TIG Welding Workshop

Do I look like Darth Vader? :)

Now that my bike is done I can relax but I have sacrificed my last free weekend in Ashland to take a TIG welding seminar at UBI taught by Mike DeSalvo. You might have heard of DeSalvo custom cycles and Mike is a local here living a couple miles from the school. They offer this class the weekend after the brazing class I took and before the TIG frame class starting next week. Learning to weld is the next logical step in frame building as many custom bikes are welded and you are not limited by lug angles. I am not sure how many people fillet braze vs. TIG weld in the industry but most custom higher end performance bikes are TIG welded.

Anyway, I took a welding class about 5 years ago and learned all 3; MIG, TIG and Stick. TIG was by far the hardest and I just remember burning holes in all my work. It was cool to meet Mike and he gave us a few exercises to do using the Tig welders at our stations. We had lots of hands on for the day and I quickly remembered how hard Tig welding was as I burnt several holes in my bike tubing. We practiced on scraps of bike tubing as this most closely simulates how you would build a bike. Below are some photos of my fancy tubes! LOL!!! :)

My first attempt at TIG welding. It might make some nice art! :)

By the end of the day I sort of got it

Mike said that you need about 100 hours of welding to really catch onto it. That made me feel better since I kept burning my tubes in the hard to reach angles and we only welded for several hours. It is hard on your eyes also so I haven't quite decided if I like this method or not yet.

On Day 2, Sunday, we reviewed the above steps and then moved on to making a triangle with 3 tubes with very difficult angles. It seems that I was getting the hang of it on the flat sections but the acute angles were very tough to get into with the torch and it was easy to burn your tube. Here is how Mike had us set up our practice triangle:

After two of these it seemed only a little easier but it was one step forward, two steps back for most of the day. When you seemed to be getting it then all of a sudden you would burn a hole into your tube. I also burnt myself more in 2 days than I did building my bike in 2 weeks. There is a definite acquired skill in TIG welding! I am now closer to that 100 hours.

Our last exercise was to weld a bottom bracket-seat tube combination and then afterwards we broke it on purpose to see where it would fail if it were a real bike. The key was to get it to fail outside the weld and not on the weld. Lucky for me mine broke perfectly about 1/4 inch outside the weld all the way around. It was sort of satisfying to know that if it were a bike--as ugly as the weld was--that it would still hold together. I was happy to have done the brazing class and felt sorry for those poor guys who are starting the TIG frame welding class tomorrow. Still, I know they will somehow come out with a bike in the end.

Here is one side of my welded bottom bracket

Here I am breaking my bottom bracket!

The final result--a perfect break! :)

Overall, it has been an amazing month I have spent out here in Ashland! I haven't even written about my mechanics class which was pre-blog. It was so much fun and I made lots of friends in the process, many of which are reading this blog! :) Tomorrow I head for home back to the midwest! 2,152 miles of driving ahead. Should be interesting. On the way out here in the middle of Nevada I saw a donkey in the middle of the desert! He was so cute and I hope I see him again! :)

I spent my last evening at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for my last caramel apple and piece of Java Toffee. Well, I am trying to save the toffee for the road--if it lasts.

Stay tuned for future updates on my trip home and of course finishing up my bike! :)

Day 10--The End...or the Beginning?

Our class with our finished frames!!!

Those of you following this blog every day probably noticed that I didn't write the day 10 update yesterday. This is because I was so exhausted after class that I thought I was going to die. I ended up going to bed before 9:00pm and was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

It was an intense last couple days. We got right into it friday morning with our final brazing. Most people finished thursday and were just doing their frame prep -- mostly because they made fixed gear bikes and had no braze ons to add --that and they worked faster than I did. Anyway, we had lots of breaks today which made me nervous because we were told our bikes had to be done by 3:30pm and basically they were going to close the doors on us. It was the end!! I was able to get my braze ons added and made sure I added some for front and rear derailleurs in case I want to add gears to my bike later on. For now I plan to make it a single speed and race it when they have the Wisconsin Single Speed State Championships. I am sure it will be heavier than every other race bike but it will be the coolest bike there! :)

It was so intense that I hardly took any photos but here is one of my fancy little water bottle bosses. Don't you love the funky little star thingy around the holes? It added weight but this bike is all about fancy, not being the lightest. :) That white stuff is just flux and will be cleaned up later.

