The rest of the day was spent parsing through the catalogs of my parts distributors to come up with this.

It takes all this and then some.

The parts list for the complete Trail Bike I’ll be building this month,  it is no small amount of decisions to make when you are selecting each component of a bicycle individually.  Glad to have this bit of the process nearly over with for this build, I am excited to see when the items in the part list meet with the execution of this design in high alloy steel.

As much fun as it’d be to steel away to California for a few days I had to fold my hand at joining in the big show again this year. It is a bit like a game of odds to know weather to lay it on the line with any big investment, it’s even harder to know your odds when intangibles like the leanings of curatorial taste of the blog-o-sphere are involved rather than hard assets.   Had I known that the next card in the draw pile would be a deposit on a complete MTB build I might have bought the plane ticket, picking up the stack  to count up rummy from every encounter I’d have with bike obsessed folks from all over world.  One or two of them might end up actually buying a bike or have an interesting idea to collaborate on.  Not to mention I’d be having a blast riding and sharing stories with the great and fine folks I am honored to count as friends among my fellow framebuilders.  It’s all fine and good though, planning a feast for the evening with my sweet one and will try for a muddy spin on the Bay Circuit Trail or quick round of Polo tomorrow with some time in the shop in between.

So, Paragon Book Keeper, say hi to everyone for me, and if you run into Mike Penzadelic, tell him to put a chip down for me with some flat bars on his BBW.

Hand cut precision.

When life gives you lemons, its time to haul a crate of them home.  Lemonade for days.

The Build cue, it could be you.

I had this experimental short rear ended/variable top tube length frame I built using a Supertherm BMX Tubeset, a pinchbolt eccentric, a sectional seat tube with a variable effective angle,  and a 2 piece chainstay  yolk collecting rust in the rafters for about a year.  Glad I finally revived it,the front end is way slacked out with the big front wheel but it is impossible to get into too much trouble with the 400mm chain stays. sometimes a bike that handles entirely different is a lot of fun.

It kind of flies in the face of the proud, self determinant American mindset to base our fate on whether or not a rodent sees a shadow but so it is on groundhogs day.

Kind of a moot point this year anyhow as winter failed to happen. Glad I did get out for one day of snowy fun in the White Mountains with the  BBW Team Vehicle, which, thanks to the talented Jen at Cut Paste Love, can be anything I can get the keys to since she made me a lovely magnetic signage kit for Christmas.

Doubt I’ll be getting to do this February 2nd over again like Bill Murray, so I better get moving to get it right the first time.

The new tinted clear powder coat is an antique bronze that looks amazing with the substrate visible beneath, as per usual my photography underwhelms but I hope he likes it when he sees it.  I’m excited for his trip and will be following his preparation for it when he re-fires his blog at Old Man Up the Mountain. One of the joys of building bikes for folks one at a time with hand tools  is that I put enough of myself into them that it feels like part of me gets to go on all the eventual adventures that the bikes do, I guess that is also why I can be a bit of a nag to customers that aren’t riding their BBWs.

Gifts gifted and toasts toasted, I am back home and back to work and the dust is beginning to settle from the whirlwind that was my trip to the folks house in beautiful Bucks County, PA.   Being more than a comfortable trip away means I don’t go home much, doing so always makes me wish I got to share more than rushed holidays with the people that brought me into the world.  One day, when I strike it big, I’ll give them all jobs at Budd Bike Works.

http://www.bikerumor.com/2011/11/28/first-look-retroshift-brake-shift-levers-for-cyclocross/

Looks like I’m not the only one fed up with overly complicated shifter mechanisms sullying the beauty of the sport.

I like the way Retroshift went about adding the shift mount directly to the brake lever,  I still think my version is a little better since they can be shifted from the tops and drops as well as the hoods.

I’d have to guess yes.

My Cross Results ranking has suffered a couple of lazy seasons lately.  Pride is on the line extra this year with Team Stampede representing big time with Jersey placement and god willing, a few BBW frames.  Getting back out on the Road Bike again has been critical to remind me that going harder = going faster.

Say hey if you see me out there folks, I’m easy to spot, being the guy with his tongue out and all.

Hunting Photos of yourself on facebook is a dangerous thing.