Alex Wetmore is always busy with something…

A minor pre-note… Iignored the comments for a while, but I just moderated them and went and answered any questions in them. If you were waiting for an answer you should find one there now.

I’ve been mulling over stuff to write about, but none of it seems like it is worth of a whole blog entry. This is going to seem like a random mis-mash of stuff. I’ll split it into electronics and bike.

Racks

My friends Lee and Andrewspent some time here the last month or so working on some racks. I think they are both very cool. Click the photos to see the whole slideshow (both link to the same thing).

Lee’s rack is built around a Seattle street sign (Seattle sells old ones for $5) and is sized to fit a case of beer or a pile of firewood.

Andrew’s rack is pretty similar to a lot of the ones that I’ve built. I think it came out very nicely.

I like teaching people how tobuild these things. Maybe at a later point in life I’ll be able to teach classes on it or something. For now it remains a hobby.

Jigs

I’ve been working on the jig for my framebuilding. It’s coming along. I think it’s kind of boring for most readers of my blog, so I haven’t been posting about it here (but I have been posting away on the framebuilders list). Some friends disagree and think I should be posting here anyway. I update this gallery often with new drawings and photos, so just bookmark it if you are interested.

Phones

Around the holidays at work we got in a batch of new Windows Mobile phone. I got to play with the HTC Diamond Touch, HTC Touch Pro, HTC Diamond HD, and Palm Pro (I used all of them for at least4 days). All run Windows Mobile 6.1. Here are my brief thoughts:

• HTC Touch Diamond — This is a primarily touch phone with a couple of hard buttons on the side and bottom. The form factor is really nice, it is exactly the same size as a Motorola RAZR when the RAZR is folded. Sound quality is good. I’m not so good at typing on touch keyboards, but this one wasn’t too bad. TouchFlo 3D is kind of gimmicky and yet kind of nice. If you like Windows Mobile and browse more than writing email then it’s a good option. The HTC Touch Pro is the same phone with a fold out keyboard and twice as thick. That makes it uncomfortably big in my opinion.
• HTC Touch HD — It’s the same size as an iPhone with a much sharper display (800×480 pixels vs 480×320 pixels). It has almost no hard buttons. The lack of hard buttons is it’s big downside, Windows Mobile just isn’t designed for that. As an example you can’t switch between emails in Pocket Outlook without closing the message, moving to another,and opening that one. In contrast any other Windows Mobile phone lets you move between messages with the left and right buttons. The on-screen keyboard is larger and better than the Touch Diamond.
• Palm Treo Pro– This is the phone that I originally ordered and the one that I liked the best. It is like the T-Mobile Dash with a touch screen. The phone is pretty small,battery life is great (3 days with constant email syncing), and the touch screen provides a better browsing experience than the T-Mobile Dash. It’s the least sexy of these 4 phones, but also the most usable hardware of any Windows Mobile phone that I’ve used.

At the same time that I was playing with all of these phones I bought a used iPod Touch from a friend. The iPod Touch is an iPhone minus the phone (if that makes sense). It still has wifi and all of the features such as the app store, email access, web browsing, facebook, etc. I still can’t type on it as well as I can on a real keyboard (like the one on the Palm Treo Pro), but it’s not as bad as I expected. The App Store is cool and makes finding apps easy. Framebuilders/gadget freaks note — there are some digital level software packages for the iPod Touch which are accurate to .1 degrees and the best one costs around $3. That almost paid for the phone since I had been considering buying a $100 one from Enco.

If T-Mobile had the iPhone it would be a no brainer and I think I’d just switch to it. As long as they are locked to AT&T (which would make our monthly bill much much higher) I’m going to have to be happy with my Palm Pro.

Laptops

That’s 5 years of personal and work laptops in a pile. The one on top is the newest, and it’s awesome. It is a Dell E4200, weighs just over 2lbs, is plenty fast, has a sharp screen, and a great keyboard. The one just below it is the previous model, the Dell D430 (that’s been my personal laptop for the last 2 years, and what most of these blog entries have been written on). It is also a nice machine, but a 50% heavier and with less battery life.

It’s so much nicer to commute with a little computer like this than the huge beast at the bottom.

The first one was made by Mark Vande Kamp and I for his Curt Goodrich bike. It is a low-rider which bolts on quickly for overnight/couple of day type trips. Mark has a touring bike too, but prefers riding the Goodrich. We made special fender mount bolts to allow the quick install to happen even though the bike only has one set of dropout eyelets. I posted about those in a previous blog entry.

