Monday, March 31, 2008

More unrelated pictures - stuff I'm working on today


First one's for Fritz - first pic of his new 4" travel 29er. As you can probably tell from the photo, Fritz is a pretty tall dude. A 6.75" head tube on a 100mm travel 29er? Absurd! It should be a fun bike for railing the trails up in Leadville, and there's room for like 4 of 5 head tube decals!

Second shot is for Nick (team guy) - I'm building him a super-weightweenie Actiontec frame/fork. Since the AT fork takes a 1 1/4" head tube, and the only stock I could find was 1.6mm wall tandem tubing (massive overkill for a dude who's 135 pounds), I machined the head tube down a little bit on the lathe (to about 1.0mm wall in the relieved section). I was surprised how much weight this saved - almost 40 grams. Probably something I'll do with all of my AT frames in the future - though given that I build about 2 a year, that's not saying much.

I probably *could* have taken off more material, but below 1mm thickness, I start to have real reservations about head tube strength (admittedly, it's 1 1/4", not 1 1/8", so it's about 10% more material than a standard head tube). Given that machining the tube down on the lathe like this also weakens it a bit more than you'd expect based on the thickness, and that the material itself is just basic cromoly (I usually use OX platinum tubing, which is considerably stronger, for all my head tubes), I felt this was a good conservative amount of material to remove without having to worry about anything.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

2 unrelated pictures


Nick's bike made it to Wales, apparently. Also pictured is "NotNick", another random Welshman with whom I have been extremely drunk, upon occasion.

For the biology dorks out there, this is a bit of a joke of Sarah's based on a slight mispronounciation of "neotenic". Also, we have trouble telling Welsh people apart. Those taffies all look alike to me, so they're all either Nick or NotNick.

Next up, Dave's tandem 29er fork and stem, along with one of my downhill wheels to make it look cooler. 3.5 pound rigid fork, anyone?

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Full Squish Travel bike

So an unexpected fringe benefit of the Ventana rear end full suspension bikes I build is that they can be packed into airline-legal luggage. This is Nick's 3" travel race bike (it's 24.5 pounds, which is IMO pretty crazy for a full suspension 29er - there will be another post all about it at some point).

Nick forwarded me these before/after pictures. It took about an hour to disassemble and pack, though I think he'll get quicker at it with a little practice - it's actually easier than packing an S&S frame, I think. Pretty sweet - kinda makes me wish I'd built myself one of these, especially given the skyrocketing price of couplers (a WW hardtail with couplers is $1500 - not much cheaper than a $1750 full suspension frame that will fit into the same case).

It's freaking snowing again here. So I have no excuse for not getting a lot of work done.

Monday, March 24, 2008

An unscheduled change of topic: Do you pick your nose?

Bicycles: no longer cool enough for me to write about, unless they're _bice_ colored.
Nose Picking: way more interesting.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder if YOUR dog has similar tastes.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Waltworks Spring Cleaning!!

Feel free to make a reasonable offer on anything, and I'll offer discounts for purchases of multiple items. Photos upon request. 3/25 edit: Some new stuff! Here we go:

-Waltworks/Twinsix jerseys, in unisex size medium or large: $40, or $35 with any other purchase!

-Waltworks T-shirts. Men's size medium, women's sizes large and XL. $12, or $10 with any other purchase.

-Kenda Nevegal 29x2.2 tires. Great aggro tires for 29ers - I use them on my DH bike. I have 3 or 4 of them, brand new. Ordered too many by mistake. $25 each.

-CR18 29er rim. New, 32h, silver. $15.

-Velocity VXC 29er rim. Black, 32h, brand new. Disc only. $30.

-Nashbar brand carbon road fork (for 700c wheel). 1 1/8 x 8.5" steerer, used for a season, some cosmetic clearcoat scratches but otherwise great shape. Approximately 450g weight. $30.

-Shimano 105 FD-5600 front derailleur 34.9 clamp, brand new. $10.

-XTR/XT front disc brake Used but in good shape. XT hydraulic disc brake lever mated to XTR M-965 front disc caliper. $40.

-XTR/Deore rear brake Used XTR M966 integrated brake/shift lever, mated to a Deore hydraulic disc caliper (rear). Works well, no damage. $80.

