Monday, August 31, 2009

Late Weekend Recipe!

Oh joy! A recipe! It's been way too long! (Carolyn and Jason, you'll like this one, I think)

Sarah's Red Wine Sauce

1.5c red wine
1/2c brown sugar (loosely packed)
1 3" cinnamon stick
15-20 black peppercorns
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp lemon juice

Throw everything in a pot and bring to a boil, then simmer for half an hour or so until you've reduced it to about half it's original volume. You can simmer longer if you want a thicker sauce. Then strain it into a jar, and use to top vanilla ice cream.

Seriously, this stuff is like crack. And it's a great way to use an old half-drunk bottle of wine.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

New graphics are here!


Canary yellow, mustard yellow, and black/white. Show off your solar powered smugness!

And yes, if you want one (keep in mind that only bikes built since July 2008 qualify for the solar decals) just send me a self-addressed, stamped envelope, plus $4 (just send cash in the mail or paypal me, I don't want to deal with checks for $4).

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Brief unplanned vacation

Sarah had to make an appearance in court today in Gunnison (don't ask, I'm not explaining) so we made a day of it (well, we didn't have a choice - it's a 5 hour drive each way) and rode with CB Steve and his narc friend Pete (dude, I hate narcs...)

Highlights of our 3.5 hour ride at Hartman:
-My front brake stopped working at about mile 3. F*&^ing XTR... should never have "upgraded"...
-My chain managed to wrap itself into the gap between the chainrings (dinglespeed) so tightly that I had to remove the wheel to get everything working again. Given that my drivetrain is on year 4 (yes, including the chain) I guess it's not surprising that weird stuff is starting to go wrong. Maybe I should spend $25 on a new ring and chain.
-My lockring fell off my hub, and Pete and I had to brainstorm like McGyver to get it back on tightly (eventual solution, jam a screwdriver in lockring, put the wheel in the frame, spin wheel forward while keeping screwdriver jammed against frame).
-Steve got stung like 50 times on the head by a wasp, and did a flying half-backflip trying to ride up what looked like a 3 foot rock wall.
-Sarah taco'd *another* wheel (that's 2 in a month) on Rattlesnake and we had to whack it rollable again. Luckily that was about 10 minutes from the car.

We also learned how to interpret Steve's riding vocabulary:
-"Little stinger coming up here" = "Forget trying to ride this next bit"
-"Cool move coming up" = "No way in hell you can ride this, but watch me flip over backwards trying."
-"We only ride these trails like once a year" = "If you deviate from my line, you will probably die"

As usual, I took no pictures. Sorry. Was the ride worth the 10 hour drive? Probably not, but it was a pleasant diversion in an otherwise not terribly pleasant day.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

New photo gallery

Folks keep asking me for a new gallery - so here you go. There are only a few pictures on there right now (whatever was on my hard drive) so if you want to be famous, send me your favorite picture (of your bike, or you riding your bike) and I'll post it there.

There's a permanent link to the flikr page over in the links section, too.

Friday, August 21, 2009

See, I'm "Core". No, really...


The cool framebuilder checklist goes something like this:

-Has a beard, or failing that, really cool facial hair.
Fail. I am alternately cleanshaven and somewhat scruffy. I'm told by my "friends" that I look equally lame both ways. The one time I grew muttonchops, people would start laughing in the middle of conversations with me and walk away.

-Has tattoos.
Fail. I have none. If I want stuff on my body, I'll get Jung a bottle of Grey Goose and a magic marker. My pasty white skin is unmarred - I don't even have any piercings.

-Listens to/plays punk rock, or at least contributes to a 'zine about it.
I like Green Day. Does that count? Oh, crap. No. The only 2 radio stations I stream are "Accuclassical" and "Putumayo" on Iceberg. In other words, I like opera and weird world music. Also Dr. Dre. Unfortunately, none of those are cool at all. I used to listen to Enya before race runs when I did DH racing. If that's not lame, I don't know what is.

-Builds only something really cool like fixies or "urban" bikes.
I build pretty much anything and everything. I mostly tell people who come to me that I like their idea for a bike and I'd be happy to build it. I tell people that having fun is often more important than going fast. My logo has been mocked for not being "classic" or "serious" enough. Sigh.

-Studied art or comparative literature or anthropology of oppression, but dropped out of college because the man was keeping him/her down.
I got an international politics masters. Want to know about realism and the Cold War? How about effect of the cotton gin on the economic conditions that led to the civil war? Not geeky enough? I also got most of the way done with an MS in statistics. Statistics are cool. Way cool. If by "cool", you mean that you're the kind of person who works at an investment bank and carries a blackberry on your hip to keep up with stock quotes, anyway.