The second rack is a minimalist handlebar rack that I built for my IvyCycles. I was going for simple lines and limited joints. The design is copied from an idea that Rory Cameron had about a year back, and it is designed to work well with handlebar bags that have Ortlieb pannier hooks mounted on the bottom (that is why the front cross-bar is a little lower than the platform). I’m using it with my Ravenna bag now and will also use it with an Acorn handlebar bag in the future. My headlight barely fits with this one, so I need to make a new headlight for this bike too. This would be a good design to copy for someone making their first handlebar bag rack and was made with exactly 4′ of tubing.

I liked John’s entry on this subject, so I’m copying it. It’s a good reminder of what I’ve done and enjoyed.

Rides

The truth is that I probably rode less miles in 2008 than in a long time. I didn’t do any multi-day touring and the current version of my commute is about 7 miles shorter than the one that I was doing in 2007 (but faster and more reliable).

The real riding highlight for me this year was spending the week in Mazama, up in the North Cascades. I biked or hiked or both pretty much every day. Some of the rides were with friends, some were solo. I really enjoyed the scenery, the terrain, and having friends come and visit us. I hope we can repeat it in 2009.

My bike camping was in three overnighters. All were great, and very different from each other. The highlight was a quick jaunt with John Speare from his house to Badger Lake. The route was great and it was great to spend some time with him in person. He is lucky to live so close to such great overnight destinations. I think we’re pretty lucky in Seattle too, but the smaller size of Spokane opens up even more options.

The other two were both with point83. One was Ben Country 3.0, which was a nice overnighter up to Fort Flaggler near Port Townsend. That ride always comes early in the year and is a good reminder of how to bike camp. The ride up was great, somehow I managed to ride solo for most of it even though we had a group of 30-40 people. I really liked the quiet time. The ride home was with Remi (now on a cross country trip in the middle of winter) and really nice too…despite the rain and having drank too much the night before.

On July 3rd we had another camping trip to Green Mountain. What a great location and so close into Seattle (about 25 miles plus a ferry ride from my house). I hope to repeat that trip again this year.

Mark Vande Kamp and I also have a weekly (more like bi-weekly) evening ride which I really enjoy. When the weather is bad we skip it and work on projects in the basement instead. The rides are more social than anything, but they are a nice balance of miles and socializing.

Bikes

I’ve been on a kick to simplify for the last few years. I can’t say that I’m being terribly effective at it, but this year was one of selling more than buying.

New Bikes

I did pretty well here. I only acquired two bikes,and I built half of the frame for one of them. This one (or one like it,I already have ideas for the second version) is a keeper. I don’t use it every day, but I do like having something that can haul larger loads but which rides pretty much like a hybrid.

The other bike was a mountain bike. Every few years I sell my mountain bike, then have some ride where I could use one and regret it. That happened this year, so I bought one. I don’t even have any photos of it. The IvyCycles is built so that I can use it as a mountain bike, but the fit is really better for the road. I have ideas of how to fix that on the next bike that I build.

Sold Bikes

I sold this Bike Friday Tikit. I owned two of them, but I only need to own one folding bike. This one was converted to a SRAM S7 internal hub and was a great bike. The medium fits me better with drop bars, so I kept it. The Tikit got a lot of use in the first half the year, but less in the second.

The Kogswell was my first low-trail bike and I really enjoyed being a part of the prototyping process for it. I just didn’t use it much anymore since building up my RB-T urban bike and the IvyCycles. It went to a new home and then was promptly stolen. There are only two of these bikes in Seattle (5 in the world, the 6th was painted black) and the other one is almost never used. If you see a periwinkle colored Kogswell let me know where and I’ll tell the rightful owner.

My Trek 630 is on permanent loan to John Speare. This is kind of cheating because it just means that it lives in my office at work. It isn’t in the basement, and that is a step in the right direction.

What does that leave me with?

• IvyCycles light touring bike
• RB-T Urban Bike
• Cycle Truck
• Tandem
• Tikit
• Mountain Bike

I’m building a new bike this winter that logically replaces the RB-T. The RB-T probably isn’t going anywhere though. Not sure what I’ll kick out.