After lunch we had our little graduation ceremony and got our certificates of completion--even though a couple of us still had a little work to do. Once we filled out our evaluation of the class I got right back at it and filed the excess silver out of my bottom bracket, chased all the metal out of the threads, faced it and then reamed and faced my headtube and the seat tube. I cut the slot in the seat tube also and that happened at about 3:29pm! Needless to say I felt a little rushed and stressed but I made it! My bike is done!!! Hooray! Instead of celebrating and going for a nice bike ride I went almost right to bed. Is it the end? Or just the beginning of MO's bike building future?

Here I am chasing the threads on my bottom bracket

Look!!!!! It's my bike! OMG! I actually made it with my own two hands. It needs a little finishing on the seat post and I have to file the drop outs yet to blend them into the stays and also file around the lugs. Then after a good final sanding it will be ready for paint!!! :)

Day 9--The Final Countdown!

The pressure was on to get everything brazed today. The schedule called for finishing all torch work and beginning frame prep. This includes things which get your bike ready for painting such as chasing threads in your bottom bracket and facing it as well as reaming and facing the head tube so it will be ready for a headset. As a rookie I have a bunch of silver blobs in my bottom bracket threads so have to file those down before facing it. This could take a bit of time. :(

In any event I got lots done including finishing my seat stay caps, brazing on the chain stays themselves, brazing on a bridge between the stays as well as adding my cantilever brake mounts! It was a productive day and all I have left to braze on are my cable guides. Even though I am making a single speed I am going to add them in case I want to put gears on the bike. I hope it turns out cool and rideable in the end.

Here I am brazing the cantilever brake mounts to my rear seat stays!

Lucky for us they let us stay longer again tonight. This time it wasn't just me but everyone trying hard to get their frames done. I feel good that I am not the furthest one behind anymore but still one of the 3 who works the slowest. I feel less pressure not being the last one to finish something and actually think I might get it done tomorrow. Hopefully so because it is the last possible day to do it! It will be amazing to have a bike finished! :) After class Steve, Zach and I took Ron, our teacher, out for beer and pizza. I am exhausted and ready to flop into bed again!

Post class party: L-R: Me, Steve (Idaho), Ron (Instructor and owner of UBI), Zach (NYC)

Day 8--Getting it done

This was the motto for the day. Gary is always saying "get it done." So today I decided there was no time for messing around and that I would not choose the more complicated route like I normally do if there is a choice. The lugs are enough, my finger is infected and hands totally cut and beat up. I figured my bike is only about a cm or so short in size so I will be able to work with it and make it work. It is my first frame and aside from my ego (on bike knowledge) being bruised I will get over it and hopefully build more bikes! :)

In the morning I did my frame alignment check and had it almost perfect but Gary came over and cranked on my stay and misaligned it a bit more. Steve (another instructor) came over to help and was being very helpful though was doing some of the adjustments for me which I didn't like. It's sometimes hard being the only woman in the class because men don't always understand that you actually want to do it yourself and just want them to guide you. Still they are very helpful. At this point I couldn't get my frame realigned so I took a break and went outside to have my daily meltdown. Once I went back in it was all business. I fixed the frame and went for the round chainstays which were simpler than the ovals and would still look ok. We learned how to make bridges, add braze ons and water bottle bosses, etc. to complete our frame. By the end of the day I got my seat stays going and my bike looks pretty cool so far. Below you can see how far I have come on my frame up to this point! :)

