It was a hell of a week leading up to the 2,200 mi drive to Santa Cruz, CA. Aside from wrapping up the usual work and friend things before taking off to the other side of the country, I had yet to finish Matt's frame. After a few real long days, and the usual cuts and burns, I managed to both finish the frame, and make one stupid blunder that ended up scrapping the fork. Hopefully, it will be soon after this year that I can set up shop again, and start over on that fork. But until then, Matt will have to settle for a carbon substitute.
The frame came together at the last minute, giving me just a few days to pack up my entire workshop and some of the house. Luckily, Melissae was more than awesome in packing up most of the house while I finished the frame. Overall, I think the frame turned out quite well. It's one of those frames that I'm kind of reluctant to give up to someone else. But that's the name of the game. Matt was quite pleased, and I'm still waiting to see what it looks like painted and built up. (You have to send pictures!!!)
The move itself went pretty well considering moving a 2 bedroom house and workshop in a total DIY fashion. A day of loading up the truck tetris style, 4 days of driving a 25 foot truck, averaging between 54 and 58 mph, with mountain passes getting around 35 mph. If anything, it gave us plenty of time to appreciate our great country's landscape. From nothing to see in Kansas but a whole county whose painted road lines have worse alignment than a Huffy:
...to the beautiful mountain passes and amazing geology of Colorado and Utah.:
We're now just outside of Santa Cruz, in the redwoods for the next 9 months to a year. I'll keep posting about goings on, rides, bike news, cool things around here, and life in general. But it will be a while before I've got another frame to show off. But as soon as that happens, I'll be back at it for sure. Thanks again to all the friends back in St. Louis for all the help and love we got while we were there. We definitely feel like we were/are welcome there. Maybe I'll meet up at a race with you guys. Until then, take care.