Fabrication

2008 was the year of fabrication for me. I rebuilt my workshop and tripled it’s size, making myself a respectable frameshop. I learned basic machining skills and bought a lathe and a mill. I built the Cycle Truck listed above, built many racks and little bits for myself, taught some friends how to braze, and made a lot of metal shavings. I spent a lot of money on tooling, and hope that I can keep the spending down in 2009.

I think it’s obvious from the blog that I enjoy this hobby. Right now I feel like I’m halfway done with too many projects (building a frame jig, new dropouts on the Tikit, rack for the tandem). I’m trying to finish those up soon and focus better in 2009. My major planned project is my first full frame. It’ll look a lot like the IvyCycles or RB-T.

The biggest downside with this hobby is that it cuts into my riding time. I have a finite amount of free time, and right now fab is taking more of it. I’m okay with that, but hope that in the summer of 2009 there can be a bit more balance.

Non-Bike Bike Things

These aren’t really related to bikes, but they are in my mind. 2008 is the year that I first cross country skied and the first year that we owned a kayak. I really enjoy both. They remind me of bicycle touring. Christine is into both too, which is a big win compared to bikes. I don’t like that both usually start with a car ride, but I can live with it.

In 2009 I’m hoping that we’ll do our first kayaking overnight trip.

3″ of snow followed by 2 days of below freezing followed by 5″ of snow is enough to shutdown Seattle. We’re enjoying it.

Updated!

That photo of me flying through the air was the last time that our sled ever worked. We got home and Christine was bummed, so we made a new sled out of some old wooden XC skis, some plywood, and a bit of the old sled. It is a rocket!

I like biking in this stuff. I’m glad I don’t have the commute in it, but it’s fun having a couple of snowbike days. My studded tires should arrive tomorrow (if UPS is running), just in time for the ice. I also got to try out Lee’s Pugsley in the snow. The volume helps a lot, although he reports that it doesn’t do so well in ice.

I haven’t posted in a while, but that doesn’t mean I’m not still busy with something. Right now I’m probably too busy with many things.

Mark and I have been working on a low-rider rack for his bike for the past many months. One of the last remaining pieces was to make these special fasteners:

If you click the link you’ll see a slideshow of how I made this.

I’ve also been working on a generator headlight. It is using a couple of CREE XR-E LEDs and will have a built in standlight which uses a supercap. I figured out the standlight circuit with a lot of help from Steve Kurt and others on this CPF thread. I’ve built most of the circuits on that thread on a prototype board and came up with one that I like.

I made the housing on the lathe. It is a bit large (the outer diameter is around 55mm) and a little heavy, but it looks nice. Click on the link to see more (and I’ll keep adding to this gallery as I do more work, but I probably won’t mention this project again on the blog until it is finished).

Larry was visiting a couple of months back and asked if all of my lathe bits should really be loose in a drawer and knocking into each other. It’s a good question, and the right answer is no. I spent a little while trying to find good tool foam online, then happned to find a nice package of it at Sears. An hour’s work later and my lathe tool holders were organized. I also found a 12×12” section of foam at Rockler Woodworking which has a hundred or so holes that lathe bits fit into very nicely.

We hired a landscape designer and company to overhaul our yard. The work started this week and so far the progress is awesome. I can’t wait to see it all put back together. For now I just have a teaser of the plans.

This is my bicycle parts cabinet. 10 years ago my spare parts fix in my toolbox, now they fill this (and it only has small stuff). It is my friend and my nemesis. It’s too big and that lets me hoard too much stuff.

This weekend I made a first pass at getting rid of stuff. I emptied out 1.5 drawers (making room for framebuilding tools), not bad at all. With a couple of more passes maybe it’ll be empty.

This is what a typical drawer looks like (post cleanup):

The derailleur section (lower left) was probably the most cleaned out. I think I took about 7 cheap front derailleurs and 5 rear derailleurs to the Bike Shack today. It still has too much stuff.

I got rid all of cup and cone bottom brackets and still have more than a dozen cartridge ones. Too much!

Look for a for-sale listing of the nicer items on the BOB list and this blog soon.

I did some finish work on the Cycle Truck and sent it off to be powder coated a couple of weeks ago. It was coated by Seattle Powder Coat in Ballard. They did a nice job at a reasonable price and with a very quick turnaround. The paint is red to pay homage to the donor frame and fork that were used to build the new one (both were also red). The rack is a silver/grey. I modifed this pizza delivery bag (thanks to James Black for telling me where to get one cheaply) to fit onto the rack. The bag is 20×20x12 inches and fits perfectly.

