Shapin' Up

With poor outdoor activity weather in the form of what seems like feet and feet of endless rain and this wretched time of darkness known as Standard Time comes plenty of time to dive into projects... I have made quite the jump on frame number 2 construction.... from here forward we will refer to frame number 2 as...... Number Two.....

First step of this productivity was talking my fellow biker gang member and ACTUAL frame builder into letting me not only use his frame jig but to kidnap it to my home shop.... Sure, he has said I can use it whenever it is not being used, but it is far more inviting  to tinker on a project when all you have to do is walk 20 steps from your back door....  Turns out, the elusive JRad was so tired of hearing me hem and haw over this bike that there was no negotiation needed to get said jig 20 steps from the door....

The front triangle went together on the better part of a rainy Sunday afternoon.... tacked.... checked.... and all brazed up.... Next step rear axle placement.  I did hem and haw over Number Two's axle location for some time.... I am using sliding dropouts not unlike the popular Paragon offerings.... The sliding aspect allows for tire clearance adjustments/chainstay length adjustments as needed.... They will also come in handy for any impromptu single speed extraction from woods needs... Well long story short I screwed up a little bit during the stay mitering process and ended up about .25 inches short..... this might seem like a small fixable error but in this case it is not.... I was now in search of local frame builders (there are only 2) who might have what I need before I make an order to CA.... I do not like to wait....

"Ballzout".... to quote the great Puc Puggy mastermind.... this is what Bobby had to say when he saw I was on to the seatstays before the chainstays were attached.... This is somewhat backwards in the usual bike construction methods.... Well I bent the tubes for the chainstays on my home made tube bender known as bucky the tube slayer.... They turned out really nice... they are bent from straight gauge 5/8 inch diameter .035 inch wall 4130.  All tacked up with a wheel in the drops and everything appears to be straight as an arrow.... but thats just my take.... others might or might not disagre...

Well..... both of the frame builders mentioned above had parts for me to choose from which is super nice.... I found the needed chainstays and am now in the process of hemming and hawing over their locational specifics..... I don't want to mess up a 2nd set.... at $30 bones a crack, this could start to get expensive......

Well with this window of good weather I think the Pretentious Apes biker gang is assembling for a local chapter dirt shred.... that is all for now.... Be on the lookout for Pretentious Apes inductee invitations....

Best Dog Ever!

Recommence Rad

Well..... for the past several months I have been real busy.... busy building tons of stuff.... finishing projects and getting s#*t done.... or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.... most people would say the past several months sound pretty rad and productive......... Productive yes.... rad..... not so much.... All of this work has been finishing house projects, work work, yard work, etc....  I have had no time do rad stuff.  Yeah I have been riding a good bit, but only in town trail.... I've had to forego the out of town mini epics in order to finish house projects on the weekends.... The house still isn't finished but its pretty darn close......

Sooooooo I have had the chance to move my non work work in a more rad direction.  And hopefully will be getting my mini epic on again real real soon.... 

The first of the rad projects was a custom frame bag for the one... the only..... JP W@re$.... He, the Puc Puggy Cycles  Supreme Commander Bobby, and another friend who we will just call Braa where heading out in a few weeks to try their luck on the Trans North Ga bike route (TNGA) and JP well..... needed a bag.  I ain’t no semester but all parties involved were pleased with the results.  For the very same trip I was commissioned to alter a bag made for Braa by Jpacks ( a pro bag maker) for a bike he no longer owns... Both projects were fun and payment was made in full before and upon delivery... The barter system is alive and strong here in the Athens, GA mtn bike community!

Husky Power

W@re$ and his Puc Puggy

Now it was time for some projects of my own....

Fellow Pretentious Ape, Bro, and trail shredder JRad...powder coats bikes... and anything else that will fit in the oven...... It just so happens my bike was the guinea pig late one night a few years ago.... let’s just say the beerz were good, the knowledge base was slim and the thought of a fresh coat was burning a hole in someone’s pocket.... not all steps in the prep process were taken and to make a long story short.... after a few years of hard riding, and more than few nights left outside to the weather, the surface rust was winning the battle with the Ford Blue powder..... Well….. number one is no longer Ford Blue..... After the better part of a Sunday stripping old powder, blasting, sanding, and a few new braz ons .... Might I introduce Gray Pupon.....