-Wins show awards and spends days carving custom cutouts for their lugs.
I have never been to a bike building show or any other industry event. I probably will never go to one, because I spend all my free time riding. And weekends count as free time, in my book. All my bikes just look like bikes, not Ed Hardy junk.

There's more, of course, but you're probably tired of my verbosity:
-I hate PBR.
-I hate bike polo.
-I don't like cruiser rides or own a cruiser.
-I like to eat foods other than bananas (ok, that was a low blow...)

But today, I was core. Way core. Check it. The BOB trailer was NOT happy about 100 pounds of argon, but I managed it. Our "car" is in the shop being rendered roadworthy (hopefully), so my coreness was involuntary.

But it still counts.

-

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

The Great Bike Swap

Recently, Chris and I decided to trade bikes for a few days - he wanted to try out singlespeeding, and I wanted to play around on his fancy-shmancy 5" travel 29er (some of you may remember this picture from springtime). And for the first time ever, I managed a bike trade without getting hurt or breaking some part of the bike.

That's probably because we didn't swap bikes mid-ride (or try to race each other). Last time I did that, I ended up on the side of the trail with the bike bouncing merrily along without me, with a taco'd front wheel to boot.

So it went well, for everyone. A few thoughts about long-travel 29ers:

-I can't imagine wanting much more than the 120mm of travel that Chris' bike has. I weigh about 20-30 pounds less than he does, but I didn't want to mess up his finely tuned (by the Push boys, no less) suspension, so I just left it alone. I think I was using 75-80% of the travel, at most, on even the biggest hits. And I was riding like an idiot.

-It's ridiculously nice to have a through-axle fork. I could pretty much just plow through even really rocky turns and not worry about losing my line. Crazy. The Rockshox 20mm axle system is great - no tools needed, and super secure.

-That thing is fast. I rode Picture Rock (very rocky and moderately techie for several miles) with my good friend Mike, who is no slouch - he was 2nd at marathon nationals last year behind Jeremiah Bishop, and got 19th at XC nats this year racing with a heart condition that limits him to 85% effort or so. Back in the day, neither of us could ever drop the other one on the downhills - but I finally managed it on Chris' bike that day. Of course, Mike was riding a hardtail with some pretty mediocre tires, but I'll take whatever I can get.

-A 12mm axle option on the Ventanas would be nice. They're wicked stiff as it is, but I certainly wouldn't be opposed to a beefier rear end (150mm, maybe, Sherwood?).

-This bike makes riding my own FS 29er (a bike I inherited after DHL ran it over and ruined it) feel like crap. Mine fits ok, but it was designed for the midwest (steep angles, high BB) and it's got a standard QR fork and cheapo parts. Chris' bike makes me want to spend the time to build myself something better...

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Sad news

My grandmother, Donna Heinlein, passed away last night (this was expected for a while). It's likely that I'll be out of the shop for as much as a week in the near future to attend services for her either in Indiana or in Albuquerque.

Just an FYI - this will probably cause some minor delays for those on the waitlist.

The photo, btw, is of my little sister and Granny taken in 1987.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

When things go wrong.

So I'm human, and I screw up. Those who have followed the blog for a while are probably aware of this fact, given that there have been probably a dozen posts with the title "My screwup, your gain" or something to that effect.

Generally, when I mess up, I admit it, do my best to make the fellow (or lady) with the frame happy (up to and including building them a new frame) and then, if nothing else works, give them their money back and wish them the best. No hard feelings, sometimes what I do just doesn't work for the customer - it's my job to suss out whether or not I can make someone happy *before* they drop a deposit. I basically believe that 2-5% of the general population is totally insane and will never be happy with *anything*, so detecting those folks is key. My psycho-dar is pretty good at this point (see the "how to seduce a framebuilder" post for more on that). I like to send the nutty folks to XACD (an infamously bad and difficult to deal with Chinese bicycle factory).

So I've followed with interest some competing posts from the customer's and builder's POV on MTBR in the last few days (I'm not involved in their dispute, and won't provide any links in the interest of not further enraging anyone, but you can figure out what I'm talking about if you poke around on the framebuilder's and singlespeed boards a bit). I find the dispute interesting for a couple of reasons - first because I sympathize to some extent with the builder, and secondly because it's an interesting snapshot into human nature - both parties are willing to fight things out to the bitter end, despite the fact that either of them could choose to end the dispute at any time - and they'd BOTH be better off. So it's an interesting example of human irrational psychology in action.