After class I went home to change because Ariel had organized an "Alley Cat" race for 6:30pm tonight. This is a type of Urban Bike race where you race all over the city and get a clue at each stop to find out where to ride to next. First you must have your "manifest" signed and do a task. The first one to get to the finish line wins. She did a great job organizing it and even got prizes. Races of this type are held in cities all over the country but are relatively underground because they are not sanctioned, do not provide insurance, etc. Basically it is all at your own risk. This was my first ever Alley Cat and I have only recently heard of them but the appeal of riding a bike and solving clues is sort of like a version of the Amazing Race! Seven students from the bike school started at the Siskiyou Pub where Ariel read us a clue leading us to the Library. Luckily I had driven by a couple days before and knew how to get there. We were off sprinting up Main St. and 4 of us got there are approximately the same time. We had to write down 3 cycling references on our paper before moving on. I got on my bike first and the next clue led me to the local bike shop about a mile away where we had to perform a track stand for several seconds (sitting on your bike in a stopped position without falling off). I had to do this 4 times before I got to move on and the boys all passed me. The next clue led us to the reservoir I had been to on Sunday. The advantage to this was that it was all uphill for a couple miles and I knew I could climb the hill fast. I got there first and the task was to run into the water to waist deep!! It wasn't as cold and I just did it and then blew down the hill as fast as I could back to the hostel which was the next checkpoint. We had to run up the stairs with our bikes like in a cyclocross race and down the other side of the stairs. At this point Ed passed me and I wondered how he had caught me so fast. I later found out he cheated and never went to the 2nd checkpoint! Our next destination was an intersection between 2 streets and my map had fallen apart from going into the water. Ed left and appeared to know where he was going so I followed however I thought this might be a bad idea and stopped to ask some people for directions. They pointed me uphill and I caught Ed. He asked if I wanted to work with him and I said "no, this isn't Survivor" and ditched him going up hill. It was awesome. So I rode around a while and ended up getting sort of lost but climbed a huge ass hill and found the corner of Fork and Vista where I had to calculate my gear ratio with this formula. The final clue led me to the public pool and when I got there I wasted 10 minutes riding around before realizing the finish line was across the street. I was first!!!! It was really fun and exciting and surprising too. This 17 year old kid on a fixed gear with no brakes was only a minute behind me! Good thing I was on it and saw the finish line in time. It took about 30 minutes for everyone to come in with one guy dropping out and one guy getting stopped by the cops and issued $300 worth of tickets for running red lights and speeding!! Crazy. I won $20 to the local bike shop and we all went out for pizza later to celebrate! A great ending to a fun day and a good workout to boot! :) I would love to do another Alley Cat race in a big city sometime just for the challenge.

The Alley Cat crew--L-R: Me (1st), Little Mike (2nd), Killian (helping), Izzy (4th), Ed (5th), Big Mike (3rd) and Ariel--the organizer! :)

Day 7--Epiphany!!!

Today was a great day. It was also not a great day. I was about 2 days behind in class when the day started even though I had spent several hours outside of school filing my lugs down. It was a little stressful when I still could not fit my lugs perfectly on my tubes. I kept working at it and finally got some good advice from Ron on how to get them to fit. In the morning I was able to get the head tube and top tube assembly done which was exciting because it started looking like a bike! :) In between lectures on chain stays, seat stays and mitering we continued to work on our frames. Supposedly they have taught 1500 people how to build frames and have almost a 100% success rate so I don't really want to be the one who doesn't get her bike done. The day went by very quickly and I was tired from staying up so late but tonight they let us stay after for a while for the first time and I was so relieved. By the end of the day I was pretty much ready to braze my whole triangle and my chain stays. Ron was ultra nice and stayed and helped me so patiently for 2 1/2 hours after class. I got the whole thing done! It was hardcore as I had that torch on for 90 minutes straight. Intense.......That was the good part.

Ron is a super nice guy and owner of UBI. Here he is helping me set up my triangle for brazing.

So, I left the shop in a daze around 7:30pm and saw David getting on his bike. I told him to wait and so we rode up the mountain hard partly on gravel and sucked wind for about a 1000 feet. Then we went down Morton Street. This is a crazy street that goes down the mountain at a 20% grade! (Or up if you want to ride it!). We then headed for Dead Indian Memorial Hwy which is the 12 miles up that Ariel and I rode the other day. It was serious stress relief but it was getting dark so we turned around.

In the middle of this cathartic release of tension, talking to people and Ron helping me measure up my frame for brazing I realized that for the past 10 years I thought that the size of a bike frame was the top tube length instead of the seat tube length. I have no idea where I came up with this other than when I got my Pinarello (my first bike as an adult) that this size was determined and fit me very well. So, now I am the biggest MORON on the face of the earth--going to bike school without knowing this very important fact and the combination of all these conversations I had tonight being a total ephipany! Needless to say I made my bike about a size too small so my bubble has been burst a bit. The geometry is different because it is a cross bike so I am hoping that it works out ok in the end once I get it all put together. This was the bad part of the day. In any event below you can see my nicely brazed head tube with my fancy lugs. It will eventually be cleaned up. Even if it doesn't fit it will at least look pretty.

Day 6--My fork is finished!!! :)

LOOK! MY FORK IS DONE!!!

Today was another busy day in the shop. I finally feel like I might have a bike made by the end of the week. It is getting really exciting but you have to work consistently and stay on task. Luckily this morning Gary let us work for 4 hours straight and I was able to finish my fork! It turned out cool and I am really proud of it because I got it brazed pretty nice and all the silver flowed where it needed to go so I am sure it will hold up on my bike. :)

The remainder of the day was spent mitering tubing and filing my lugs which don't fit the tubes very well so you have to file them to a loose fit. Since I chose the big, fancy lugs I have about twice as much work as everyone else. Still, they are pretty and I would not change my mind if I had to choose again. I got up at 6am this morning and filed for over an hour before class and I still wasn't done. Tonight after class Steve and I filed for a while and then I went home and filed some more. Good thing I can take that part home because if I had to do it in class I would never get done. My fingers are raw but I am planning on getting up early again tomorrow morning to finish and hopefully braze my triangle by the end of the day! (Top tube, down tube and seat tube). Then I think I will feel more caught up with the rest of the class.

