La Vuelta Update

Some guy in a white cycling outfit with lots of colored stripes won a bicycle race in Spain today and, ummm, uhhh, I forgot what I was going to say.  Nevermind, lets just go to Spain, la Vuelta is where its at.  Thanks to whoever took this photo.

Oh yeah, there is a really good bike race taking place in Spain right now.

Finish Work on Carlos Garcia's Frame

Got a few pics of Carlos Garcia's frame after I got the brazing cleaned up.  It has taken me forever to get this done because for the last week or so I was waking up with a light dizziness.  It wasn't bad enough to not work but it was just bad enough that I couldn't focus very well, so I just backed off for a few days and I'm feeling better now.  Anyway, everything turned out nicely on Carlos' frame and its ready for some primer before painting, I'm just waiting on the fork to arrive so I can prep it.  Some of these photos I shot yesterday late afternoon and a few more were taken at night.  I had a couple of other shots that I really wanted to show but they were a bit blurry, may try to reshoot 'em and add them later today.  Thanks for stopping by.

Mainline Awards does the engraving on the brake bridge and the bottom bracket shells for me.  Thanks Mark.

Every frame gets a custom engraved bottom bracket shell and you get to decide what goes on it, as long as its not longer than 9 letters and numbers, although we can rotate it and do another line, maybe even write a short story.  This fillet here is actually too smooth and i'll scuff it up a little to make sure the primer has plenty of surface to adhere to.  This is just for vanity reasons here and while this is not a bad fillet I've seen some that you just sit and stare at with admiration.  I'm still trying to achieve that.  

Just threw this old Campy seatpost in for a quick shot.

Its always nice when you're cleaning your bike and then a little "Made in Italy" shines through the dirt.

Last step before shooting the primer.  Throw it on the alignment table and make sure everything is where its supposed to be.  This one is ready.  Primer tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by.

Riding Bicycles is Good For Life

http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/09/training-center/study-tour-de-france-riders-live-longer_301388
Here is a quick write up about the increased lifespan of Tour de France riders.  While this study was only about Tour riders I'm sure it applies to avid cyclists of any level.  I've always believed that bicycles help keep you young at heart and I hope it adds a few more years of life onto us all.  Now go ride.

La Vuelta

Chris Horner rode himself into the red jersey for the second time in this Vuelta.  Now he has a 43 second lead on Nibali and a handful more back to Roche, Valverde, and Rodriguez.  All five GC riders are within about a minute and 4 seconds of one another with a time trial coming up on Wednesday.  Valverde said that the only thing decided right now is who the contenders are and that now the fighting for the overall can begin.  I'm not sure what happended to my man Roman Kreuziger but he basically fell off the planet in yesterday's stage.  He may be cooked from the Tour or he might have crashed or who knows but I think maybe he should just rest for the Worlds.  

I haven't been able to watch La Vuelta because I haven't downloaded what I need to view it and I really haven't had time anyway.  I got a frame finished up and need to clean up the welds today and I also just finished painting a frame.  I'll try to get some photos up shortly.  Thanks for stopping by.

More Eurobike Pics

Helmets, helmets, and more helmets.  "Gee Dimitri, for someone who doesn't wear a helmet you sure are posting lots of pics of helmets.  Do you have some sort of secret helmet fetish?"  I like this one because if you notice it is constructed to look similar to the old 'hairnet' style leather helmets that they use to wear years ago.

Little safety built into this one.  This is way cooler than that little blinky light on your seatpost although Lavender wouldn't be my first color choice, it would probably be my last choice, right after getting shot in the face.  I bet Dick Cheney's friend wished he would've wore a helmet with a blinking light on it after that hunting trip.

I like the graphics on this helmet but you need to take off the rubber brush.  If you have to have the rubber brush I think it would be way cooler if it went from the very front to the very back.

Helmets make a great pallet for creative minds.

Look used to be my favorite brand of bicycle but lately they've been incorporating curved tubes into some of their frames and I'm not a fan of that.  This bike doesn't do much for me because they had frames that looked like this 20 years ago.  Actually I think this bike may be 20 years old, I don't even know why I bothered posting this.  They need to pull that wheel in a little bit.  I've seen airplane racers fly through smaller gaps.

