Quick break...and a recipe

...from 36ers. Actually, from bikes entirely. Andrea made me these cookies. They're rad, especially the one that looks like the WW logo crossed with Eric Cartman (second from left).

And, as a bonus, recipe! Not for the cookies Andrea made, though. I'll see if I can get that, they're pretty good.

Instead:

Cat's Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies (they're good, really. No, I mean it. Try them.)

Mix ups dry:
2.5c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 to 1 1/2c sugar - I like to minimize it, but this will be a matter of taste
4 tsp ground flaxseed
1 c vegan (most dark chocolate is) chocolate chips
nuts if you want them

Mix ups wet:
2/3c canola oil - plus extra as needed to make a slimy dough/batter - use your judgement a little
1/2c soy milk
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract

Mix wet and dry, make into golf-ball sized balls, and bake at 350 for 10 minutes or so. Boom! Vegan goodness to impress your evil meat-eating bourgeois parents.

Wolfgang's 36er: first look

No time to write up a long-winded explanation of everything here, but this has been another complicated one.

Highlights:
-Internal cable routing. I dislike this in general, because I don't like drilling holes in tubes just to make things pretty, but Wolfgang *really* wanted it, so I used some super-beefy straightgauge and brazed in some brass tubing.
-Cut/weld bends in the seat tube and seatstays. This was pretty much mandatory to keep the tire clearance acceptable as well as providing some room for the knees when pedaling. Labor intensive but hopefully worth it.
-83mm BB shell for tire clearance reasons. This is something I am making mandatory on any future 36ers (hear that, Brad?) because a 73mm shell simply doesn't allow the combination of short (500mm!) stays and decent tire clearance that I like to have. With an 83mm shell, I can use stock (Nova Mad Max) chainstays and dropouts, rather than having to resort to making them from straightgauge (hard to do, mediocre end result). Interestingly enough, I'll be brazing on some rings on the BB to allow it to be chamfered for a Schlumpf drive system.

-The extra head tube extending below the downtube will be cut down - my fixture does not allow me to set the head tube height high enough for most 36ers, so I leave the head tube extra long to make up the extra distance, then cut it down and face it at the end of the process.

Couple more of Brad's bike

I do not know why he insists on running a riser bar, riser stem, and spacers, so please don't ask me...love the over-the-top color!

Back!

I was at my good friend Mike McCalla's wedding for the last several days and got WAY behind on email - my apologies. Back to work this week, hoping to get 2 frames done if possible. Also, I'll probably actually do a blog post at some point here that's worth reading...

36er - mostly built

Thanks to Brad for the photo. Looks HILARIOUS next to his road bike!

More pics later today of progress on Wolfgang's 36er - yes, I am building 2 36ers in a row - crazy!

Couple shots of Jack's fork

I seldom use these dropouts, but they're neat (Paragon makes them). A cool look, though there's no weight/cost/function advantage over a plug type dropout.

In any case, this one's got lugs, a 1" steerer, and canti bosses. Old school! It's amazing how many old bikes with 1" head tubes are still floating around out there and need new forks.

Oh, and this sucker (not pictured) has special-request NM state quarters for the caps on the blades. I'm happy to do that for anyone (any state you want) but you've gotta find the quarters - I'm not going to spend hours grubbing through loose change, much as I love y'all.

Gear review: Chain-L

I don't normally "review" the latest and greatest gear here. The glossies do a great job of trying to sell stuff, so I usually only vent about stuff that totally sucks. Whining is generally my forte, you see.

But every once in a while something works well enough that I'm impressed (and surprised) and this is one of those times. For what it's worth, the Chain-L guys don't know I'm posting this, and they didn't give me anything (not even free product, darn it!) to say nice things about them.

So I've always been a dry-lube kinda guy. Finish Line dry, usually. I've come to expect that I have to re-lube the chain after pretty much every decent length ride, or it'll start sounding (and pedaling) like crap. On the plus side, it's relatively clean, but on the minus side, I never clean my bikes, so my chains end up filthy anyway - and require lots of lubing. And if a ride has a lot of stream crossings... well, the chain sounds pretty darn bad by the end, usually.

Enter the Chain-L (www.chain-l.com/). I saw a small ad in BRAIN and ordered a $4 sample bottle (which I've lubed about 5 chains with over the last month) on a whim. I put it on pretty much all my bikes, and god, it's messy. Lots of wiping the chain back down (after waiting 15 minutes to let the lube soak into the bearings), and I can't say the drivetrain looks great.

But sheesh, I've got at least 250 miles on my dually over the last month (about 120 of that in the last 3 days) in all kinds of dusty/muddy/dirty conditions (with plenty of creek crossings) around Boulder and Winter Park. I've wiped the dirt off the chain a few times, but other than that, I haven't touched it - and it runs smooth and quiet, as if it had just been lubed. Totally rad.