Steve and I doing lug "homework"

Some of us went to a British pub to watch the Tour de France tonight and it was sort of fun but they didn't have the sound on so it was a bit hard to follow. It isn't the same without hearing Phil Liggett. Our room at the hostel doesn't have cable so we can't watch it here unfortunately.

We saw the fox again tonight running through our neigborhood! It is so weird to see a wild animal in town and I have never seen a fox before. He was so cute! As well the California wild fires blew into town from the south tonight and it was hard to breathe outside for a while. Everything smelled burnt and charred. It seemed strange to be able to smell it this far away!

Stay tuned tomorrow for more bike making updates!!! :)

Relaxing Sunday at the Reservoir :)

Today I decided would be a good day to sleep in and finally got my first night of 8 hours of sleep in over a week. Five of us from the bike school decided to make a big brunch together and we cooked up some potatoes, multi-grain pancakes and scrambled eggs with veggies. We pulled a table out into the parking lot at the hostel and had a nice meal.

Here are Erin, Steve and Ariel cooking up a storm!

Ariel, Erin, Zach, Steve and Mo enjoy their meal

After brunch I went into town to check the weekend art market which was nothing really spectacular and check out a few shops that I hadn't seen yet. I stopped at a great sweet shop called The Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory where I bought a delicious caramel apple to satisfy my sweet tooth! :) I eventually ended up at Starbucks because I was so tired and decided I was craving a coffee but it didn't taste too good especially since it was 98 degrees outside.

Erin, Ariel and I decided we wanted to go for a swim because it was too hot to do anything else and so we rode our bikes up the mountain to the local reservoir. The water comes from Mt. Ashland which still has snow on it and so it is FREEZING cold. Someone said it is about 50 degrees and to me it felt a little like getting into Lake Michigan. It took me about 20 minutes to get fully immersed and it took my breath away when I got in. There was a rope swing hanging from a tree and I decided I had to do it. Erin took a great series of photos which you can see below. Even though I look petrified in half of the photos it wasn't really that scary. :)

Getting ready to jump!

Taking the jump!

Wheeeeeee!!

Flying through the air!

Preparing for landing

Splash!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Refresing!!

It was a great day and fun to just relax and prepare ourselves for the upcoming work week. We really aren't on vacation here as we work hard 8am-5pm each day. It is pretty intense and I am determined to have a completed bike frame by the end of the week! :) On the way home we biked by this old beetle which had been turned into an art car. Pretty sweet!!

Once we got home I decided to do a little "homework" filing my lugs to fit my bike tubing as it will save me a couple hours in class tomorrow and I am determined to get as far ahead as I can so that I don't stress too much. As I was outside filing Steve comes running out of the hostel freaking out to look across the street to the parking lot there. There was a creature which I thought was a coyote but what he determined to be a fox. I ran to get the camera and it ran so we ran around this building to chase it and get a photo. We found it sitting on a doormat right in front of someone's house! It looked just like a cat sitting there except for it's long ears and bushy tail!!Tonight we played some scrabble with our new hostel mates Rivka and Dan who are walking the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada!! We think biking 36 miles is tough and they have been walking about 20 miles per day! Amazing.

Time to get some sleep as I have to wake up early to do a bit more filing on my lugs before class!

Weekend! CRATER LAKE!!!!

Today was one of the most amazing days I have had in a long time. Ariel and I drove up to Crater Lake to bike the rim road around the lake. Neither one of us had been there before and it is a national park which is supposed to be amazing! The drive from Ashland was about 2 hours on twisty, winding roads up into the Cascade Mountains. The elevation gain was big and I could feel my nose burning as we drove up higher and higher.

Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the world at 1932 feet at it's deepest point and used to be a Volcano that erupted 7,700 years ago. The whole top blew off and created this giant hole that eventually filled up with water because the molten lava sealed the bottom off. When you first see it you are awed by the sheer size of it and then think it looks fake or surreal because the water is so blue and it is 1000 feet down to the water. The lake looks so calm and everything above reflects so you can see the sky and mountains so it sort of looks like a reverse double image. Here is one of the first photos I took:

Isn't it amazing??!!!

