Lost a day, but back on the horse...yee haw!

Saturday did not go as planned...well, rewind that, Friday night did not go as planned. After getting home late from the shop, I ran upstairs to grab a shower and get cleaned up. Before I could get to it, Christi called up that she needed me. So down the steps I went, suddenly I was ass over teacups, tumbling all the way down to the hall. Now, I've ice climbed, rock climbed, white water kayaked and cycled in all fashions for years and have had nary an injury. One trip down our wooden steps and an errant piece of laundry left mid way, and now I've got bumps, bruises, and some broken ribs...OUCH.

Needless to say, I did not make it into the shop on Saturday...spent the time licking my wounds and trying to make my family feel sorry for me (no luck by the way :^) )

So today, I got back to it, albeit at a much slower pace.

I drilled all the vent holes for Roy's frame and bent the inner cable lines.

The vent holes are important for a couple reasons; they allow me to purge the interior of the tubes with argon while welding as well as giving access for rust proofing of the frame after finishing.

The brass interior cable lines are very fragile and require special care to shape them. In this case, I filled the inside of the tube with brass rod to support the walls so that they would retain their shape and not crimp. A little gentle pressure with the bending die does the trick

Now I've got some clean bends that the cable will route through smoothly. The last pic shows the down tube that it will be placed into, the black sharpe lines indicating the butts for the thicker sections. The inner tubing will enter and exit through the butted section giving a super clean routing for the dual Rohloff lines...Cool!

Tomorrow, I'll finish the rear end, route the internal tubing, and get all the brazing completed.

Roy's bike should be ready for paint by the end of the week.

cheers,

rody