Absolutely Single - Completed!

I masked off nearly the entire bike and left gold stripes on the top tube, seat tube, and seat stays just above the brake mounts.  Here's my boy holding up the finished paint job.

To make things fun I enlisted the help of Keesha and M to help design the masking on the front fork.  I didn't want to leave the fork just a basic carbon look and I wanted everyone to be a part of my project.  Here is Keesha drawing out stars, a sun and a moon that I will cut out and use to reverse mask before painting the fork to match the frame.

Here is M hard at work on her stars and moons.  I asked them to just create what ever they wanted to.  They decided on a sky theme and I love it!  I get asked all the time, "What's with the stars and moons?"  I get a big kick out of telling people how my wife and daughter designed it.

The fork is hanging and fully painted.  I will pull off the masking and bury the lines with satin clear.

Here the mask is freshly peeled away to show the reverse effect I was after.  This was Keesha's design and it came out great!  The sun hits the now matte carbon and it really pops from under the satin black.

I have the bike on the work stand and have started all the assembly.  It went together very quickly as there were no derailleurs to adjust and wire.  I used a new Cane Creek IS3 headset, Shimano Ultegra Octalink A1 bottom bracket, Ritchey WCS compact cranks (only using the 50 tooth top ring), Forte Apollo wheels, Continetal Gatorskin rubber, stock brakes, stock fork, stock seat post, stock stem, stock bars, Forte brake levers, and lock-on grips.

Here it is completed!  It rides very nice and smooth.  I was worried about the Forte wheels because of my previous experience with the brand, but they ride very nice.  On close inspection they are a direct knock-off of Mavic Cosmic Elite wheels without the aero-spokes.

Here is a close up of my bargain basement (literaly) Ritchey WCS cranks.

 The Forte Chain Tensioner works very well and is easy to set up.  Given this frame has rear drop outs meant for a geared bike this part is neccessary to properly tension and align the chain.  It just bolts to the rear derailleur hanger.

Using my EP power and finding some SWEET deals I put this whole thing together for around $200. Not bad for a bike that pedals out around 22 mpg and climbs easy too.  The only issue with the bike is the strength of the frame itself.  I put so much stress on the lower triangle that the frame flexes under load.  When I really start putting power into it the bottom bracket flexes about 3/4" causing the chain to "pop" on the front chain ring.  No doubt this will be fixed by a proper single speed chain (I had to use an 8 speed chain as we were out of stock on ss chains) but I'm not dropping any more coin into this bike.  This is a temporary holdover until my Lynskey arrives.

Project Absolutely Single

Today I’m taking the Fuji Absolute 2.0 frame that was stripped down to build K’s sweet flat-bar carbon bike and making it something different. This is the fruition of months of toying, thinking and half-hearted planning to create a single-speed commuter/cross/family-cruise bike on the ultra cheap. This is the exact antithesis of a high end racer. Find used parts, tossed parts, barely usable parts, ugly parts, and downright undesirable parts and put them on a bike in an effort to cost less than an Employee Purchase complete bike.

The first step is to remove all the old stickers. Since these are industrial graphic type stickers I chose mechanical stripping with a 3M red removal disc on the end of my chorded drill. The method worked very well on the soft aluminum frame. The disk doesn’t generate a lot of heat and it doesn’t cut into the metal. The disk just removes paint and the gooey stickers with ease. The process took around an hour to peal all the stickers off with no bike vise.



I cleaned the frame with warm soapy water and rinsed it with the hose. Drying was done with a soft cloth towel and an air compressor. I didn’t worry about masking off the bottom-bracket or headset as these will be chased before final assembly anyway.

The frame was hung and I started to spray the gold on the top tube and seat stays for the accents. As I started spraying the gold paint covered extremely well and it just popped. I couldn’t resist and I sprayed the whole thing in gold to see what it would look like. Wow what a color. I definitely will not keep it gold but it looks crazy! I’m going to mask off symmetrical stripes on the top tube, down tube, and seat stays. The dropouts will stay gold as well. The rest of the frame will go satin black with the lines buried under satin clear. The carbon fork will be hit with a shot of satin clear as well to take the shine off. I can’t wait to finish it off!