We started our bike ride at the Rim Village where we first saw the lake and rode clockwise around the rim. Today the road was open to both cars and bikes all the way around. Last week when I called 1/2 of it was still closed because of snow! And just thursday part of it was open to only bikes and not cars. The snow must have melted pretty fast. We started out around 1:45pm and the temp was about 78 degrees F. No need for arm warmers and jackets! We rode up to the first viewpoint and took some more photos right away. We thought to ourselves that this would be a long ride if we kept stopping.

All over there were these cute little creatures called Golden Mantel Ground Squirrels and they looked much more like a chipmunk than a squirrel as we know them. Of course as a rodent lover I thought they were the cutest things ever!

Isn't he cute?

We kept riding with several stops along the way to photograph and play a bit. The climbs we did ranged from 50 to 650 feet for several miles at a time. The views were amazing and even though the temperature was so warm we saw lots of snow! After Ariel determined how fresh and full of minerals the snow was we stopped here to eat some! :)

Ariel and I check out the snow!

Ariel stops to eat the mineral rich snow :)

The toughest climb was probably the 650 foot one near the end. We had already gone 27 miles and it was another 2.6 miles up. It was amazingly beautiful but pretty tough. The altitude gave me a head ache but we really didn't push it much, taking our time to take in everything and keep us from feeling like our heads would blow off.

We stopped at another viewpoint along the way to get a different view of Wizard Island which is actually a cinder cone sticking up from the lake which formed years after the original eruption. Apparently later on there were several smaller eruptions which created several of these cinder cones--Wizard Island being the largest and most visible at 6,933 feet above sea level! It was quite an amazing site and the best view was from the west rim where we started our ride.

Doesn't it look fake??!!!

It took us just under 3 hours of actual riding time to do the 36 mile loop. The last 3 miles was also a 600 foot climb back to where we had parked the car. I think the highest point was around 8,000 feet and where we started was just over 7,000 feet. It was an amazing day and a great workout! If you haven't ever seen Crater Lake I highly recommend it! It is one of the most amazing things you'll see and it is one of the least traveled national parks--not sure why. I'm exhausted and ready to flop in to bed. Good night!

Day 5--One week down!

Today I think the instructors realized we didn't have much done so they let us work all morning without a demo! It was great because I got my dropouts brazed on and they looked pretty cool. When you don't fill the sides completely with brass it looks kind of cool and there is a gap where typically it would look flat. Ron said it was called a "french style" braze so I decided to keep it this way. Here is my cool brazed chainstay! I used Paragon track dropouts that Ron suggested because there were so many choices and I know nothing about dropouts other than they hold your wheel in place! I am making a single speed bike but might put a derailleur on at some point so I picked the appropriate fixture. On the non drive side is a bottle opener. Many guys like to put them on so they can have a beer while riding! I figured this would be a cool thing to have at a cross race since they give out beer on the run ups! :)

The day felt much more productive and right before the afternoon lecture I actually got my fork ready to braze. First I had to rake the fork in this machine that sort of reminds me of those aluminum can crushers. :) Basically it curves the blade of the fork to a certain angle. In the photo below you can see that I had to pull it down with all my strength and hang on it to get it where I wanted. After that I set it up in the jig and got ready to braze it.

All in all it was a good day and I got a reasonable amount done. I brought some files and my lugs home with me to get them shaped over the weekend and hopefully save a lot of time in class on Monday.

Ariel and I went for a 34 mile bike ride on the bike path and it was nice and relaxing though I felt a bit sore from last night and exhausted from lack of sleep. It will be really nice not to have to wake up for class tomorrow though we are going to Crater Lake for the day which is supposed to be spectacular. We plan to ride the rim road all the way around. It is a 34 mile loop and there is still quite a bit of snow from what I hear. It starts at over 6,000 feet elevation and goes to almost 8,000 I think. It should be a great adventure and I hear the lake is a super blue color!

This is my work station. It will be nice to get away from it for a while! Stay tuned for more updates. Again, thanks for reading. This blogging thing is sort of fun. :)

Day 4--Freaking out just a little!

Today was another day hard at it in the studio. We started out with setting up our forks and our drop outs to braze. We learned how to use a milling machine to cut slots in our rear drop outs but first we had to do some paper work to figure out more angles and how exactly our bottom bracket would connect and if we had oval or round blades on the drop outs. If all this confuses you I can explain it when and IF my bike gets done.

