Wrapping up June projects, a father's day ride...

Sunday was Father's day, and after coming off of a brutal 12 day push at the fire department due to manpower shortages, I was ready for a day off to enjoy the family and a bit of riding. I loaded up the car with two bikes, two kids, two dogs, and a whole lot of gear and headed for the trail!

Sunday marked the first time I took the pup out for a full ride. Frankie has turned the 6 month corner so I figured he'd be good enough to follow the older dog and keep up. He had a grand old time, splashing through every puddle, wallowing in lot's of rotten smelling dead stuff, and lopping after the bikes. Highlight of his ride was when he was lagging behind Kalten towards the end and out of the pine forest came a young doe. The deer literally ran up behind Frankie and nosed him in the butt. Frankie let out a yelp of surprise, picked up the pace, and gave the occasional disapproving bark. The deer followed us on the trail like one of the pack for about 10 minutes til Cubby turned around and chased him off...pretty cool to see a single track deer ripping it up :)

Here's one tired trail pup...

Monday morning I was back into the shop early to finish up some projects. I had promised Jay that I would make him up some special water bottle cages painted to match his bigwheel crosser and despite my best intentions, have been behind on completing them. So I broke out the titanium hydraulic tubing and worked up some cages first thing for him. I blatantly ripped off Salsa's bottle cage design as I was curious to see how easy it would be to form...not too bad, but still a LOT of bending in a small space. Here I am getting ready to weld on the back plates, got some foil dam to lay around this before zapping them on...

Michael's 83 fat is getting some work before a new red paint job...one issue was creating a new canti hanger for his old bullmoose bar. As I had the hand benders out, I created a nice curved piece, center milled it for a cable stop, then welded it on...

The stop got some silver on top of the tig tacks to afix it into place, here it is straight out of the torch. The white stuff you see is the flux, a chemical paste that is used to help clean, provide heat information, and assist with flow of the molten material. It all soaks off in some hot water, leaving no trace...

I also had Kalten in the shop for a few hours and we kicked out some of July's order for Luv Handles. We worked on finishing the final prep work then I put my helmet on and just focused on welding for about 4 hours. It was a nice mindless task, just getting into the groove and letting the work flow. I really enjoy time like that, as I can feel really productive at the end when I look and see a pile of completed bars ready for paint. So much of custom work is small, focused projects that eat up a lot of time for little productivity, so despite the repetitive nature of the bars, they are rewarding in their own respect.

Jeff stopped by, disappointed after a DNF in the Lumberjack 100 this past Saturday. He had traveled up to Michigan a few days early, pre-rode the course a few times and was feeling confident about his potential in the race. Mid race, in excellent position in the top 10, he was cranking up a hill when suddenly his freewheel pawls exploded, ending his forward progress for the day...bummer.

Back home, getting the freewheel off turned into quite the experience. The piece did not want to budge with the removal tool and I ended up having to mill out a long bar, weld it to the piece, then turn it off. That baby was on there!

Here's Jeff holding his wheel with the make shift removal bar, ready for freewheel removal...

Next posting we'll get some pics out of the paint booth for ya...

rody