This Space for Rent

Aug 31, 2019

Orc tools

flat mount jig, #3/

A jig to position the mountpoints for a flat mount caliper (intended for a rear chainstay, but maybe it would work on a fork as well? I suspect it won’t, given the way disc caliper mounting standards are, but eventually I’ll come within measuring distance of one and see what it tells me) that I reverse-engineered based on how a flat mount caliper attaches to a disc rotor.

I can attach a flat mount caliper to it, so it’s not too far off. Tomorrow I’ll use it to help me glue a set of mountpoints to the rear triangle of the travel bike and see if the execution is good or a horrible bodge.

Aug 30, 2019

Friday Dust Mite Blogging™

Dust Mite glasses

New glasses day.

Aug 28, 2019

Waiting on a flat-mount disc caliper jig

Travel bike mockup

The front triangle for my travel bike is 99% glued up (I need to glue on some cable guides or stops for the rear brake, which in any case are going to need to stand far enough off from the downtube so they won’t foul the couplers) and the rear triangle is closer to 0% because of the lack of the aforementioned jig.

I’m going to have to build a dummy chainstay+dropout that has flat mount bosses, then build a jig to match up to it so I can glue the bosses onto other frames (like this one.) This shouldn’t take that long, but it’s a bit of fiddly work that involves actually measuring and cutting things accurately, so I’ve been putting it off. Maybe having the front triangle finished (and needing to have this completed and painted so I can tear down the traditional randonneuse and give it the neon pink/green paint scheme it needs. (The travel bike is going to be more boring; grape purple with yellow lettering.)

Aug 26, 2019

bagel shopping

Cycles

This was before I crammed the rando bag full of bagels, which is why it’s not (for a change) looking all bulgy and overloaded.

Aug 24, 2019

Friday (in Hawaii, at the very least) Dust Mite Blogging

Traffic Mite

Dust Mite helps me modify an elderly fixie/singlespeed into one that’s got disc brakes & the option to have a rear derailer.

Aug 20, 2019

Shopping

Getting a bottle of air

Picking up a bottle of oxygen before starting a whole bunch of brazing.

Aug 16, 2019

Friday Dust Mite Blogging™

Shopping

Dust Mite goes shopping


Picking up some tubing & castings for frames 10.5 & 11.5

more frame parts

Mainly for frame 11.5 (a pair of r-o-r chainstays, a 6/9 seattube, crown, and BB casting) but also for my coupled travel frame (another pair of r-o-r chainstays.)

One of these days I need to braze & sew a specialized tubing basket to attach to the rear triangle so I won’t have to lash tubing to the toptube (which works, but my upper legs scrape against the tubes when I’m coming back from the shop.)

Aug 14, 2019

Trolley photo of the day

A southbound train catches up to me at Interstate & Russell

A train catches up to me @ Interstate & Russell

Aug 11, 2019

Dozing floof

Dozing mega-floof

Ozy is large enough to make the sofa cushions sag when he’s napping.

Aug 10, 2019

Australia-bound

a rack for a q/r hunter-gatherer fork

As soon as I get a couple of coats of paint & clearcoat onto it. This is for an Endpoint Hunter-Gatherer with a q/r fork (which for some completely unknown reason has a different geometry than the through-axle fork for the very same machine) and it’s going abroad along with the Hunter-Gatherer frame it’s going on. The light mount is a separate piece just for this reason; I don’t know how tight the clearances are going to be in the box with the frame, so I didn’t want a fixed light mount that could snap off if the box was abused in the process of shipping.

Aug 09, 2019

Friday Dust Mite Blogging™

The strategic Biopace reserve

Guarding my collection of Biopace chainrings

Aug 06, 2019

Zooliner

Zooliner

The Zooliner sits at the top (and now only, unless Metro can be convinced to reopen the line down to Washington Park) station after finishing a short run out to the old turnaround loop just NE of the Zoo.

Aug 04, 2019

Trolley photo of the (yester)day

A southbound trolley approaches Monroe St in Milwaukie

When I was returning from Henry Higgins yesterday I was stopped by a southbound trolley, so I had to take a picture of it as it approached the crossing.

Aug 03, 2019

Floof

Floof

Thor guards the living room rug (by sleeping on it)

Aug 02, 2019

Friday Dust Mite Blogging™

The infestation

Dust Mite has a little snack


Shopping

A small shopping trip

A small (no tower of groceries & toilet paper) shopping trip over to Trader Joe’s. I still had to fill the rando bag (a 5 pound bag of oranges that I could have fit onto the trailer, but didn’t want to tear the bottom out of any of the bags) and the wine bottle carrier (a bottle of vin ordinaire which I bought because it has a picture of Josephine Baker on the label), but for me it was a light load.


Mockup

Front triangle mockup

The front triangle of the disco travel bike, mocked up before I drill the bottle boss mounts & fly-by-wire ports, adjust the lugs to fit, and tweak the miters to fit. As it sits right now (with extra headtube that I’ll cut off before I glue everything together) it’s 1360 grams, so it will be a little over 2kg when I get all the pieces brazed together.

The planned features of this thing are

  1. flat mount disc brake on the rear wheel (the front wheel is just going to be ISO mount because that’s the fork I brazed together.)
  2. SON SL (connectorless) dynamo wiring.
  3. S&S couplers, of course (I melted them out of a Rodriguez that I traded a rack for; the rest of the frame is sitting forlornly in my living room waiting to be chopped apart for the tubes.)
  4. O/S tubing (7/4/7 tt, 7/45/7 DT)
  5. fly-by-wire 2x11 (an 11-34 cassette if I can get them in MTB width, otherwise an 11-36, and either 46/28 or 48/36 biopace double chainrings – 37 or 43t maximum, which will be riiight up at the limit for a GS rear derailleur (I have a 11-42 pieplate, and a 6870 GS dangler can shift it without being drawn completely taut, so I’m guardedly hopeful that I can at least do 37t chain pull without trouble)) in my standard kitbashed mix of 6770 & 6870 parts.

I think that I’ll live dangerously and paint this one (in BRIGHT PURPLE) before I put it together and ride it instead of my traditional riding the thing for a few thousand km before stripping it and painting it.

—30—

Obéir c'est trahir, Désobéir c'est servir
orc@pell.portland.or.us