Yeah, I got a little stressed out today, not really from the work itself but the fact that there was so much instruction and not enough work time. Those of you who know me know that I work hard but that I take a long time to do things because I want them done well. Curse of an artists personality I guess--or maybe a blessing because you know my jewelry and anything I create has very good craftsmanship. I felt frustrated by the fact that there is no after school time and the instructors don't want us working at lunch. Honestly the pace is pretty lax here compared to what I am used to at home and my working and learning style is to work for a longer period of time and really get engrossed in the work. I feel much more productive and am able to put more effort into my work. So, anyway, we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

The dilemma from yesterday was solved this morning. I decided to go with the fancy, ornate, pretty lugs and just not stress about it. I love the lugs and I will make them work! They are made by Pacenti and many frame builders have used them for doing beautiful things with bikes. Even though mine overlap because of the head tube being short all I will have to do is file them a new shape to fit. I think I can make it work. Here is how they look:

Aren't they pretty??!!

I just found this photo on the Jonny Cycles website. This guy is an amazing frame builder from Madison and I hope to hook up with him and talk frame building when I get back. I am sure there is a lot to learn from other people who build bikes and so cool he lives in my home town! This pic of his headtube is similar to the configuration of my lugs on my short head tube. See how they kind of meld into one in the center instead of 2 distinct lugs? But his is amazing because it is stainless and he has been at it awhile. We haven't learned how to work with stainless yet so unfortunately my lugs will be painted and not sweet like this. :)

In the afternoon we learned how to braze our fork crown and steer tube on which, when finished make a complete fork! Of course that was just the demo and I haven't even started my fork yet. I did pick out the blades and dropouts which are cool but simple. I am planning on making a single speed cross bike which will definitely be interesting since I haven't ridden a single speed since I was a kid on my $5 garage sale bike that had coaster brakes! :)

After class this guy David from Seattle and I drove to a town about 25 minutes away called White City. On thursday nights they have a bike race that is on a drag strip. I was nervous because I thought it might be oily from the cars but it was actually fun. We had to rush because the race was at 6pm and we got out of class at 5pm. As I was leaving my hostel I hit my front bike wheel on the railing outside and flatted my tire! :( So.....I had to fix it in the car while David was driving and when we got to the race everyone was on the starting line but I had to pump up my tire. Well, they were holding the race for us and my tire would not hold air. Turns out the new tube was also punctured! David had a spare tube which he gave me and we were off to the start line. The course was a loop which started on a bike path type thing (only wide for 3 bikes at once) and ended with a straight, wide finish about 200 meters long down the drag strip into the wind. We rode the "B" race and there was only one other girl and about 25 guys or so. The first few laps were super slow and pretty boring but good thing because we didn't get any warm up in before. A couple guys tried to go off the front but nothing too exciting. Finally about 1/2 way through one guy attacked and no one went with him. He looked pretty strong so I chased him and one guy came with me. We stayed off the front a couple hundred meters or so and I got popped. The pack caught me and eventually we caught the other two guys. After a couple more laps they called a prime lap and some guys started to accelerate so I followed but rounding the corner into the parking lot I heard a psssssssssssssssssss. Shit! I had my third flat of the night and was out of the race. :( It was fun while it lasted. David hung in and finished strong.

Here are my three flat tubes! That makes 5 flats in 2 days--granted 2 of them were from me being stupid but still! Apparently there are these thorny things called "goatheads" on the road here and many people actually flatted at the race track tonight. All in all I got a nice 30 minutes of intensity in but it was a bummer I didn't get to finish. Next week we are going to do a time trial at the same place.

Tomorrow is friday and hardly any of my bike is finished! I still can't believe that by next friday I will have a bike frame in hand ready to take home! :)

Day 3--Tough Decisions

Today I wasn't feeling so hot. I have been battling some nasty intestinal thing for the past 24 hours and can not keep food in so I have been afraid to eat. This makes going to class and concentrating a little difficult especially today when we had to work with lots of numbers. Mind you, I was pretty good at math but it just makes your brain a little fuzzy. Not to mention that it has been over 100 degrees here for the past several days. Very HOT!!

Basically we worked on our full scale drawings all day long. What we had to determine were many measurements and numbers. Such things as frame dimensions and angles, fork design and headset dimenisons, what the diameter of tubing was going to be for our seat, top, head and downtubes as well as our wheel and lug dimensions. Each of these things has a sub category that we spent time figuring out using charts and talking about what kind of bike we wanted to make. In the end the result was a full scale drawing of our bike! Easier said than done...

Here we are watching Gary explain how to make our full scale drawings.

