving my family in our Volkswagen Westfaila. We went from our house via Bend and camped at Diamond lake then toured Crater Lake in the morning and made our way to Ashland. School started at 8AM sharp on monday and I had gary and Ron as our frame building instructors. The first day was more of an overview of the entire process and we dove into silver brazing up some water bottle bosses on som .035 chomoly tubing. The process intensified and by the end of the week we had a fork and front triangle built up. The weekend was spent back in Portland as my wife and child got sick and we thought it would be best for them to be at home. Monday came again and I dove back into getting all my chain stays and seat stays and braze on's added. I built a knock off of an old French style P/R frame similar to a Kogswell. I used a 73 H and a 73.3 S angle alnong with a 25mm rake on the fork. I chose to use a front hub with drum brakes and a rear 3-speed hub with drum brakes. A whole bunch of pictures of the trip is here. http://picasaweb.google.com/Ed.Manning/BikeSchool

The Name

Gosh, so many names. I originally wanted to name it after my name, Manning's, but that didn't have much going for it. Then I tried to go with a unique twist on my first name, Ed became EDO, which was a nickname given to me from my Japanese friends. Edo was the capitol of Japan during some period (Feudal) anyways now Edo is Tokyo and I didn't want to confuse folks into thinking it was a Japanese bicycle company. Then came my III, since I'm the third. Ed Manning III. I thought Cube Cycles, but didn't like that so much. I went searching for even more unique languages and Cube. Not so much. My son is the 4th, so I tried to include that, like 34 Cycle Works, Quattro, but that was Audi so I started really thinking about cycling and it hit me. What have you done? Palmares was it. Checked around and the domain was available so I started down the Path. Palmares is Honors in French and it is a list of races a rider has won, almost comparable to a resume on your bicycle. Anyways, a name took me some time, but I feel it is a worthy name.

The beginning Bike 001

I have wanted to build a bicyle frame for over 15 years. Back in 1990 I ordered a Mountain Bike frame kit from Quality Bicycle and a Paterak Manual. I nice True Temper steel set. I had many dreams about the final outcome and I never got around to finishing it as I got hung up on the Jig design, and I could never get past that. Fast forward to 2007 and I decided to just go ahead and make the damn thing. I didn't care about anything other than finishing it and riding it. I managed to get my hands on Talbot's book and along with the New Paterak Manual, I managed to build the frame and fork. With the birth of my first child it took me aver a year to complete the frame. Maybe 40 hours were involved and it is still a work in progrss. I will be attending the UBI bicycle frame building class in July of 2008 and starting down the frame building path. I came up with the name Palmares Cycles after months of trying to come up with a good name. It's tough. Palmares in French is a word used for Honor's. Most high level racers have a Palmares, or a listing of what races they have placed very well in. I'm currently working on the logo design and website. All of this is a work in progress and more fun that business at this point.

http://www.palmarescycles.com/