Things to do when it's cold out

Start thinking about building bike frame.

Smudgemo and I have an email dialogue going, tossing around ideas, plans, and web links as we're both planning on embarking on a new (to us) arena of the cycling world. Building bike frames.

This will obviously be a slow process, and it's supposed to be that way. You must take time to get things write. I'm making my way through the Paterek frame building manual, and in the book, it says that you can expect to build up at least 10 frames before you actually start making some nice ones. At 40hrs + per frame, that might seem like a lot of wasted time. But, good things come to those who wait. Wait for the learning, understanding and experience to happen.

I've spent several years of my working life machining. I studied it in 1st year as a Millwright, and feel very at home on a lathe and a vertical milling machine. I can tig weld quite well, but I'm very inexperienced with brazing. I built a little rack for my fixie this summer, but that was 1 night in the garage, and some steel brake lines for tubing. The torch I used was a kit from Canadian tire that I bought to fix a radiator leak once. Not exactly the right stuff for building bike frames. The rack is holding up nicely though.

First order of business for me will be to mess around with a few more racks. I hope to do this while Smudge and I hone in on a frame design we like and then get those built up. We might likely end up both building the same style of frame. A little easier that way and we can bounce different thoughts and ideas off each other.

When it's too cold to be doing much riding outside, you can still be obsessing about bicycles inside. I'm looking forward to the journey, and the learning of a new craft.