I don’t normally post personal or non-bike related stuff here but there’s a first for everything! Some of you may know that my mum was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago. Well the shittiest news is that she passed away last month after a very long hard struggle. I’m not going to go into any detail on here but it was an important enough event that has impacted on my day to day life, so I don’t think I could carry on writing here without mentioning it.

Well that’s that bit done.

I’ve had limited time in the workshop but things are slowly getting back to normal in that respect. I totally took my eye off the ball over the last couple of months and as well as dumb mistakes I made in the workshop that cost me little more than time, blood and skin, a couple of things happened that meant other folks were inconvenienced. I owe a big apology to Pete who’s peddling off to China as I write. Al, your frame’s here for repair but I haven’t even opened the box yet! That’s almost at the top of the list along with your repair too Gaz. It’ll get done ASAP.

I have managed to get some things out but almost everything’s been late.

James your frame is almost done and will go to the painters next week. Robyn, yours is together and only needs chainstays and seatstays!

Emma, you need to contact me with a decision on wheel size.

Here’s some random pics:

Seattube slot. Robyn’s or James’ not sure which….

Using the lathe to miter a seattube for the bb.

I’ve built 4 Rohloff wheels this month already. Here’s some hanging up.

This is James’s frame from behind. Nice curvy s-bend stays.

Testing the macro on my camera! This is the seatstay/seattube mitre. I do this one by hand.

Think this is James’ bike again. Probably checking clearances.

here’s his response.

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Currently playing in iTunes: House Carpenter by Natalie Merchant

As well as limited tubesets I’ve also got pretty limited slots available in the build diary so if you’ve been thinking about a 29er let me know.

Currently playing in iTunes: Uniforms by Ken Stringfellow

Pete’s bike is finally done, lots of things conspired to make this build late so thanks for the patience Pete. It’s off to China. To see the kind of riding Pete will be doing check out his fotopic site here.

More fotos here.

Next up is to finalise the designs for a couple of Rohloff off-road tourers for Robyn and James. I’d hoped to get the designs for these done about a month ago but they’ll get sorted now I’m back. Honest!

The next build coming up is a rigid singlespeed 26er for Tim and then a Rohloff all-rounder 700 (or maybe 650B, hint hint) for Emma. It’s all good.

Currently playing in iTunes: Where The Wild Roses Grow by Nick Cave & Leonard Cohen

Anyway here’s some random shots from the pile I did remember to shoot.

Here’s the frame just in need of final cleanup. Fillets need some work with some shop cloth and braze ons need a going over with some 3M pads.

This is a shot of one of the canti bosses. Although Pete’s going to run disks on this frame, he’s got an Old Man Mountain rack which mounts to the brake bosses. The boss is shown here with the removable stud removed.

Seat stay and bridge. Big fillet at the seattube/seatstay junction on this one.

PeePee slot

Seat Cluster

Dropouts

Drive side is a Campag. Non-drive side is a fabricated matching Rohloff compatible dropout. These take far too long to make!

Headtube

Back end

Aligning rear dropouts

This is kinda out of sequence.

Framenumber on disk tab (030801)

This has become THE show for handmade framebuilders and although it’s obviously oriented towards builders on the other side of the pond, there’s a few European folks exhibiting.

I’ll probably post quite a few pics over the next few days of what I like from the show so stay tuned.

Oh, that kinda reads like I’m there. I’m not but I’d like to be.

There’s a number of sites with lots of images from NAHBS so I’ll post full links when I come across them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bikeportland

http://www.clockworkbikes.com

http://www.urbanvelo.org/

http://gallery.mtbr.com

So last week we had some crazy mad weather, wind and rain like I’ve never seen before. Upshot was the workshop got flooded. Water got in through the roof and through one of the ill fitting windows. Also managed to pool up on the outside of one of the brick walls which then seemed to crumble away at the base letting the water come in. Water all over the fecking place.

If that wasn’t bad enough, it managed to get into the electrical conduits and bork my power.

So I’ve spent way too long on the roof making repairs, rewiring the whole shop, installing a new ceiling and taking the opportunity to add some funky new insulation. My workshop has a mix of some wooden sheet and brick internal walls. I’ve decided to erect some proper stud walls to give me a bit more insulation and generally clean the place up a bit.

All this is taking way too long and everything else I had going on has had to come to halt for a little while. I was also hoping to do something with my very uneven, cold dirty concrete floor but I think that might have to wait.

Here’s a pic of why no framebuilding is getting done!

Currently playing in iTunes: I’ll Go To My Grave Loving You by Kelly Hogan