Keesha’s Bike Completed

Today I got to the shop and stripped down Keesha's old bike to install all the components to the new frame. Some things would not convert like the rear brake and the front derailleur. Other things changed just because they were cool; like the handlebar for instance. I found a purple RaceFace Deus bar that matched the bike and wasn't the bland black. The best thing about the change was the new bar was at least half the weight of the old one. Pretty much everything else swapped over directly. From swapping out the old aluminum frame to the new carbon frame I shaved three pounds from the entire bike. The bike started out weighing in at a hefty 27.5 pounds and finished off at a more respectable 24.5 pounds. By swapping the cranks for a lighter set and the wheels I could cut another 2 pounds easy, but that's for the future to hold.

Here are the photos from the build…

The bare frame.	The front fork, headset, stem and handlebars installed. Notice the front brake was not removed from the fork for the swap.
The completed cockpit. All the controls have been installed and the cables are being run. The shifters, brake levers and grips are swap-overs. This is a great shot of the new RaceFace bar.	The new front derailleur installed and an empty bottom bracket shell. The cable runs from the bottom of the frame and then through the frame in the small hole in front of the chainstays.
The completed drivetrain. I had never removed or installed a bottom bracket before nor had I any experience installing a chain. I damaged the original chain during the installation and it would not shift correctly. I had to put in a new SRAM chain and all was better.	The completed bike just before my test ride at the shop. The bike rode wonderfully and had a very quick turn-in. The bike is very soft when it comes to vibration damping and the new brakes work great with the old levers.
Here she is enjoying the new ride. I got great feedback for my efforts.

Keesha’s Bike Build

I had the opportunity to obtain a full carbon frame for Keesha at a VERY bargain basement price. So I am going to pull everything off her current bike and build up the new frame. This is an exciting thing for me as I have never built a bike from the frame up before and a flat-bar carbon road bike will be COOL!

I will start this project on Tuesday June, 1.

TV Credenza Project

We were completely fed up with the lack of quality furniture being sold as "high-end" in every store. Time and time again we looked at TV credenzas priced over $1000 for vinyl wrapped particle board. Needless to say it was all junk. My dad has been doing woodworking for a few years now and has a shop that rivals those found on the how-to TV shows. My dad is, however, difficult to work with and I had to demand the design not be compromised in any way. The general shape was easily agreed to but the real challenge was convincing my dad to make the two vertical shelf supports instead of one bowing shelf. As you can see from the photos the project came out wonderfully and was well worth the time and effort. The time spent with my dad was also invaluable and some of the most fun we've had together in years. I learned so much doing this and I can't wait to do the next project with him. Most likely it will be rebuilding the rear porch.

I really liked the look of moderately stained cherry and given the cost we decided for that wood. With all the materials the cost of this project is around $250. That is less than even the most economical (read cheap) credenzas and shelving units from the big box stores. This includes the reactive cooling fan setup that switches on with the amplifier and cable box to keep them cool.

This project was completed in January of 2010.

My dad is showing me how to cut tenants.	All frame boards are cut.
Splitting planks for the sides.	Splitting more planks.
The side pieces are glued on the edge and placed in clamps.	Each thick piece of wood yielded two side panel pieces suitable for gluing.
Here are the sides of the credenza completed and drying in clamps.	The rear of the credenza drying in clamps.
I decided to remake the particle wood speaker stands at the same time so they would match the credenza. Here is the stained top of one stand.	Here are all pieces of the stand stained and drying.
Test fitting the body of the credenza.	The top is 1" thick and is made of three large planks of cherry.
The back panel has been stained and is drying.	The face frame drying.
The sides are completed and waiting final assembly.	Multiple clamps put pressure everywhere to hold the glue during final assembly.
A total of ten pipe clamps were used just on the body during drying.	Here is the credenza nearly complete. The stain has been finished and it is awaiting polyurethane.
Loaded with our gear and playing movies. Our solid cherry credenza will last a lifetime.