Being Unemployed is Hard Work! (lots of pics)

Sorry to any regulars that have been waiting for anything new up here. The past few days have been a long hard push to get Marc's frame done today. We braved the snow, and Les at Powder Coat Specialists was nice enough to go into work today, and hopefully have it ready to be picked up tomorrow. (there's just nothing like going local) This way, it will be able to be build it up in time to get some riding on it before his race this Sunday.

Everything came out pretty well, I think. I've definitely learned more even from the last frame. The only thing that didn't turn out awesome, was my numbers came out a bit short on the chain stays. I drew out how long they needed to be for the wheel to come out of the semi-horizontal dropouts and not hit the seat tube. I gave it about 1-2mm of clearance on the drawing, but that was the only thing that didn't translate perfectly into real life. After I welded the chain stays on, I went to put the rear wheel in to check for alignment and position for the brake bridge. It bumped the seat tube, and didn't quite have enough room to slip into the dropouts. It would have worked if you deflated the tire, but that would suck. But with a bit of file work on the dropout, it will get in and out. So, not as awesome as I'd like, but it will work. And now I have one more valuable lesson under my belt. Thanks to Marc for willing to be one of the early buyers.


Aside from all that work, I haven't been up to much at all. The lady and I did sneak out for a ride on Saturday when it was hovering a bit above 60F. We rode the Riverfront Trail up to the Chain Of Rocks Bridge. It was so nice out, just a little breezy on the way back, but I can't complain. At least it wasn't full of snow, slush, ice, and salt. The next day it got up to the 70's... and today we're getting 6-7 inches of snow. Yey St. Louis!