Today was the first day of my time at Doug Fattic’s two week frame building class. Today was from what I can tell the most uneventful day as far as building, but interesting in terms of the history we learned and some of the things we learned about fitting. I’m a bit of an odd man out as I’m building a more racing / go fast bike and the other two guys are building a transportation and commuter / touring bikes. We started the morning with a bit of a history lesson about Doug and American frame building in general. Neat stuff, it seems there are a few schools of frame building and most of the big names can be traced back in those schools. Today was all about getting the fit down and transferring that into Doug’s frame jigs. I was first up, and there was little surprise as there wasn’t much change from my current position on my Allez. I brought the bars in and up a bit, but this is something I’ve been wanting to do for awhile. One nice thing is that I’m able to get a shallower seat tube angle (72) and a slightly more aggressive head tube angle (73.5). This should allow for a slightly more comfortable ride while hopefully preserving the nimbleness of my existing road bike. There was a lot to take in about transferring measurements (both from the fit bike and my body) to the jig and I’m not sure I’ve got it all down. Figuring out the distances for the head tube and fork still mystify me a bit, but thankfully its written down and I’m sure I can get Doug to go over it again if need be. Tomorrow we start to miter tubing. This will be interesting as some of us are missing lugs (me) and / or other tubing components that will make this a challange. One thing I’m still hoping for more understanding on is how to select tubes for given riders and tasks. I’ll have to ask Doug more about this tomorrow.
Twitter.
- Coffee. This whole rode to south Dakota thing starts really early. hello 3:44 2 days ago
- Oh snap, double rainbow #fb http://flic.kr/p/8xBqKx 2 days ago
- Hail as I got out of the car. Hail. WTF? 2 days ago
- @crc_hurl Rad! You're going to be open at 4:00 am tomorrow so I can grab one and coffee before the ride to South Dakota tomorrow right? in reply to crc_hurl 2 days ago
- @erinklegstad @DJLindJr @larabar may be the only thing I've ever bought by the case. Ginger Snap & PB&J FTW. in reply to erinklegstad 2 days ago
- Why do new versions of iTunes insist on setting the display how APPL wants it, instead of how I want it. #userpreferencesaresavedforareason 3 days ago
- @insaneshow nice work man in reply to insaneshow 3 days ago
- @fontosaurus 33 doesn't skip to the end? I thought that was universal? in reply to fontosaurus 3 days ago
- The truck and trailer are complete for the ride to SD. 8, or 6 + 1 tandem in the trailer, 3 in the truck. It's like a mini RAGBRAI #fb 3 days ago
- Parts for the next frame ordered. (SS w/ eccentric BB and integrated porter rack). Perhaps internal routing for a generator and brake. 3 days ago
- More updates...
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