This just in...

 
Bigfoot was spotted riding his cyclocross bicycle at Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia yesterday evening at approximately 7:30 last night. No clear footage was available, but we got this grainy photograph to prove that he was there. Enjoying himself immensely.

Daruma Cross emerges from the shadows

 

Ok, Ridiculous to take photos of one's bike at night. But I couldn't resist.

 

Some pictures up

Flickr pictrs of some more bike stuff are up.

Click the link and check out "My Cross Bike"

Frankencross

I cobbled together the cross frame into a bike on Saturday to give it a test run around the 'hood and to see if there were any tweaks that I needed to make before spending hours and hours sanding and painting.

Turns out, as to be expected, there were. Firstly, I'll say that the bike rides pretty well. It fits nicely, and has cured the dreaded toe overlap issue that plagued my other cross bike. Big feet plus wacky cleat=problems with toes getting rubbed off.

The second thing I noticed was the lack of rear brake stiffness. On the SuperCommuter that I built for Dave a year or so ago, I wrapped the heck out of the seatstays around the brake bosses in an effort to keep things really sturdy. It worked really well there, and with the through-the-tube brake cable, made for some really top-notch brake action. With this bike, I had some issues with flex after my much lighter layup schedule on the seatstays. The braking was a bit on the mushy/ineffective side for my liking, so I ended up taking off the brakes and putting another 3 or 4 layers of unidirectional stuff in both spiral and longitudinal patterns around the stays. I am going to finish putting it together tonight, but overall I'm liking how things are looking at this moment.

I'll put up some pictures after I de-weirdify it a little more.

Brakes

Brakes, straight out of the bag. Much finishing to be done yet, but things are getting there. I've done a lot of sanding since this time, but it is still looking a little rough. More sanding is in order.

Philly Bike Expo

So I let Mike from Trophy Bikes talk me in to bringing my bike to the Philly Bike Expo on the 30th and 31st of October.  Overall the show was a great success, lots of good exhibitors from the Philly area and elsewhere, and lots of cool bike stuff to look at.  The best part about bringing my bike there, was that I got a ton of props for it.  The worst part about bringing my bike there is that now all I want to do is be a framebuilder.  Ugh.  If I didn't have such a large amount of money invested in my education (and the loans to show for it) I'd be doing bikes full time. 

I love these sorts of shows because they're full of people who make things, and those who love the excellent products.  I had a good chat with a guy from Houston named Tim Massengill, who makes some really nice looking frames from steel, and to my excitement, some equally cool ones out of carbon fiber.  Check his stuff out here.