Blog Moved

I am now at http://blog.colovirt.com

Get the hell out of the bike lane.

Ok, so here in Charlotte, 4th street has a bike lane. The "No parking" signs are posted all up and down it. You have to climb a decent hill on both sides of tryon when coming up 4th, so the bike lane was well put. Now vehicles need to keep their ass out of it!. I mean damn.. Its not a turn lane... not a parking spot... Even the CATS (bus transit system) currently has 3-4 busses parked in the lane the block before the bus depot. It was bad enough having to ride along the fencing thats there for the light rail building construction... add this on and whats the point. Today, I was weaving in and out of traffic <-> bike lane and back and forth. This is dangerous. So I just started riding only in the road. Less chance of getting ran over that way. The city needs to crack down on this.. start ticketing. I see the Iron Mountain shredding company parked there at least 3 days a week. Its got to stop.

Todays ride

The ride today was amazing on lunch break. Everyone was nice. No honking. People were even slowing up to let me get around vehicles parked in the bike lanes (pisses me off). Weather was perfect. All in all, everything was great. Barley missed getting smacked by a high end Mercedes door. I heard the door click when the guy pulled the handle to open it, so I was able to dart out of the way.. woo hooo... For those who dont know, I am riding a track frame now with bullhorns. 48 tooth chainring and 19 cog. Yeah... yeah.. its a lil high, but damn, gotta climb the hills around the house.

Birthing

My wifes water broke at 2 am. It is now 4pm and we are still waiting for the kid. Hopefully he will get here soon. She is now 2cm dilated. Progress is coming, but very slow. Shes got the epidural

No progress

Blah!.. no progress on the bike. Been working too much and family is in town. Also, cant find my hack-saw anywhere! looks like i will have to buy a new one of them. fun!

Crank

Another issue... I wanted to use the origional crank to save money (still broke)... It will work, but this was origionally a 3 ringed crank. The first ring is fixed and not removable from the pedal arms. Looks like I will be using that one for now, instead of looking stupid with 2 chainrings. The setup will either be a 40 teeth crank and 15 or 19 teeth cog..

40 teeth chainring + 19 teeth cog = 56.8 Gear inches and 2.1 ratio
40 teeth chainring + 15 teeth cog = 72 Gear inches and 2.7 ratio

fixie progress

ok.... so i went out and started sanding and filing down the brazed-on areas of the bike. Everythign was going fine till i got down to the kickstand area. Where I ground it down the other night, it was still a little rough. I got a hand file out and accidentally knicked out an area all the way through that side of the tube. This set my plans back for last night. I got out my acetylene welder and patched the hole. It was pretty fun, since I am not used to welding suck thin metal. After that was done, I re-sanded the frame and primered it. I got the bike completely back together around 1am. One more obsticale to overcome. Since i no longer have a derailuer on the bike, the back tire quick release will not work. Options:

1. Get a hack saw and cut off a portion to make it fit.
2. Get spacers to resolve the problem.
3. Use bolts instead of the skewers.

So far I am liking the hack saw idea. I will figure it out later tonight. Oh yeah! My 15 tooth cog and lockring came in today. The lock ring will not work with my wheel though. The cog takes up all of the threaded area on the wheel. Will have to figure out the teeth count I want and braze it.