Yes, I feel shame...

I know, I know, it's been too long since the last update.  No excuse other than I've been spending as much time as possible in the shop and not behind the computer.  Honestly, it gets to the point where the guilt of not posting becomes heavy and it's easier to avoid than to face up to the keyboard.  So, what's been up?

Well, in the shop I've been keeping the pedal down fairly hard.  Seems like when I go through spells like the last month when I'm just moving from day to day that I tend to forget other aspects of my life.  Realization came when Mikey J. called on Friday and broke the conversation with..."so, you all ready for Monday". 
Frantically, I ran through my mind what he could possibly be referring to. 

"Sure, I guess so.  What's up" I reply.

"We're heading out to Arizona for a bke trip" he replies in only a slightly exasperrated tone.

"Crap!"  I think...forgot all about it.  We had planned the trip more than a year ago and somehow I just lost track of time.  Kicker was, I've not had a bike of my own for about 18 months and now had just two days to get something going.  Add to it that our family christmas, postponed twice already due to my schedule, was gonna be at our house the next day, so I really had just Friday night and Sunday to get something together. 

I had just purged boxes of parts, so all I had left were a set of single speed wheels, some 12 year old Magura hydro discs, and a Brooks saddle.  As my new fixture is already occupied, I broke out the 15 year old design to knock this one out... one sleepless night later, she was all mitered up.

Early Saturday before my family arrived, I pushed the welding as fast as I could, she aint pretty, but she should stick together...

My niece Ellie wanted to help me with the bike, so she got to pick out the paint color and watch me get started.  She was a little dissapointed when the first "color" that went on was primer grey...twice :)
We finally got what she picked out for the frame into the gun and sprayed away, making her day.  What little girl doesn't like purple?  While the paint was curing, I fabbed up a ti bar, seatpost, and fork...worse than prepping for a show :) 

Here's the finished Team Lavendar bike ready for action under the beautiful blue skies of Arizona...

The Arizona trip was a fast four day blast, where aside from meeting with two shops who carry Groovy products and two customers ordering bikes, I actually got some riding in...yeah!  We were able to hit South Mountain, Black Canyon, Hawes Mine, and McDowell Mountain.

What goes up...

Must come down...

Jeff and Emily came up from Tucson to ride and talk bikes, sharing some awesome tacos from La Condessa with us...

and Chris broke out his Groovy equipped Land Rover to share a few rides and talk ti coupled frames for his traveling lifestyle...

With business done, riding in the sun, and awesome grub, the time moved too fast...back on the plane to come home to snow and cloudy skies. 

Once back, I pushed out almost 30 bars for the April list, still have about 4 Ti to finish.  Don is ready for his Yo...thought I had it ready to ship and realized it was another Aqua fade I finished, so have been restoring his frame this week.  Lots of dings to fill with silver, some icing work over numerous pitted areas, and have it under two coats of primer now.  Looks like color will go one Wednesday. 

Oh, also had some parts from Jays stolen bike show up...Sheriff lost the suspect though and I'm sure the rest of the bike is gone for good now.  That being said, I also built Jay's replacement frame, a twin to my new ss rig.  It's now in primer.  Gonna take some time to design the paint masks for this one.

That's a bit of an update...lots more to share soon.

rody