Busy Times

Well what can I say... the S&!# finally hit the fan at work. My shop (The Touring Cyclist) is closing down my location. (Richmond Heights) They let us know Saturday, that by the end of the month, we had to be moved out of the store. Starting then, we had 12 more days left. Monday, we probably moved out half the store. But I imagine it was mostly the easy stuff. We still have to go through all the tiny accessories, clear out all the tools, (some of which are freakin' heavy. I'm not sure how the loading will even go for those) then the best part of taking down all the racks, wall grid that has been there to hang stuff on, benches, fixtures.... yea, it's gonna be a blast. Luckily though, I still technically have a job - they're moving me to manage one of the other locations. But my commute went from a pleasant 2.1mi, to a good rides' ~15 mi each way. The entire way to work is slightly up hill, in either direction there are some good hill climbs, and (this time of year) in the snow. So I really will have a grandpa story to tell. "When I was your age, I used to ride 30 miles in the snow, up hill both ways to work! I don't want to hear about your piddly nonsense!" Sigh... I can't wait. But for now, at least I will get to further test out some cold weather gear.

Well, as far as the frame building, I'm going to take my latest frame in to get powder coated, hopefully Tuesday. It's a geared road bike, with some custom lug work, internal top tube routing for the rear brake, with a bit quicker than standard geometry. It's something that I've been wanting to do for some time now, and it seems that it's just about to be finished with. If you want to see the build process, head on over to my flikr site, and look through the old pictures. As soon as I get it back from paint, I'll be putting some up here. Also, I've been talking to Don Ferris (maker of my jig), and I think I've solved a few issues I've been having. This jig works a bit different than the last one I used, (an old Henry James model) and it ended up changing how my brazing sequence will go. I used to make sub assemblies, then piece them together. But now, I'll have to tack the front triangle, and chainstays in one go, take it out of the jig, check alignment, finish the brazes out of the jig, clean, finish, check alignment one more time, then slap the seatstays in to lock it all in place. It's too late to do that with Marc's frame, (as I already have one braze done) but I should be able to account for that, and have a good end result. But I guess from now on, this old man has to change his ways.