Recent content by manbike26

The replacement spoke arrived for the front wheel on Monday. After lacing that in, it was a breeze to get the wheel tensioned up. Most of the bike came together quickly after that. Here it is assembled, but without brakes or bar tape finished. Honestly, it looks better than I anticipated...

I was able to do two small parts of the Bridgestone build while I waited for the replacement spokes to show. First was bringing the rear wheel up to proper tension. This can be done by feel, by sound or by measuring. No surprise, I like measuring. Most wheels are built to around 100-120...

@boyboi I learned some attention to detail and some perfectionism from my time working with techs who were much better than I am. Or at least operated differently. One of my favorite rules was "no tool salad" on the workbench. Since customers could see you, all tools were parallel or...

A little while back, I ordered spokes for the wheels on the Bridgestone. I knew when I picked up this frame that I'd be building wheels and, frankly, that was part of the appeal to me. I used a free online spoke calculator from prowheelbuilder.com and also ordered my spokes from them. I didn't...

I did a little shopping on ebay and at my local bike co-op over the last two weeks. I came away with some irresponsible parts purchases that I'm pretty excited about. First up is some vintage 90s Bontrager Clyde rims. Ordinarily, I'd steer well clear of old rims...but the price was pretty good...

Yesterday wasn't bad. Besides finding a workable solution to the rack mounts, I tested out some of the dynamo-powered lights and those worked well. Here is the tail light all mounted up: The headlight is a PDW brand light, that has an output for a taillight. I just so happened to have the...

Had a "can't win 'em all" kind of day with the Bridgestone. You may remember that I was adding some rack mounts to the fork with JB weld. I have done this before on other bikes, and repeated it again with the underside of the top tube on the Bridgestone frame. But it didn't pan out how I'd...

Oh hell no. I think snakes are really cool and I wish I had more around to eat the various mice and such...but that creature can go back into the loch. Separately, I love the bikes! Is that Greenspeed using a Bosch system?

Cabinets painted! Honestly, I don't care for the blue color on the trim...I thought it would be a gray closer to the floor. Whatever. Remember, this was the starting point: This is today: I had fun building them. It's a big visual improvement and I'm already better organized, so it's an...

Finally made the time to throw some clear coat onto the Bridgestone! There are still plenty of nicks and imperfections, but I'm satisfied anyway. Guess what is going to happen during assembly and riding? I'm going to add additional nicks and imperfections! I'm one of those people who...

Super excited for you! New space, lots of changes. It seems like a lot, but (from the outside) you appear to be doing a good job eating the elephant one bite at a time. In short order, you'll be able to look back and feel a huge sense of relief and accomplishment. We're cheering for you!

Free stuff? Love it. Count me in.

@Just Puttering I can only imagine what a colossal pain that was. Honestly, if the drain was the cause on mine, I think I might have an "accidental" hot tub fire.

Since I was only feeling lucky and not confident, I decided to make future services easier on myself. The way I did that was by stuffing loose, dry foam back in for insulation and tacking it in place with great-stuff spray foam. I didn't re-use any of the wet foam, so there is a decent gap near...

I still haven't laid down any paint on the cabinets, nor made much progress in using them to better organize the garage. I got distracted by two things. First, I had ordered some Bridgestone decals and they showed up in the mail. I think it looks pretty good overall, especially considering my...