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!