Talk about a learning experience:
Then there's a little something I made before taking the class that I'm calling The Re-Hessian Special Rack:
Right about now you might be thinking something along the lines of: 'Dude, I need some of what you're smok-WTF- IS THAT A DISC BRAKE ON A HED3 WHEEL?!!'
Why, yes.. yes it is:
Last but not least, the 2.0 version of the 40 and 1/2 cage:
Overkill huh? Well, I wasn't fucking around when I told y'all it would be a pretty funky ass build!
Funkiest of all is certainly the fugly ass photos. Fucking weather. The two times I went out to make some snaps I had a lot of nice sun and then within like 30 min the clouds rolled in. Which would be fine in the middle of the afternoon of the summer but being the time of year it is with the cyan hue to the light, pretty much looks like fucking ass. Didn't help that my fuuuuucking computers' HD took a steaming fucking dump and died on me yesterday. I was able to save all my files but I lost all my preferences and retouching monitor calibration. So yeah, crappy lighting, crappy retouching. Awesome. Had I not brought the bike to the Philly Expo where people were like WTF and taking photos I would've given myself some more time to reshoot and retouch properly. I know, excuses-excuses..
Anyways, yeah, pretty stoked on it otherwise! Except for the fact that I haven't ridden a tarck bike in like a year, hehe. All I've been riding is my bruiser and mini tall roadie. As soon as I got on this thing I was like- wait, why in fucks name am I riding a bike without a freewheel? So yeah, gotta get back on that horse now that I've finished this bad boy..
Right then, frame, fork and stem. When coming up with a design I opted to use the class as a means to learn as much as possible, as opposed to coming out of it with a super beautiful frame. Hence the lugged BB and ST. Then fillet brazed HT. Also wanted to toss some interesting shit in there by curling the rear stays and adding a heart shaped reinforcement plate. Koichi commented that it was the most complicated rear stay anyone had attempted in his class. I nearly broke my arm patting myself on the back knowing how much I had pleased my master ;-) He also noticed that he didn't have a similar example stem as I was making. A one inch ST clamp and an oversized bar clamp. What took me all day to make he did in under 2 hours and way better. Fucking guy is something else! As for the geo, I don't remember the exact numbers since I can't find my original drawing but the angles aren't too aggressive without being too slack either. Something I think would preform nicely in the streets but be comfy on longer rides..
But enough about that shit, how about that re-hessian special rack huh- Fucking H I L A R I O U S right?!! I was biggity blllaaazin' when I came up with that one. So fucking awesome. Def one of those projects you think of and soon realize how you won't be able to go on living knowing that it doesn't exist outside of your mind. Having said that, it was def one of those projects you're super stoked to get started on, but after like 10 minutes, you're super pissed at yourself realizing how impossibly long it'll take to complete. Here's a couple of snaps of it once I was done:
Once I finished that bastard I never wanted to look at it again! While not it's not perfect it came out pretty fucking good. I painted it bright ass pink since I didn't want to get the very first one chromed. How SICK would that look tho? Figured pink was the next best obnoxious option. Also, and I'm super stoked about this, I weighted the rack and it tipped the scales at a mere 2.05lbs! I don't even feel it on the front while riding :-D
So then there's the disc brake on that HED3 wheel. Pretty sure I was blazed when I figured out how to pull that one off too, hehe. It's actually super simple and would make for an interesting future product for someone with WAY more math skills than I could ever hope to have..
First of all, that's actually a super old Specialized Trispoke version rear freewheel cassette thread mount wheel. It occurred to me that if I was to re-space the hub, flip it to the front, then remove the inside steel hub threaded piece of a SS cog and weld a disc brake to it, it would totally work. So while my technique is super fucking bobo janky, and it might be a bad idea to clamp down on it really hard, it def still works! Which BTW is something that I learned from Koichi himself. He would tell me these messed up stories of bikes they would build or last minute repairs they would make during Olympic fucking gold medal events. It was the type of shit that would make any builder face palm at the mere thought of doing, let alone for something like that, yet it totally worked! I think he called them 'mechanical nightmare' bikes. I would def like to make more of these, properly, if I had the right tooling. Think of all those old freewheel threaded TT discs and such one could use on the front with a disc brake. The polo dudes would surely be stoked! You guys at Ben's Cycle hearing this? :-)
The 2.0 version of the 40 and a 1/2 cage is def WAY better than
it's predecessor. Much more stable with the new curved neck and wider rear stance. Not sure how well it will do with 40's tho. I'll have to double check since the Old English bottle's neck is a bit too narrow now (yes it's still sitting in my fridge). Might have to rename it the 1/2 gallon cage instead..
As you can see the bike has a DA10 group on there. I figured since I'd already crossed a few lines, why not mount a DA10 hub to a Velocity B43 and rattlecan the cranks and ring to match? Shit turned out better looking than I thought! Don't worry, it was pretty ugly to begin with..
So there you have it. The first official properly built non freak bike build behind me! Super stoked to get crackin' on some more!! First few are going to be freebies for close trusted friends etc to aid in the honing of my skillz. Hopefully after that I can think about doing more for others. Don't worry, one of the next builds I have in mind is going to be super classy modern. Hopefully that'll make up for my first eyesore of a sketch on two wheels..
Hope you mofoz got a kick out of this shit! There's lots more to come real soon!!
My Yamaguchi School Frame and More COMPLETE!!