People have a very hard time with throwing good money/time/effort after bad. Then again, people aren't always rational - we value a loss much more (ie, we'll try harder to avoid it) than we'll work for an equivalent gain. What if I told you I had a job opportunity for you - you can spend days arguing with some jerk on the phone, fight over credit card charges, and then spend months fighting a stupid legal battle (you're responsible for hiring the attorney, btw) - and I'll pay you a fat $1000. You'd refuse instantly, right? But if I tried to take $1000 from you, you'd fight and fight to keep it. Crazy!

So long story short, I didn't get into this gig to get into acrimonious (hot words for the SAT, you rock) verbal battles with customers. If I blow it, I'll generally admit it and try to make it right. If I really blow it, I'll hand you your money back and wish you the best. I probably have been taken advantage of on this in my "career", but that's ok by me. I'd rather lose a few bucks and be the nice guy.

Karma, bro. It's all about Karma.

Tomatoes!

Some of you may remember when I made some tomato ladders for our planters. Well, here's the before/after. Craziness. I would not be surprised if we get 100 pounds of tomatoes this year.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Buy my cranks! Also, sell me your old crappy fork! Also, Ritchey Breakaway!

A distributor shipped me the wrong length cranks for a customer and I'm *still* trying to get rid of them:
Dura-Ace compact (34-50) 170mm crankset. Brand new, still in the original packaging. Retails for like $700 or something. Yours for $375 including shipping, or make me a reasonable offer.

Second, I'm looking for an old Noleen/Girvin linkage fork (these were on K2 and some Proflex bikes in the late 90s through 2001 or so). I want the parts for a silly project. Don't need the shock, bushings can be trashed and I don't care at all. If you have such an item, drop me a line and I'll offer you a pittance (in cash) or a modest sum (in the form of a nice discount on a frame or fork).

Finally, I'm now offering Ritchey Breakaway bikes. Lighter (by about 150 grams) and cheaper ($250 is the upcharge) than an S&S bike, though only really useful for road bikes (the way the frame splits probably won't allow a mountain bike to fit in the case, and the downtube coupler is only available in 31.8mm). A great cheaper/lighter alternative for those who don't want to spend the big $ on S&S.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Should I build myself a new frame?

So based on the responses to my previous post, it seems that folks don't mind that I'm kind of a smelly guy who rides a beat-up bike. Which makes me very happy. But I was sort of hoping that I'd get some responses which would give me an excuse to build myself something new.

Here are my complaints about my current frame (pictured here in all it's dirty glory after a race), both important and trivial:


-It uses cheapish cromoly tubing. At the time it was built, nice heat treated/OX platinum (I love you HOXPLAT13!) 29er downtubes didn't exist. So it's arguably heavier/weaker tubing than optimal. There's nothing unsafe about it, certainly, but I would not build a bike for a customer (or myself) with those tubes today. Annoyingness: 7 out of 10.

-It has Paragon sliders, but single-bend chainstays. This means that I, captain duck-foot, have scraped all the paint off of both chainstays with my heels. This was the first bike I ever built with the paragons (and one of the first 10 or so ever done with them, to my knowledge) and I didn't realize that s-bends would be a better way to go. Annoyingness: 6/10.

-It doesn't have a cool seat lug. I've only been doing these for about 18 months, but I ALWAYS do them now - they're super strong, the same weight as a standard externally butted tube, and just plain neat to look at. I'd really rather have one on my bike. Annoyingness: 4/10.

-The sliders are the old-style non-relieved models (all that was available at the time). So they're 40ish grams heavier. Does this matter much? No, not really. But I pretty much exclusively use the "SL" model ones now, since they're just as strong and a bit lighter. Annoyingness: 3/10.

-Tire clearance isn't outstanding. I'm not the type to run 2.5s in the rear, but with the sliders most of the way forward, there's only room for a 2.1, really. I wouldn't mind either A) more tire clearance, or B) a bit shorter stays, just to see how that would feel (if it felt crappy, I could always slide the wheel back a bit). Annoyingness: 4/10.

-You can't run a belt drive. I'm on record as saying that I think the belt setup is pretty dumb, but since I've never actually ridden a belt drive setup for any significant length of time (or on a trail) I really should keep my mouth shut. I could easily use a bolt-on seatstay to make the bike belt-compatible, just to try the system out. If the belt sucks like I think it will, I can always swap back to a chain easily.
Annoyingness: 5/10.

So what say ye? Should I build myself a new frame? Or should I stay "core" and keep riding what I'm on?

Sunday, August 09, 2009

The Great Conundrum

I discussed this question with my pal Hassan Ibrahim (of the desert folk) over the last week or so in Crested Butte, and thought it was worthy of a post.

