Early Progress on Eric; Salvaged tools

First picture (doesn't look like much yet) of Eric's short-ish chainstay 140mm trail 29er. Lots more to come on that:

In the process of tightening down the main pivot, I managed to destroy my "GorillaGrip" allen wrench set. And I didn't have another 10mm anywhere, so I had decide if I was going to take 20 minutes to go to the hardware store, or be a redneck and make this:

Happy father's day!

Presented for your enjoyment (or not): Bean successfully using a spoon for the first time, and the aftermath of 5 minutes of inexpert spoon work (his father's day gift to me: covering himself in cashew sauce).

Happy father's day to all the dads out there!

Yes, that is a sweet vintage "Ice Cream Soup" Pee-Wee Herman t-shirt that belonged to Sarah's brother.

Curry-sixer!

Mitch - done

Man, I wanted to have this done a lot sooner but 4 hours is apparently enough of a time difference to give the whole family terrible jet lag. Wow, we are pathetic!

650b goodness

Anyhow, I've finished Mitch's 650b frame and fork. Vital stats:
-69 degree HTA, 45mm offset fork for 88mm of trail and a 62cm front center.
-73 STA
-42cm chainstays and 12.1"/307mm BB height. Plenty of room for a 2.4 tire.
-Single ring only!
-Paragon rockers!
-S-bends everywhere plus a swoopty toptube for cool factor.
-Built for a 44cm rigid fork or 80mm travel 650b fork down the road, future proofed for a tapered steerer if needed. The fork is built for a 15mm axle (dropouts just barely visible in the grass).
-Full housing and brake hose routed down the downtube (we've come full circle back to mountain bikes of the 80s!)

This is an all-arounder for Boulder CO and also for Mitch's side job doing bicycle safety instruction for public employees. Should be fun going around orange cones or out doing laps at Betasso.

Back!

I'm slowly working through emails. Jet lag sucks. Expect a slow spinup back to regular work schedule but feel free to call me and expect to get me as of tomorrow.

Random thoughts on our trip:
-The North Shore is just as rad as everyone says it is (even though we were there in summer). We lucked out and there were some 2-5 foot (Hawaii measurement) waves so we surfed at least 2 hours a day and also did a bunch of paddling/swimming/just sitting on the beach. Good stuff.
-If you don't know where all the reefs are and it's dusk, wear some booties. My feet got pretty skinned up.
-Weirdly enough, beer is pretty cheap (same price as anywhere normal) on Oahu and everything else is really expensive.
-Sarah is a much, much better surfer than me. She was up on her *first try* (and I'm not talking about some surf school crap - we just grabbed some longboards from the garage and paddled out) and catching everything after a day or two of figuring out where to be. I, on the other hand, generally made a fool of myself despite the fact that I should still have some muscle memory from surfing in Santa Cruz when I was a college student.
-Luckily my thrashed longboard, Under Armor "rashguard" (ie spandex shirt) and pleated Banana Republic khaki shorts (the pockets turn inside out and fill with sand, it's a great look) warned the other beginners to watch out for my idiocy.
-I realized mid-trip that I was surfing at a spot mentioned in a Beachboys song (Sunset) and thought that was pretty neat.
-Our place was apparently (who knew?) right by pretty much all of the best mountain bike trails on the island. I'll have to build some bikes to leave out there.

And we're outta here!

Back on June 11th. I'll be checking email occasionally but probably not in telephone contact.

Random pictures thanks to Martha!

First Look: Mitch's 650b

This picture makes the frame look sort of huge but it's a 22" toptube 650b. Unfortunately I'm  out of time to finish up Mitch's fork before we go out of town (or at least out of time to both finish it and get stuff shipped that is coming in from the powdercoater) so I'll do a more detailed post when we're back on the 11th.