Squishy Bike

[shirk]

Well the event I was really really hoping to have this finished for has come and gone...and I didn't get it finished.


When frame building goes bad.

I just my right index finger pretty good on Wednesday, seemed like just a regular cut. By Thursday late evening it was horribly swollen and ooozing puss. It got infected and was causing my whole hand to swell. Time for a trip to the ER.

The doc decided to put me on three rounds of IV drop antibiotics to hit the infection quickly.

The IV line they put in was kinda neat, had a quick connect fitting on it and it had to stay in for three days (first time ever on IV). I decided that perhaps working in the garage to finish the bike with the line installed was not the smartest thing to do.

So next time I'll be dousing any fresh cut in iodine before putting on the bandages and do a better job bandaging it up.

[nspace]

Damn, that sucks! Hopefully it all heals up infection free so you can get back at it :)

[Freddy Salgado]

Sorry to hear about accident, look forward to updates!

Question, are you going to reinforce that main pivot with gusset or something to beef it up? Just curious looks pretty solid so far.

[Hern]

Awesome thread! Let's hope for a speedy recovery. Can't wait to see more progress!!

[Andrew R Stewart]

I am interested in the twist this thread has taken. In my 40+ years of wrenching and fabricating I have cut/poked/ground/impacted my self countless times (currently I'm waiting a finger nail to fall off, it's been over three months...) Yet only a very few times have I had any suggestion of infection. I'm a doctor's kid and grew up being told to play outside. I have always thought that my immune system got exposed to a lot of bad things as a kid because I did play in the dirt. I also have always thought that the possibility of bad germs is small with the stuff that bike mechanics and such see. (Note that I don't do a lot of mountain bike repairs). Maybe I'm just lucky, I'll take that.

Brian- Heal fast and work slow. Andy.

[shirk]

Andy, this is the first time I've ever had an infection that needed care. I also grew up covered in dirt and grime, worked construction jobs in high school and not ever pampered things.

Not really sure where the infection came from. I didn't do a very good job of cleaning the cut, just ran it under some water and slapped a few basic band-aids on.

I did lace up a set of wheels and I use an anti-seize on the spoke thread, I made an error lacing and had to tear it down and ended up with the anti-seize all over my hands.

It's all healed up now aside from a small bump on the knuckle beside the cut.

I've not started back into the frame, I was in such a panic rush build prior to the weekend to try and get it done I was pushing off the household chores, getting caught up on those to keep the better half happy before diving back into the garage.

[shirk]

Question, are you going to reinforce that main pivot with gusset or something to beef it up? Just curious looks pretty solid so far.

Currently no plans to gusset the main pivot.

[shirk]

I had not done much on this since early August. Once I missed my initial target date for the EWS I set it aside to enjoy the last of summer.

Started back up on it this week.

Drilled out the dropouts so I could slide the axle in and the rear wheel.

I really should have drawn things out better on the rear dropout plates. Fitting the brake tab is going to be a mess. I'll be making it in two pieces and attaching the front one to the top of the pate and the rear one to the back.

Lots of just winging it on this. Learning from my mistakes.

[Rayburn Shaun]

Learning from my mistakes.

And then there were none. Keep on keepin' on.

Nice job, man!

[adarn]

Hey,
way to go for it.
I can tell you from experience though, if you leave your "chain stays" just hanging off like that, it will definitely break.

[steve garro]

The IV line they put in was kinda neat, had a quick connect fitting on it

Pick-line, baby!
I rocked one for a few months.
- Garro.

[miwuksurfer]

Pick-line, baby!
I rocked one for a few months.
- Garro.

I'm surprised they didn't give you a port. They are way more aerodynamic than running "external housing".

[shirk]

Ghetto jigging. I didn't take the time to properly draw in my disc tab, so when I went to use the tab I have from Nova it wouldn't work. Bust out the hacksaw, drill and file. A two piece tab brazed onto the drop out with my ghetto jig.


This morning before work brazed on the front shock mount tabs.


Hit the cooked flux with boiled water then quickly hammered the front end with shop roll. Front triangle gets a rattle can coat. Flat grey.

Have several bits on the rear end to finish up. Should be done with all brazing tonight.

[Rayburn Shaun]

Awesome. Build it up and ride it 'til one of you breaks. Love it. Nice work.

[shirk]

Awesome. Build it up and ride it 'til one of you breaks. Love it. Nice work.

It's certainly going get ridden. Building it up tonight for it's "little test ride" tomorrow. We're doing the North Shore Triple Crown it involves riding all three mountains on the Shore. About 60km and 1800m of climbing.

[shirk]

All built up before it's first ride.


At the end of it's first test ride. 51.4km and 2144m of climbing later.

The bike is 157mm of travel and full modern "enduro" geo, long slack and low.

65.5 ha
74 sa
430 cs
1176 wb

Rides great. Fit is perfect.

It's the slackest bike I've owned and first 650b so the first half hour took some getting used to. By the top of the first downhill it felt natural. It monster trucks the DH. Will need to fiddle with the shock tune to make it feel a bit more "poppy". Likely just need to reduce the volume in the air can a bit.

Frame weight without shock or rear axle is 3.39kg (7.47lbs). Bike as built up above is 14.41kg (31.76lbs).

[Bewheels]

Congratulations!!!

By the looks of the 'after' photo, you had a lot of fun.

[Hern]

So cool! Makes me wanna make one!

[Rusty Mac]

Seriously good effort in getting it built up, it looks sweet.

Any updates on how it rides? In previous posts you mentioned looking at the shock tune and possibly re doing the rear triangle in box section.

[shirk]

Seriously good effort in getting it built up, it looks sweet.

Any updates on how it rides? In previous posts you mentioned looking at the shock tune and possibly re doing the rear triangle in box section.

So I now have three rides on it.

167kms and 6244m of ascent/descent. Just kinda happened that the first ride was a long all day epic and again this weekend we went out on two big days back to back.

I have not had a chance to mess with shock tune yet, but I do know better what I want to do. I will be getting a Monarch with Debonair. The increased negative air can volume should help it be a little more supple on the small bump but then I can still tinker with air volume to get good ramp up on the bigger stuff. Also I will move from a low compression tune to a medium compression tune.

Currently there isn't enough compression in the shock, to get it to feel "stiff" enough I need to run a higher pressure and lower amount of sag. The move to medium compression should help that.

With the way the shock is currently the bike is not as poppy or playful as I think it could be. We'll see how the shock changes that.

The geo on this wasn't explicitly designed to be playful, it was meant to be a mini dh bike EWS (Enduro World Series) style course charger. The great thing about building your own is that I can build another one that is more all around trail friendly. So a bit steeper head angle and shorter wheel base.

My first thought is that moving to square tubing for the rear end would be easier, but some proper jigging and more thought into the dropouts should allow me to use tubing. Going to look at options for shaped chainstays and seatstays vs the straight gauge that I did use.

I was lucky enough to ride this weekend with a designer for one of the big name mtb bike companies that has a great current line of fs bikes. Felt pretty dang good to hear him say good things about where I placed my main pivot and how the bike was laid out.




A little better quality than the crappy cell phone pics above.