This frame is very frame-builderish.

This is the next frame on my 'to-do' list.  A plain ol' ordinary bicycle with a steel lightning bolt brazed into the front triangle.  Come on Euro frame builders, you're losing us.  Check out the guy on the right with the long black coat, shorts, sneakers, and of all things he's wearing Lance Armstrong style socks.  What a dick, both him and Armstrong.  Whoops, my bad.  After looking a little closer this guy is not wearing a long black coat like i thought, so he is not a dick.  He actually has some nice calves.  But Armstrong is still a dick.

This is nice.  Very similar to the White Brother's Rock Solid Rigid fork.

Sorry about this post.  I couldn't find much cool stuff after Day 1.  We should get back to Spain and la Vuelta.  Theres always action there.  Its fixing to get good.  Its probably getting good right now.  Vamos!

Eurobike 2013 Pics

New Giro helmet. Not sure this was at Interbike, I just took this photo off Velonews a few days ago.  I like the way everyone is revamping the looks of helmets.  Finally.

I've been out of mountain bikes for quite a while now and while they don't seem to interest me much anymore I still like this.  I don't know what happened to me but this is the kind of thing that used to get my engine revving.  I love the downhill capabilities of mountain bikes but I don't care to pedal them anymore.  Motocross was my true passion before road bikes.  I miss being young sometimes, or at least having a young body capable of soaking up brutality.  This mountain bike looks like it would soak up everything for you except soil samples.

Someone has been playing with carbon.  This bike has 3" of suspension front and rear just in the tires.  Not bad.

This looks very sweet, very expensive, and very breakable.

Not quite sure what this is but its fillet-brazed and has carbon therefore it is cool.

Those Europeans think of everything.  This kind of thing still does get my motor revving.

I just want to smash this up and set it on fire.

La Vuelta a Espana 2013

The Tour of Spain just kicked off this past Saturday and I always find myself looking at pictures of Andalucia.  Its a beautiful place with a lots of fun loving people, and muchos ciclistas.  As good as life is right here, right now, I can't help but to reminisce a little so I decided to post a couple of pics.  There has already been some good racing on the first two stages and Vincenzo Nibali is already in the red jersey due to the fact that Team Astana had a stellar team time trial.  The fun is just starting and I hope this year's race is as good as last year's but for now I just posted some photos of the Andalucian countryside.  

La Alhambra with Pico de Veleta in the background.  From the center of downtown Granada you can be at the top of that mountain in roughly 2 1/2 hours, probably closer to three unless you're a pro rider, those guys fly up it like they have wings.  Red Bull, get it? Bulls of Spain, red jersey.  I have an interesting bull story from when I was over there.  I don't recall if I've told that story or not.  Maybe I'll post something a bit later.

When riding in the south of Spain you're gonna see alot of this, olive groves that produce some of the finest olive oil in the world.  I've read on a couple of occasions that lots of pro cyclists from these regions, and Italy as well, carry their own olive oil with them to races.  I guess its that good.  "What, are you telling me that my Colavita from Wal-Mart is no good?"  No I'm not, but I'm guessing that the people from these areas would spit it out like soured milk.  Always remember, it is not what goes into your mouth that hurts you, but rather what comes out.  I think some guy named Jesus said that.  When I would go for group rides in Granada there would be 4 or 5 Jesuses.  Some of them couldn't hold a line for jack.

I believe this is a photo of the outskirts of Granada but i could be wrong.  Alot of the Spanish countryside looks like this.

How cool is this.

Everybody loves the beach.