Email me with question at waltworks (at) gmail.com. Enjoy the weekend, y'all!

Friday, March 21, 2008

Vacation 3: Hueco tanks and Cabinetlandia!

On the first day out of Las Cruces, we visited one famous place, and one not so famous place. Pictured is Sarah posing at the Gymnasium, and yours truly posing on some random scrubby problem at the Baker/Baby baker area (note the sexy Dr. Seuss boxers, ladies). We were both exhausted from a lot of riding the day before and climbed like crap - it took me several tries to do a measly 2-move V3. Pretty pathetic. Hueco, I must note, was DEAD - there were only couple other cars/climbers around. Maybe the season is already over by now? Sarah was not too impressed by the sharpness of the rock, either - we actually had more fun bouldering at Cochise stronghold, later in the trip.

Next up, we made a visit to Cabinetlandia. Not a very easy place to get to (despite the interstate in the background) but we liked the magazine so much we got a subscription. We also restocked the snackbar, so if you're around Deming, stop by and have some sample size breakfast cereal on us!

In other news, I severely sprained my ankle at the climbing gym last night and am on crutches indefinitely. That will mean some VERY slow progress on building stuff for at least the next week. My apologies for my stupidity - the timing couldn't have been worse, either, given that spring seems to finally be here. On the plus side, stay tuned tomorrow for a Spring Cleaning Blowout Sale - there's a lot of random bike crap in my garage right now that needs to be gone.


Thursday, March 20, 2008

Vacation post part 2





We spent several days in Las Cruces, and enjoyed (in no particular order):
-Riding in the excellent trail network in the Dona Anas. Kudos to the RimRattlers for building these trails - they're well routed, well maintained, and wicked fun. As good, IMO, as anything in Fruita, if not quite as extensive (yet).
-Eating at Nellie's. If you're a green chile fan, this is the best place on earth. Luckily, it was only about a 5 minute bike ride from the B&B we stayed at. Key words "Smothered, green", dudes.
-Downing a few tasty pints at the High Desert brewery. I liked the porter best. The "large" nachos cost $9, and would easily feed 4 hungry mountain bikers. Otherwise, the food is only mediocre, but the beer makes up for it.
-Visiting with my brother and checking out some ultra-ghetto swap meets. I got a bunch of Mexican vanilla extract for $3, and a couple of super good relleno burritos for $2 each. The really weird thing was that people would pull up in their big shiny SUVs to set out the random crap they were selling. How the heck do you afford an Expedition (let alone the gas) when your livelihood consists of selling garbage (and I'm not exaggerating, the stuff was generally crap) at a flea market? Maybe they were just there for fun or something.

We stayed at a B&B called "Inn of the Arts" or something along those lines, and I was unimpressed. The location was great, but I expect more than a couple of bisquick pancakes and some cheerios for "breakfast". Maybe I'm expecting too much, but the spread at HoJos looked pretty good by comparison. How hard is it to scramble a couple of eggs? Not that it mattered, though. We had plenty of good/cheap/greasy New Mexican food all around us.

Pictures from Cruces, in no particular order. Tomorrow, Hueco Tanks and Tucson!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Vacation photo post!

No text, just photos! In order, White Mesa mountain biking, Ponderosa bouldering. In other news, we managed to get North Mountain reservations at Hueco for Wednesday! Sarah's never been, so I'm pretty excited to show her some fun stuff. Too bad mushroom boulder is shut down. :(








Tuesday, March 04, 2008

I thought my vacation was going to be cool



But it doesn't compare to Ian's south american adventure. He sent a couple of pictures of his WW touring bike, check it out!

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Blog Neglect/Vacation

I've been sick, and busy, and I haven't done much on the blog of late. My apologies to all three of my loyal readers. I promise something in the next couple of days with pictures and bicycle geekery. Promise.

In the meantime, an announcement: I am going on vacation. Leaving on the 6th (thursday) and returning sometime around the 20th. I won't have my phone with me, so don't bother trying to call. I may or may not get around to answering emails. If you've got a pressing question, ask it in the next few days, eh? Tube and frame/part shipments will cease until I return, so if you order sometime, expect a delay in getting it in the mail.

Viva primavera!

-Walt