In the end I got it all figured out and started my drawing. There were many tough decisions I had to make -- the first being lug choice! Those luscious lugs were mouth watering. Anyone who has seen an old classic steel bike knows what I mean. For me was the dilemma of making a cross bike that was light enough but the prettiest lugs were bigger and more ornate. Well I decided I had to have them and am sacrificing weight for beauty! :) Ok, one dilemma solved. The problem was that because my frame is so small the lugs overlap and take up most of my head tube and could end up looking a bit gaudy! Not to mention the fact that I have to file the overlapped part off and that could just be so time consuming I don't even get my frame done! The frustrating part was that I did not know this would be the case until the very last step in my drawing. So, basically I threw my original idea of traditional road sized tubing (thinner in diameter) out the window so that I could use the lugs I wanted. Now the lugs don't fit anyway and I either file them down or pick new lugs!! If I wanted to change the whole thing now I would have to make another drawing and this one took me a whole day! UGH! So frustrating as I want to make sure the bike looks good in the end and they are pretty strict about keeping us on task as much as possible and we can't stay after to work which is something I would probably do if given the opportunity.

Here I am hard at work on my full scale drawing of my new bike!

In the end I got frustrated and my stomach was still acting funky and I had a bit of a meltdown over it all and had to leave the room to get away from it. In the end I did get it all done but still not sure I know what to do with the lugs. Stay tuned tomorrow to find out!

After all this stress I decided to go for a ride with my new friend Ariel who is a girl in the pro bike maintenance class at the bike school. She is cool and from Portland and has a sweet custom bike made by a friend. We rode about 6 miles up a mountain on a road called the Dead Indian highway or something like that. It was a good ride and pretty challenging and picturesque. It got pretty late so instead of continuing on a much longer loop we came back down after an hour of climbing. I have descending issues so Ariel was way ahead of me bombing the descent and half way down I got a flat! Luckily I was prepared but Ariel was gone and I didn't have my phone. I figured at some point she would notice I was not behind her and come and look for me. In the mean time I pulled off to the side of the road and started to change the flat. I didn't have a pump, just an air cartridge and when I put it on the wheel to blow up my new tube it exploded!! I haven't had much luck with those things and I am going to make sure from now on that I have a pump with me! Finally Ariel came back for me and luckily she had a patch kit and pump so we had to sit there for some time while the glue for the patch dried. We still had 3 miles down the mountain and 5 miles to ride in town. It was dark by the time we got back and we were wiped out! Unfortunately no photos of the scenery here but will get some tomorrow! Send me vibes for good lug karma tomorrow!

Day 2--The Moment of Truth

Well, it was a busy day yesterday which was Day 2 of my frame building class and I had absolutely no time to write. It was an insane evening of homework--measuring bikes, bodies, angles and figuring out formulas for all these respective pieces which would eventually work into my bike frame geometry. Not even time for a bike ride!

I forgot to mention that I am staying at a great hostel that is bigger than my house and have had the place to myself until today when a few people passing through town moved in for a day. It is always interesting to meet other travelers and hear their story. Anyway, it is working out great and the place is nice and comfy and it has free wireless!! :)

I had an interesting incident on Day 1 when I went to Quizno's for lunch because I couldn't get into the hostel to cook the first day until 5pm. I thought I would just get a sub and when I was in line making my order a woman from another business near the parking lot said "Does anybody here drive a green beetle?" I hesitantly stepped forward and found out that my beetle had rolled backwards in the parking lot and hit another car. OMG! I ran outside and was horrified to find out that I had forgotten the emergency brake and had accidentally put it into 3rd gear instead of 1st. That was weird because the car was actually in gear. Hmmm. Luckily there was no damage to the older car I had hit but my bumper had a nice little dent that actually popped out a little when I moved my car. The woman was so nice and said not to worry about it. I was horrified and kept apologizing but the woman with her 17 month old son were luckily not in the car and told me it was no problem! Can you imagine that? Had I been in Madison I could see someone freaking out about a scratch and my car insurance rates getting jacked up. The woman came into the Quizno's and I insisted I at least buy her lunch. She kept saying it wasn't necessary but in the end I won out and told her it was much cheaper than a car repair. :) Ashland is a pretty mellow town lucky for me.

Anyway, class was intense again and I was able to finish mitering where I left off and braze my practice lug together. Hooray! The moment of truth is when you cut it open and check to see if the silver has flowed all the way through. Mine turned out pretty well! :)

Here I am brazing my first lug!

My finished lug!

The moment of truth--sawing open the lug. Yeeekkk!!