The ski station at the top of la Veleta.  Actually its not quite the top.  If you look at the very top of the mountain you can see the space observatory, now thats el pico.  There is snow up there sometimes until the end of summer.  Its a long ride up cowboy, I can't even begin to explain the descent.  About 1 kilometer down from this ski station I encountered the bull that I spoke of.  It was my first attempt at climbing this mountain when I arrived in Granada.  I had been climbing for roughly 2 hours.  It was the first time I had climbed a real mountain and if you've ever climbed one you know how slowly the kilometers pass.  Depending on how tired you are (and I was very tired) an uphill kilometer can take more than 5 minutes.  My destination was the ski station and I could see it in the distance just about like you see it here, it was daylight of course, and then I saw him.  Standing right in the middle of the road about 200 meters ahead of me was a large bull, all by himself, no one in sight.  No big deal I thought, "I'm sure by the time I get up there he will have moved."  50 meters passed and he didn't take a step.  "Well, I'm sure once I get closer he'll move on."  Another 50 meters went by and he's just watching me come.  So now I'm starting to think just a little, "Should I turn around here and avoid a possible confrontation with this bull?", cause at this point I was gassed and had no kick in me whatsoever but I really wanted to get to that ski station to consider my climb finished.  If I turned around now it would haunt me until another chance to climb it came.  "No way man. I'm not turning around here no way.",  I says to myself.  So I kept turning the pedals over ever so slowly hoping the bull would start walking away. I was inside of 100 meters now, then 50 meters,  I was wondering what he was making of my bright yellow vest and if that would instigate him to come at me, 40 meters, 30 meters, 20 meters away from him and his skin was starting to fidget and flinch. He was facing me and staring straight into me now. He was right dead in the middle of the road so I decided to go toward the left because on the right was a big time dropoff, you can see it in the photo above.  I was less than 10 meters away from him when I kicked it and if he would've wanted me I had nowhere to go but luckily he dropped his head and swung back toward the right and ran off down the hill.  "Whoooosh."  Big sigh of relief.  "Thank you Jesus, thank you Lord."

This photo looks more surreal than real.

El Toro is everywhere.  He's muy grande!

I almost forgot the trophy girls.

This was a little present I received while I was over there.  They unexpectedly threw me a surprise birthday party over there.  Its the only one I've ever had so it was pretty special.

Viva Granada!

Alright, this is not Spain, this is me in the grand ol' Ozarks of Mountain Home.  Whenever I find myself missing Spain I try to remind myself that this is beautiful countryside also and if you're able to be on your bicycle then anywhere you are is a beautiful place to be. Enjoy!

Carlos Garcia's Road Racer

Got started on a new road frame for Carlos Garcia this week and I wanted to post a few pics for him and anyone else to check out.  This frame is a size 50 with a sloping top tube so light and tight will be the end result.  Carlos told me he gets in some spirited rides with his riding budding that can end in a sprint so this should keep him up front.  As usual I start things off with a Yamaguchiesque hand drawing, afterall, a computer is not gonna build the frame is it?

I know, computers make for those real pretty printed off sheets of paper with all sorts of dimensions and highlights, blah, blah, blah.  This is handmade!

Water-tight miters all the way around the estate.

Blurry picture courtesy of your's truly.

50 with a slight slope.

Beefy chain stays.  I've been using these on most all my recent road frames and I've gotten some good feedback from the riders so I'm gonna stick with 'em.  I just like'em cause they look so cool.

Using Henry James plug dropouts on this frame.  You can see the little access hole I drill in the tips in order to get plenty of silver in there.  Fill it up and top it off.  It really doesn't take that much.  You just file the plug down until the stay slides over it snuggly, warm it up to about 1200 degrees, and melt a little silver butter in it and you're good to go.  I'm actually waiting on my silver butter to arrive so hopefully in a couple of days I'll have it all brazed up.

Thanks for checking things out now go ride.  Tour of Spain is coming.  Oooh, la-la.  My favorite race.  There is no way it could be as good as last year's but you never know.  Anyway, the landscape is beautiful, las chicas son hermosas, and the stages are short and tough, so who would want to miss something like that.  Chris Horner has been coming back from injury and is scheduled to start if you're a Chris Horner fan.  The other day I was reading an interview with him and his recovery training and he said he went out for 130 miles without problem.  I'm hurting after just 30 and I'm holding onto the back of the mail truck for part of it.  Sheesh, I'm lucky to get past the neighbor's mailbox without problems.  Chao.