The last time she will be allowed on the furniture....

Next on the agenda is frame number 2..... Ideas have been tossed around..... drawings have been drawn...... drawings have been re-drawn..... drawings have been modified...... modifications have been modified but the build has begun..... I think.   

First bit to be built..... the all important head tube.....

Flux....

Flame...

The product of the flux, flame, and a lil brass...

ghetto lathe!

I'll take it!

Second Annual Haloween  Via Ferrata!

# 2

On a recent trip to Ashe-Vegas/Pisgah/Dupont I acquired a bicycle part that I have no bicycle to fit.... I purchased this part from a pretty well know area builder for a super fair price.  The part is a suspension fork, something I have been without for a couple years now.  I have been rocking it rigid partly out of choice and partly out of mistake (the first bike I built had a head tube that was a few millimeters too long to work with any of the 3 other straight steer forks in my possession).  The new to me fork is a Fox Float 34.  She was rebuilt recently and rebuilt with a previous years internals that historically have had less flaws than the current model… we will see…  She has 140 mm of travel and she will be thoroughly enjoyed, as soon as I can braze up a frame for her to steer down the hill....

#2’s design is pretty much done.... Building has commenced and when done this thing should rip!

Specs will look something like this....

140 mm head tube

69 degree head tube angle

55 mm BB drop

74 degree seat tube

Effective top tube 640mm

16.5ish inch chain stays

12x142 rear axle

shortish stem 50-60 mm

140mm fork travel

etc.....

Wish me luck....

Bad picture of headtube

Better picture of less finished headtube

Dupont

pretentious apes

Sierra Nevada Brewery, Mills River, NC

pretentious apes

There's Always Beer in the Banana Stand....

One of the many nice things about mountain biking are the logs... They are nice to look at, fun to ride over, difficult to ride down, ultimately make part of the very dirt we love to ride on, grow pretty mosses, make homes for furry little animals and most importantly hid delicious BEERZZZZ!  I do love a good cache.....  There is no higher score in the dude point department than rolling up to a sweet spot on a local trail with your riding bros and walking over to one of the bazillion logs that they have been looking at and riding past for years, and digging out a couple cold ones...... well.... I guess it depends on the time of the year.... in the winter they are SUPER cold, and in the summer you can be guaranteed they will be colder than the air..... So yeah I guess cold ones does still apply in this scenario.  I have a couple different active stashes or as they call them CACHEs on a trail I frequent most days. I just got back from a night ride on the local in town trails and I decided to stash a few beers in the woods that were left in the fridge by a friend a few weeks ago.... Thanks Mike!  These beers might be drank by me tomorrow or I might forget about them for a few months and suddenly remember them while out riding with some friends.... this is where the major dude points would be awarded..... 

There has not been much to report in the bike or outdoor world around here lately.... minus the afternoon or weekend in town trail ride all that's been going on here is house work.  I am in the middle of a big project re-renovating my house..... The house was built back in the early 1900's...... I have seen an old fire insurance map from 1918 and my house is there so it is at least that old... If you get bored check out the maps (sanborn map link).. there pretty cool.  Well, around 1995 someone converted the house to be a duplex, we bought the house in 2007 and fixed it up to make it livable and I am now taking it back to a single family house....  I have been building cabinets, tearing out walls, building walls, ripping up flooring, laying flooring, making countertops, pouring concrete, laying tile, electrical work, plumbing, gas line work, HVAC stuff, painting, demoing, etc.   Oh yeah I almost forgot my favorite thing..... sheetrock..... shoot me in the head.......

I did have some help one day demoing an old nasty bathroom from one of my main riding bros and local frame builder in exchange for some help with an old 1965 Chevy Van procurement and extraction.....

When all this is done I'm startin' on frame number two.... stay tuned.....

Stash or is it Cache?

Cache or is it Stash?

Concrete Countertop Form Building

Concrete Countertop Form Building

Backsplash....

Hey Clark....Shitter's Full!

Easy Crawl Space Access!

Light Fixture Weldin'

Van Winchin'

Trailer ............Pushin' ?????

Guns Flexin'

#2.... still waffling on the sliders????

Look at dem curves.....

All things are not equal...

Pedals that is....