So anyway, give it a try. The sample size (which, if you're careful, is easily good for 5-6 chains) is only $4. If you hate it, all you've lost is enough to buy a decent pint of beer. Oh, and you'll have a pretty messy chain, so if you're a neat freak, keep that in mind.

Anyone want a quart of Finish Line dry lube? Cheap?

Sign a petition for bikes west of Broadway

You can see the flyers that people are putting on car windshields at trailheads here.

If you think bikes deserve a place in this area and we can all just get along, you can sign the petition here.

By Request: Applesauce!

Yes, someone actually asked me for a recipe. This one is dead easy.

Step 1: Pick a whole bunch of apples (or, I guess, you could buy them). For applesauce, you really want pretty tart apples (IMO) or it's so bland it doesn't end up tasting very good. Opinions vary about that, obviously.

Step 2: Take your apples, core them (and cut out any wormy bits) and stack them up in a big pot. Pour in enough boiling water that the top few apples are pretty much dry, but all the others are covered. Put a lid on and boil for about 10 minutes.

Step 3: Ladle out the apples and water and blend up in a blender, mixing in about 1/4c sugar (or more/less depending on your taste) and 1/8c lemon juice per 10 cups of apples/water. Food processor works too, of course.

Step 4: If you want to, can the applesauce so you can keep it around all year. You can find all kinds of articles online about how to do this, so I'm not going to describe the process here. If not, just put the 'sauce in the fridge and it'll keep for a week or two. You can also freeze it if you prefer.

Super, duper easy.

More 36er stuff

Had an interesting experience riding Betasso today - we got to watch as a HUGE forest fire blew up in the mountains west of Boulder (not far from where we were riding - in fact we had to cut the ride short because of the smoke). Best of luck to all the folks who had to evacuate - it's really pretty apocalyptic out there right now. I have to imagine that dozens, if not hundreds of homes have burned. You can read more about it, if you care to, at the Daily Camera.

Anyway, more progress on the bizarro 36er project. Toptubes are in, seat tube/toptube brace is ready to go, now I just need to do some more bracing and other minor stuff, plus a direct mount front derailleur mount, and she'll be good to go to the powdercoater.

Bikes west of Broadway?

DC has an interesting article about the recent controversy surrounding allowing mountain bikes on some trails west of Broadway.

The comments thread is pretty hilarious (or sad, I guess). You can also check out SOS Boulder if you want to really see why Boulder will never be a great place to be a mountain biker. Ah, the NIMBYs, we have so many...

More progress

I only had a half hour to mess with the seat tube, but I got it pretty much ready. And yes, I can stand over a 36er wheel, ladies.

More 36er silliness!

I once again outsmarted myself... attaching the chainstays first, due to the super steep chainstay and DT angles, meant that (doh) I had to slightly miter the downtube to the chainstays. Not your normal procedure, but a minute or two with a small file took care of it. Once again, welding the tube in was...weird, since I'm used to having the seat tube to work around (not to mention working with a full front triangle, rather than just this "spine", which I ended up welding in the fixture, rather than on the table).

Next up, the seat tube (a funky job) and toptube(s). This is one of the more involved and odd builds I've done in a while, but I think it's going to be very neat when it's done.

We decided on a 44mm standard head tube on the off chance that a tapered steerer appropriate for a rigid fork becomes available someday, but initially at least, the bike will run an inset 1 1/8" headset and a standard steerer fork.

No, I'm not drunk or high...

...but I'm starting to wish I was, as the novocaine wears off. 1.5 root canals down, .5 to go (next week) and then some crowns. Ouch, both literally and figuratively.

I have nothing but good things to say about Dr. Poczatek, though. She is awesome, and she kept me quite entertained ("Can you smoke pot at the Eldorado Springs pool?") through the whole ordeal.

Anyway, before the mouth started hurting in earnest, I did a little work on the latest project - Brad's silly bike. I bet you can guess why I had to turn parts of my Anvil frame and chainstay fixtures backwards (if you can't, it's because this is going to use 36" wheels). It's like Don designed them to be able to build really crazy stuff on purpose...

Anyway, this frame will use a 150mm maxle rear end (Paragon makes a compatible sliding dropout). Thanks to the length of the dropouts (part of the reason I'm using them, actually) I can *just barely* get away with using Nova "Mad Max" chainstays - these babies are a massive 1.5" on the long axis - they're the beefiest (mountain bike) thing going, and we wanted as much stiffness as possible.

I attached the chainstays first because this is going to be a VERY unconventional bike. I've got a curved seat tube (Brad bent it himself) and it will sit on top of the downtube, rather than directly on the BB shell (I'll probably do a little bracing of that joint just to beef things up). Additionally, it will use twin toptubes, so believe it or not, the seat tube is going in either second to last or last - I've yet to decide which.

Welding in chainstays with no seat tube there was really odd. I found myself having trouble because the usual obstructions/hand bracing positions available with a seat tube weren't there. But it came together just fine in the end.

More pics tomorrow as I start working on the main triangle. Should be a fun build.