Ron did a demo on fillet brazing which is another method of putting bike tubing together when you don't use lugs. Sometimes you are limited by geometries where lugs wouldn't work or you just don't want a lugged bike. Only one guy in our class is making one this way and it was fun to watch the demo.

We then used brass as a filler (vs. silver for the lugs) to practice brazing drop outs. Those are the parts where your fork or rear triangle go into the axles. We used a thick piece of steel to simulate a drop out and had to file our own notches in the tubing. Again, very time consuming but fun.

Here I am practicing a drop out braze. Don't you love my dark glasses?!

Again, in the end we cut it open and mine turned out almost perfect with only one little area where the brass was not filled in. It was a good day and things clicked easily especially with the hands on part.

Then came the geometry lesson. I was all excited about finding out how I could make a bike that fit me perfectly and how to measure, etc and that there was some sort of exact magic formula. That was all thrown out the window when they made it clear that there were just guidelines and you could really tweak things around, etc. The difficult part about this is that my knowledge was limited and I had no idea how different sized angles affected handling, etc. And I have never ridden a steel bike so I had to just figure it out as I went. Then we did all our homework which helped understand a bit more but it was overload on all the numbers. Mind boggling but still lots of fun. Below you can see my practice dropout when I cut it open to reveal all the lovely brass that I melted inside.

Day 1--Steel Frame Building

Today was my first frame building class at UBI and I was really stoked to get building my first ever lugged frame!! Hooray!! :) Having been at UBI a couple weeks ago for the Women's Bike Maintenance class was really helpful in knowing the layout and knowing who would teach our class. Gary and Ron are both amazing frame builders and teachers and I have no doubt that they will make sure that by the end of the two weeks my frame is ready for painting! :)

The class reached it's maximum limit of 8 students, all of them being men except for me. As my new friend Ariel (who is a woman taking the pro-level bike maintenance class) said; "Girl, you know how to bro-down" so I don't mind having all the guys in with me. :) There is quite a diverse group of people in the class from all over the country from Texas to Maine to Idaho, Wisconsin (me) and a couple locals from the Portland area. One guys wife sent him here for a birthday gift after he had a snowboarding accident and was in rehab for a year riding an indoor bicycle. He decided he liked riding bikes so he wanted to make one instead of buying one. He has no experience at all related to bikes so it is cool how he ended up here. Most other guys have some experience in the bike world --working in bikes shops, racing, and touring, etc. I was surprised how many of them have welded and have related metals experience. Luckily my metalsmithing experience is coming in handy because brazing is exactly like soldering--well, almost--and today I handled the torch like a pro! :)

Gary gave us a tour of the shop and of course went over all the safety issues. I was picturing myself in my classroom going over all this same stuff on the first day except to 27 hormonally challenged teenagers at once! :) Ok, back on track--I'm on summer vacation......

Gary giving a shop tour and safety rules

The first activity we did was to just turn the torch on and off and make sure we could get a reducing flame which is a type of flame that we need for brazing lugged bikes. I am familiar with this type of flame as I teach this in the classroom when students learn to solder. When I took my turn Gary said I did it perfectly! Yay! I was surprised at how small the flame had to be to braze something as large as a bike. The acetylene burns very hot so I guess this makes sense otherwise you can burn a hole in your bike tube--not a good thing.

We then got to braze on some water bottle bosses to practice with the torch. My first one was sort of funky because I am not used to having to hold the brazing silver on a coil and then push it on as you heat so I got a big blob of silver where I didn't want it. (When you solder you use chips of solder and just heat it). This is one difference between brazing and soldering and is somewhat like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Takes some practice.

Drilling a hole for the water bottle boss

Brazing my first water bottle boss

My second practice water bottle boss brazed on!


After using the torch on our bottle bosses Gary got us right into setting up our lugs and mitering the tubes that go into the lugs. For this of course we used practice tubing that was a bit thicker than some we might use for our real bikes but this thick tubing can also be made into bikes. The lugs did not fit the tubing perfectly so we had to file and file and file some more. I only got as far as filing the second hole of the lug almost all the way and am close to being able to miter my tubes to fit. It is a pretty lengthy and frustrating process. The instructors insist that we learn to do all work by hand without using some of the power tools which could make the process easier though which could also destroy the tube much easier. I think they want us to feel the process tactically and know how much work goes into completely handbuilding a bike. As it is this way so far I have all the tools I need to make a frame at home except a jig but I am sure we will be using more tools along the way.

Filing and filing and filing my lug!

Thanks for reading! I have always wanted to try to make a blog and now I have one! Stay tuned tomorrow for Day 2 of my framebuilding adventure! :)