In this photo I’m carrying a roughly 50lb load of bird seed, cat food, and random bits from the hardware store. I think this bike works well for bulky loads (better than a porteur) and okay for heavy loads (the closer they are place to the headtube the better). I don’t think it does great for loads which are both large and heavy. It isn’t good if there is a lot of weight too far forward of the front wheel. If I build another one of these I may put the front wheel about a foot forward. It would complicate the frame and it would no longer fit on standard car/bus racks, but it wouldn’t increase the bike’s overall length and I think it would improve the handling with some loads.

Finishing Details

The rack support rails have been closed off and snaps were added for holding the pizza bag:

The a downtube shift boss was added which connects to the original U-brake. That makes a very nice parking brake. V-brakes mounted on the seatstays provide the main rear braking.

The back of the cargo tube was sealed with a little bit of steel plate. This area ended up being fairly complex. Next time I might try ovalizing the cargo tube where it joins the seattube to avoid this extra work.

Here are a couple of other shots of the final bike:

Fork Fixture V-block

This weekend I also did my first major project with the new milling machine. I made a V-block for clamping a fork steerer tube. This will be the basis of my fork building jig and my fork alignment system. If you are interested in how I made it then click on the picture to see a gallery with more info. The new mill is working out very nicely.

The weather has been stunning this week. It has been sunny, 50s to 60s, and dry. We don’t get much weather like this in the fall, and we wanted to take advantage of it. Christine and I took the kayak down to Lake Washington to see what we could find in terms of wildlife and fall colors.

We weren’t disappointed in either case. The area that we’ve been exploring is the arboretum and the marshy areas around the SR520 highway. It is odd to have so much rich wildlife just feet from a major and loud high speed road.

I really enjoyed our time on the water. It was a very relaxing way to spend a Sunday morning.

I recently had the chance to buy this slightly used milling machine. It is a model that I didn’t know about previously but which has a lot of attractive features. It is a knee mill (which means that the table raises and lowers) and at 800lbs is a lot sturdier than the tiny mill/drill that I was using. It should be rigid enough for me to miter bicycle tubing and I won’t be running into the limitations of this mill as quickly as I did with my mini-mill.

The seller was nice enough to help me take the machine apart and move it to my house. When we left his house it was on his truck and looked like this:

That is just the body of the mill standing on his truck. The rest is laid on the floor. We broke it down into pieces to make the weight more manageable. It was still a heavy beast to move. The manual crane on his truck was also a huge help. We still had to lift it down the stairs ourselves, but the crane helped a lot when we needed to get it on and off of the truck.

After a few hours work we had it at my house and major pieces were laid out on the floor. The next weekend I rented an engine hoist and Alistair came over and helped me put it back together. Here is the body, head, and knee (600lbs total?) getting placed back onto the stand. I don’t think we could have done this without the engine hoist.

I mounted the mill onto wheels so that I could more easily position it in my workshop. It ended up on the wall next to my lathe. I like the idea of having all of the metal machining in one corner of the shop. The sizes of the two machines complement each other nicely too.

This weekend was the Oregon Manifest. I didn’t go to all of the activities, but I was able to go to the bicycle show for a few hours on Saturday. It primarily featured builders from Portland, but there was representation from other parts of the Northwest too.

All photos are here.

Here are some of my favorites.

Winter Bicycles is Eric Estlund out of Eugene, OR. He is building some really nice practical bikes with smart designs and good asthetics. His technique is fun too, he is fillet brazing the bikes and then carving out the head tubes, doing a sort of lugged/fillet/bilaminate style (he called it “Flug”). Eric brazes for Bike Friday too and does a really nice job with the torch.

Mitch Pryor (aka m.a.p. Cycles) is building very nice bikes too. On this most recent project he worked with Lemolo Bags (custom bags made in Portland). The handlebar bag was really nice, and I hope that Lemolo makes a run of them.

TCB Racks is building Porteur racks which are adaptable to most frames. They are bolted together instead of brazed which makes it easier to adjust them to fit your bike. Prices start at $150.

I liked the U-lock holder on this Porteur rack from Ahearne:

This urban bike from Signal had some interesting fender mounting hardware:

Off to get breakfast now, so no more time for updates. The show was fun, and I look forward to next year’s.