I’ve alluded to it in other posts, but I’ve officially begun work on a cyclocross bike for myself. I want to try racing cross this season, and I’ll ride it in the gravel races next year. My big challenge I think is going to be time. First can I come up with the time to get a bike done in July, so it can get some sort of paint on it in August, and then hopefully my butt on it in August / September. This sounds overly aggressive, but we will see.
The details:
- Dedacciai COM tubing (Nova had a sweet deal, go team).
- Nova Lugs
- Everest Crown (28.8)
- Columbus bb shell.
The bike will be 73/73, 57 cm seat tube and a 56 cm top tube.
Just like we did in Doug’s class I’m building the bike around contact points. Because I intend to use it for cross I’m making the frame just a touch smaller to pull the bars closer to me, and they will be set up just a bit higher than my road position.
So far I’ve just been mucking about with the lugs. Tonight I rounded off some points I was not a fan of. Somewhere I read (Rivendell Reader maybe?) that the points on the underside of the down tube lug can cause stress risers. So maybe I did it for more than looks, a touch of paranoia never hurt anyone.
Lugs after rounding off the bottom points.
Lugs etc.
One good thing of note, I feel much quicker with the file than when I left Doug’s class. The work above, while nothing major was done inside of half an hour with little fuss. I was able to see the shape I wanted, sketch it and file it pretty quickly. I’m a little fussy about some of the shapes, but decided to sleep on it.
As far as other activities, I’ve squared off most of the lugs and rolled out all of the tubes. I’ve also designed the bike using bike cad as an experiment. I’m not really taken with it. The usability of the software is kinda so so (disclaimer, I build software for my real job and have some pretty strong opinions about what is usable and what isn’t). To top it off it appears that my save file has been corrupted. While this could have been anything along the chain (browser, my computer, etc) I’m a little bummed that I’ve got to do it again. My plan for this bike is to do a full size drawing, and save my pennies for a Fattic Jig. I’ve got another jig in the works for the rear end, more on that in another post.
My next plans are to get the drawing done, and get mitering. I need to get the tanks for my torch setup in the meantime as well. Hopefully I’ll have time to get them this week and with any luck, we will be brazing next week.
2 Comments
Did you pay for bikecad proper? Or are you using the online one?
I’m light years from being a software designer and will also weigh in that it can be very frustrating to use. I’d want to try the $$ version before I sunk that kind of coin into it: if it’s just a more feature-packed version of the freebie, I’ll probably be happier in the long run without.
I bought a fixture from Doug and have been having tons of fun setting it up to randomly design weird frames. Much better than on the computer. But at the same time I’m sure there are little squidgy measurements that bikecad could just pump out.
I didn’t pay for the whole thing. I figure if they can’t make the free version do what I want…. I spent some more time thinking about bike cad and decided to just chuck it. For me I really want something full sized that I can look at, weather that be Doug’s fixture or a drawing.
Thats way cool that you picked up a fixture from Doug. Did you get the whole shebang?
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