Maiden Voyage on my new Specialized Enduro Elite.

It was muddy, then not, then awesome, then steep, then red, then awesome, and then I was exhausted.

Just wanted to make sure your 10 minutes of tears at the Fedex depot were not totally unwarranted.  CC is currently sporting a Brooks B17 Honey (I usually don’t go for hype, but I gave it a whirl this time around due to overwhelming online reviews and I am totally 100% sold on Brooks, easily the most comfortable seat I’ve ever used and not even close to broken in).  I also did a lot of research/googling about matching bar tape to Brooks honey and settled on a hybrid of online tips and experience from my days as a hockey player.  I wrapped yellow hockey stick tape (4 bucks for 75 feet) super tight over the existing grip, just one layer.  I then used four coats of Bullseye Amber Shellac (10 bucks for a quart, enough to do probably 100 sets of bars) to seal and color it.  Not only does it match color perfectly, but it is supposed to last forever, and it gives it a really nice feel, like cork tape with a gritty non-slip surface.  Small bag on the rack is just a Camelbak shell, getting ready for a 40 miler from KC to Lawrence tomorrow, Rock Chalk Jayhawk!!!!!  Next step, extravagant but I don’t care, fenders by www.woodysfenders.com.  Much cooler than plastic in my opinion.  Anyway, while the CC will not see any action in the local ‘cross scene (2005 Voodoo Limba with full 2×9 Ultegra STI for that), it will log many miles in the near future.  Sorry to write a novel, but I already love this bike.

P.S. Also just finished my first full, ground-up build.  I stripped my wife’s old mid 90’s Giant Iguana mtb down, repainted it, and built up as a single speed.  Found the perfect combination (32/16) to get it to work with vertical dropouts but no chain tension device.  Grips are 5 layers of hockey tape, shellacked, with wine corks as bar ends.  Oh, and of course the I (heart) my bike bell is schwag from a ‘cross race last season.  The unfortunate part about finishing this build and getting it to actually ride is that it has already been pointed out to me that I now have 4 bikes instead of 3.  Luckily we both ride the same size, so they are OUR bikes, and WE now have 5!

Peace.
Drew

Check out this beauty:

Thanks Drew for being a true Bike Goon, and taking care of old CC

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=6666614#post6666614

To make myself feel better I sold one bike that I dearly loved but didnt see myself loving as much as I did ever again.
Cyclocross racing was a blast but as they say in business “the last one in is the first to leave”

Goodbye Surly Cross-Check - You will have a great life in Kansas in the cross scene there. You will be treated well.

So after a tearful trip to the fedex office it took me about 10 minutes to get over it.

Theres a new kid in town!

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2007 Specialized Enduro Elite

Fox Air front and rear

Sram X9

Many muddy miles memories made.

First I took apart all the metal hardware and all the layers of the seat padding and vinyl, just to get a look at what I had to work with.  The metal support frame, bolts and the red plastic piece that holds the shape of the saddle itself were all in good shape and just needed to be cleaned up.

I wanted to use leather for the surface for durabilaty and for the old style look.  You can buy a big sheet of leather at a leather store for not much money, I got a piece about 3 feet by 5 feet several years ago and have used if for a bunch of projects like a guitar case, camera case and nail bags.   Here is the leather I cut for the seat surface.  Of course a utility knife goes right through this stuff, but these scissors worked fine too.

I wrapped the scrap around the plastic seat and put softening liquid on it.   Then I tied strings around the whole thing and left it for a few days to take the right shape.

For padding I bought a silicone seat pad for ten bucks at target.  It’s made to go on the top of your seat which is ridiculous and ugly, so I cut it up and threw away most of it.

Here you can see what is left of the pad after I cut off the fabric that is supposed to wrap around the seat and hold it on.  This pad is still too wide so I had to cut it some more.

This pad is now small enough to just rest on the top of the seat and not hang down over the sides, which would make the seat uncomfortably wide.

I started to stitch the leather to the plastic seat base.  This required a hole punched in the leather and the plastic seat base for each stitch, and it was a huge pain to do.  This much stitching and hole punching shown above took about two hours.  I eventually gave up and decided to use rivets, which are way easier to install and have worked well for some of my leather projects before.

With a Hammer, Rivet punch, 1/8″ hole punch and anvil, these rivets take only about 5 minutes each while you are also watching TV.  These are bronze rivets I think, or maybe brass.  I bought a box of them at same store where I bought the leather, and they were pretty cheap, only a few cents each.  I used 27 rivets instead of the 300 or so stitches which it would have taken to go around the whole seat.  Here’s the rivets half way done, seen from the bottom.  This is also before trimming off the excess leather on the sides.

Since it was a flat piece going onto a curved shape the leather had to be cut in a few places, and I didn’t do a very clean job, but you can hardly tell from 5 feet away.  I left the stitches in the back section because it would have looked ratty to have them sitting there.  Also I had cut the leather a little too short already front to back, so I couldn’t just pull the whole thing back and cut off the holes. The leather piece I used was about 6 years old and was pretty dry, it didn’t stretch as much as I wanted even with the softening oil, which left a slight bump in the middle of the seat.  And there are mistakes all over this thing, but the final result actually looks really good.  It complements the old style look of the rest of the bike.

Totally transformed!

Not perfect, but not too bad either.  The padding is not very soft but is comfortable enough.  I think this project turned out pretty decent considering I had never done a bike seat before and didn’t know what I was in for.  I want to do this again with another seat and make it look a little better, but I am keeping this one on the bike.

Ten minutes after sunrise, Veterns Day little to no traffic.

Showing off my knickers.

I love fall the changing of the leaves, the freash air, and awsome holidays.

Well looks like they haven’t picked up all the port a johns from this weekends marathon. Congrats to Justin on completing the marathon. Candice did the half, she got second in her age division. I’m proud of you Cookie.

I got a chance to wear my knickers to work. There perfect for this kind of weather. I may need to make a new pair.

Well this a picture of my new Lemond Tourmalet. I put it together myself: 853 reynolds steel frame, 105 shifters, Ultegra cranks,Titan forte wheels, Ultegra rear, dura ace front, and carbon fork. All and all it comes in at 19.5lbs.

I am trying to get as many miles in as I can. Don and I have also gone back to the Gym to get Ripped! LOL

Some terrible pics from my old phone last monday.

Fixed Gear 4 Life!

Beautiful trails here in Denver.

New Bike Nerd Ink! Bici Fiets Velo Love     look it up

Snow we got a few weeks ago. More to come.

1972 Raleigh Sports 3 speed cruiser

Live Music

Tires? No no this one has Reeboks!

Tires? Yeah from a minivan!

This one had two steer tubes, one in the normal spot and
one on the seat tube. This was my favorite.

Two man backwards forwards rudder bike.

Don, Sean, and myself went to the tour, drank good beer, rode weird bikes,
rode normal bikes home and had a great time.