First off, I'll admit it. I'm as superficial as the next mountain biker (or, heck, road biker). When I see someone roll up in the snazziest new baggie shorts, with a brand new full-suspension carbon wonderbike, I think "goober". Likewise I have a prejudgement available for grizzled 50 year olds riding rigid bikes with cantis (and wearing what appear to be discarded styrofoam coolers as helmets), shaved-leg racer wannabes with their number plate from 2 weeks ago still attached to their bike, etc, etc.

I judge people based on their appearance, in other words, probably just like you do. And a lot of it (at least in the world of bikes) has to do with what they're riding.

So here's the problem - when I'm out on the trail, I inevitably get asked questions like "What do you think of that Waltworks/29er/rigid bike/hardtail/etc?" and "Cool bike, where did you get it?" and "What kind of bike is that".

Now, I of course ride a bike that I built. And *I* think it's pretty nice and generally rides great. But there are some problems with using my bike as a piece of advertising:

-I never wash it. The darn thing looks like it's been dipped in poop (and some of that gunk on the downtube probably *is* feces of one kind or another). Best case scenario: people I meet on the trail think I'm hardcore. Worst case scenario: people think I'm a lazy, dirty, scumbag. Truth: somewhere in between.

-The parts are all junk. Sure, DT240 hubs are really nice. But when they're 5 years old, the stickers are half peeled off, and all the spokes are different colors (and buttings) from me having replaced broken ones, the wheels don't look all that nice. Likewise the LX cranks - I think they're a great deal and work well, but the average person on the trail isn't going to be impressed. I'm also rocking/running/schluffing old Avid BB-7s that are 6 or 7 years old (really!), ESP5.0 brake levers from the late 90s, a Thomson post so scratched you can't see what size it is or the minimum insert level (not to mention the deliberate scratches I've put in it to mark how high it needs to be), a Bontrager saddle so broken that it sounds like I'm sitting on a rusty bedframe, and a Ritchey stem that looks like it's been through the washing machine with some rocks. Which it has, basically. In short, the bike is a few steps away from looking like it was assembled by a homeless person.

-I wear weird old clothes. I should probably wear Waltworks kit 100% of the time, but I feel like a pretentious jerk riding around in race kit constantly, so I often wear old performance brand jerseys from teams that ceased to exist 15 years ago, or shorts I got at Veloswap for $5 with holes in them, or whatever. Until recently I was riding and racing in a pair of first-generation SIDI Dominators that for all practical purposes had no soles.

So I make a bad impression on the trail, I think. At least for other shallow people like myself. The question is, should I try to change that? I recently ordered the wrong XTR brake for a customer (it's a post-mount one, he wanted ISO) and my BB-7 stopped working entirely on the front, so I bit the bullet and installed it on my own bike. And I even ordered a matching rear one. What's next, a new stem, or crank? How far down this road should I go? Should I build myself a new frame (the current one is on season 5 now) with all the sweet new tubing and nice bits that have become available in the last few years?

So the question, really: is being a nice guy on a beat-down bike a problem? Would more people want one of my bikes if I was clean-shaven and had bright shiny XTR everywhere? Or is it enough to be a friendly dude on a bike that gets ridden a lot?

Friday, August 07, 2009

Shakespeare for free?

Let me be entirely honest: community theater usually sucks. A lot.

But tonight we were pleasantly surprised. So much so that I probably donated more money than we would have paid for tickets. To a theater company in *Longmont* (aka, "Methmont") no less.

They did The Merchant of Venice, which I remembered from high school as a tragedy, but which actually seems to be a comedy with some gratuitous and tacked-on seeming anti-semitism. Guess my memory isn't so great. In any case, a great show, and one that surpassed the suspension of disbelief hurdle, albeit barely.

That's not faint praise coming from me, actually. Go see 'em if you live in the area.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Back - for good this time.

30 hours of ride time in 7 days. Highlights:
-Slate River/Paradise Divide/401/back to town with Dr. Eric.
-Laps on Strand with Steve.
-Getting hailed off of Gunsight Pass.
-Reno/Flagg/Bear/Deadman's.
-Dr. Park.
-CO trail near Tiger Road in Breck.

We also rode about a zillion other trails, so much so that we're left with the dregs of the Lat40 map and had to start bugging Steve for info on unmapped stuff. A great time, if you've never been to Crested Butte, you owe it to yourself to go.

In any case, I'm back at work. I have a lot to catch up with, so if you hold off on emailing or calling me for a day or two unless it's critical, that would be great.