I have been riding mtn bikes for a long time now...  I was an early adopter of the clipless pedals.  For those of you that don’t know, clipless pedals are bicycle pedals that your shoes clip into... this allows for you to pedal more efficiently by being able to pull up on your pedals during your pedal stroke, they also keep your feet attached to the bike when things get bumpy.  

There are several different types of clipless pedals out there, and I have tried just about all of them.  All pedals except for one have proved to be inferior.  

SPD style pedals are the industry standard but they are crap... Yes they are adjustable so you can dial them in to your ability or disability level.  But, this adjustability lends them to having to many parts, and this becomes really apparent when you are a couple handfuls of miles back in the Utah backcountry and one of said adjustable parts decides to go missing..... trying to find an adjustment screw proves to be harder than you would think.... even in a mtn bike town.

Speedplay..... weird 

Crankbrothers......copied Time and they all break 

TIME ATAC!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are the only mtn bike pedals... period!

In fact I have been rocking the same set of TIME ATAC pedals for 17 years.........

Yeah that is correct I said SEVENTEEN YEARS!!!!!!

I just recently switched these old geezers for a newer pair because the spring rails were getting a bit thin from 17 years of shreddin'.

People say..."but TIME pedals aren’t adjustable" waaah waaah waaah....

Actually they are adjustable, or at least they were 17 years ago... the OG packaging told you to put the cleat on the shoe one way for mere mortals and to turn the cleat around backwards for experts.... so yeah they are adjustable, or they were 17 years ago (I don’t think TIME verbalizes this advice in modern times).

People say "they are heavy".... Who cares....

People say "all of my friends SPD"...... Get new friends

People say "you should try crank brothers"..... better go ahead and by 4 sets

People say "I used to ride speedplays"....... used to (probably on their soft ride)

Smart people say "you should get some TIME ATACs"....... ride with this genius only because.....he is a genius! 

Oh yeah….

Went to Pisgah Forest for some leaf peepin’

We rode bikes, watched people ride bikes, ate burritos, drank free beers, drank not free beers, made fires, slept in tents, slept not in tents, slept in trucks,  played with dogs, hung out with friends, rode bikes with friends and talked about riding bikes….

It was good….

Look at that old geezer!

Close up of the thinning spring....

Just Hangin' Out

Bervard has a good burrito spot

This is real and they were serious!

REEB Ranch Bike Farm 

Athens All The Way

A couple weekends back was the Annual Athens All The Way mountain bike ride.  It has taken a few years off but AATW is back and will hopefully be truly annual again.  

If you Ask Jeeves about local mountain bike trails he does not have a very good answer.  There are a few trails that pop up, one is right here in town but pretty short and caters towards beginners, the others are all a good bit out of town requiring a car or a pretty grueling fat tire road ride just to get your tires muddy.  Soooooo... Athens does not stand out as mountain biking town to the general PUBLIC.

The truth is that there is a core group of dudes that have some pretty decent trails that you will not find any info about unless you ask one of the said core dudes.  These trails are all in town and if you live in town there is no reason why you could not ride every day and never get in your car.  Now, we are not talking about beautifully groomed single track.... more like in town rugged wilderness.... but the trails are beautiful in my eyes.  

Athens All The Way is a group ride that sets out on a pre planned day with the end goal of riding every known trail in town one after the other after the other....

This is no easy task.  I think the guys and gals who completed the ride this year logged somewhere between 40 and 50 miles.... most of which is single track with small amounts of pavement to connect sections of trail.  

I was unable to ride in the morning due to some other obligations so I met the ride at the halfway point... I will call the ride Athens All Half the Way.  The halfway point greeted the group of beat morning riders with a SAG  car complete with a change of cloths, food, water, pizza and a resupply of other necessary beverages.  After ridding the last half of the ride I was kind of happy I did not start with the early crew....Everyone was DESTROYED near the end of the 40+ mile ride.  

 All said and done 29 riders participated in this gruel fest and 17 completed the ride in it's entirety (major props).  We all decided that this will again become an annual event but maybe it should not take place during the dead heat of summer..... To be continued in Fall or Spring 2015.... Not summer!

Necessary Beverages!

 

"Ballers Hill"

Attention All Trail Users............

The trails we all use and love do not maintain or build themselves....

That is all....