A new week rolls in...

And another week begins...

I pushed through a 36 hour shift Thurday and Friday at the fire department and then jumped in the car to head south of Columbus to attend Em's Ohio Valley Regional Volleyball Championships in Pikerington.
I threw my bike on the car in the hopes that I could stop at Alum Creek to ride on the way home. Good and Bad with that decision; Em's team went all the way to the championship game to win their division, finishing up late into the evening...Good. Bad...the only riding my bike got that day was on top of the car. It was an even trade though as it was awesome to see her team have some success.

I also got to hang with my niece and nephew who kept me well occupied most the day. I got quite a work out throwing them in the air, doing flips, running around the gym, etc... Here's my niece Elly hanging tough during the long tourney...

Monday morning it was back to the shop. I spent the majority of the morning changing out the hoses and fixtures on the blast cabinet, as the original pieces began springing leaks last week. I made a valiant effort to patch them as they sprouted, but after 3 spontaneous blowouts, I figured it was better just to bite the bullet and replace them all. After running after parts and wrenching a bit, four hours later I was back in business.

The shop needed put back into place with all the new equipment moved in, so I spent an hour and cleaned up the band saw a bit before setting it up. She was a bit rusty when I started...

But cleaned up real nice with a little work, here's the table in progress...

The next project attacked was a custom rack for Mike S's road bike. Mike wants a minimalist rack for some light credit card touring with a spare clothes. I don't do a lot of racks, as there are many good production options available. But when there is a special need, I've built a few. Racks are just as intensive as many other custom parts and take a bit of time to do right.

Here we started with .375 4130 tubing that is hand bent to my pre-determined specs for this application; 12 inches long, 4.5 inches wide...

I've never liked butting tubing together and circumferentially welding it, so I plan a bit of a gap in the joint and then spin down a press fit inner piece with a recessed shoulder to join the pieces.

Here you can see the gap to be joined...

and the lathe turned piece of steel that will be pressed into the ID of the tubing...

Once in place, you can see the recessed shoulder. This gap will fill nicely with a bit of silver to be filed down a bit for a seamless, strong joint. I off set the joint from center to leave room for a light mount to be added later with a little tig work.

Fresh out of the torch...

To connect the rack to the frame mounts, I spin down some more press fit ends that will be brazed in place. Here you can see the rough shapes that will soon be drilled to allow for the 5mm bolts to pass through them.

and finally a quick mock up of the top portion of the rack. I will align the rack laterally then braze the pieces so that all is straight and true before attaching the lower struts.

Not as fast as using a pre-made fixture to insure form, but when building one rack at a time for unique applications, the time taken insures long term happiness.

Before I knew it, the day was winding down. I really wanted to get a quick ride in, so I shut off the lights, locked the door, and flew out of the shop headed to the trail.

I've been doing really well with the weight loss, shedding 17 pounds thus far, and was hopeful that it would translate on the trail. The weather was cool but sunny, the trail a bit tacky from the recent rains, giving good traction, and though tired, I was moving consistently. I had a great ride, climbing every hill in a gear larger than I have before. Two thirds of the way around the trail, I began to believe that I'd have a good chance of meeting my goal of finishing a lap in under an hour.

I pushed a bit harder on the climbs and did my best to recover on the descents. Despite my "hard" effort, a young kid on a full squishy buzzed right past me hardly breathing and humming some punk rock tune...hmmm, I've got a way to go yet :)

As I rolled through the finish, I checked the clock in the Volvo, 55 minutes. Hot damn! I hit that goal earlier than I thought possible. Gonna have to re-evaluate a bit and set some more aggressive goals to strive for.

Good day overall, looking forward to getting back in the shop on Wednesday for final paint on Mike's road bike.

cheers,

rody