The First Rideable Night of my F-1 Rockfish

I've wrenched on bikes quite a bit. The majority of the wrenching I've done has been for friends and strangers at the Charlottesville Community Bicycle Shop. It always felt great to get neglected bikes and parts working again with some ingenuity and elbow grease. And although it feels great to wrench for other people, there's just nothing like piecing together my own bikes. I've been conceptualizing and building my own bikes since my freshman year of college and one thing does not change: the first ride on a project bike is a blast. There comes that day in every project when I make a realization that I have everything in my possession to take it for a spin, even if it's not complete. That realization means the evening is ruined and all other plans are cancelled. I wrench until the wee hours of the night if I must, just to hop on for that first limited ride. I have to know how she handles.

I remember my first mountain bike ride on Observatory Hill on my first build in 2006, Penelope:

I remember blasting down the streets of Charlottesville at 4am with blinking yellow stoplights just as I finished the final welds on my tallbike:

And I remember taking a spin around the block as soon as my 3 speed road bike had a brake on it:

Those bikes were all juvenile builds of sorts, as my recent builds have matured and become somewhat coherent. More frequently I start from the frame up; sometimes building just the right wheelset or building the bike for a specific purpose. This week, I finally got my Formula-1 BMX Rockfish rideable:

Mechanically, the front brake and 3 speed hub are working, so it's all good to ride! I'm still working on the back brake (braze-on cantis?), searching for the right seven speed shifter for the cockpit, and looking to get the bike painted and decaled. As for the ride... this is the quickest accelerating, tightest turning, smoothest, and most fun bike I've built. I put some B.O.B. Nutz on it to haul my trailer and the build will make a nice beater/commuter/utility bike when done! It's super quick on those skinny 406 tires. It's definitely road worthy.

I wish you the very best on your maiden voyages. Mine have all been super.

Out. Of. Shape.

Just got in from a 35 mile ride - only my 3rd road ride in three months since moving to Dallas. Too much wrenching and not enough riding these days. However, things at the shop are looking up, and they have some bike-specific tools I can use to get my Rockfish Formula One BMX into shape. So far I've gotten the chance to use the Park FFG-2 dropout alignment tool. I had been contemplating building one out of scraps I have lying around, but sometimes it's easier to use what's already available than rebuild the wheel. However, there are many home-brewed methods to make this tool instead of buying that rarely-used $80 tool. All you need is a 10mm axle, two axle nuts, and a stiff piece of metal with a hole in it for a leverage arm:

A photo & design from Mark @ BikeSmithDesign.com

Pretty ingenious. Then there are those tools that are necessities if you want to do a job correctly. I'm specifically referring to cutting tools. I've already added threads on the fork for the Rockfish, but now I'm planning on using two additional cutting tools while I have access to them at the shop.

CRC-1 headset crown race seat milling tool
&
HTR-1 headtube facer

The CRC-1 is a $400 tool that will allow me to take my 1" fork that is intended for a 27.03 ID crown race and mill it down to accept a 26.43 crown race... that will make it compatible with my new CHRIS KING headset! w00t. If I didn't have access to this tool, then I would take a file to the crown race seat... a laborious and imprecise method. However, the file method will work, and I suggest using a retaining fluid with this method to keep the crown race seated.

The HTR-1 is another $400 tool that will allow me to face the top and bottom surfaces of the head tube in order to make each surface planar and in parallel. Supposedly Chris King headsets require that this is done, and I will be cautious and follow their suggestion as I have already repaired the dented head tube. I cannot think of a way to make a tool that can do this accurately.

Alright, enough of this pro-tool business. These tools are not necessities for the home mechanic, and are rarely used even in the shop.  If you are doing a fresh build or have a damaged frame and need cutting services done, I highly suggest getting them done professionally for personal economic reasons.

Applications for Best Friend Being Accepted...

Sole Qualification:
Don't tell my wife which piece of furniture I used to spread the Rockfish dropouts to fit the Sachs 3x7 wheel.

"Shotgun Wedding"

...that was the name I gave to the New Belgium Saison clone at my wedding last week. It went quickly and was hands down the favorite of the crowd, due to all that orange peel, cardamom and coriander! Definitely wish I had brewed more of it, though I'm sure I'll brew it again once relocated to Dallas with an all-grain setup. I named the Fat Tire Amber clone "26 x 2.95" for all those bike nerds that attended. That clone definitely had some off-flavors, but was still enjoyable. Matt said we had an airlock malfunction with that one, apparently because the Better Bottles aren't rigid enough to prevent airlock water from getting sucked into the fermenter when they're moved. It's definitely the small things that can make or break a beer.

Bride, Brewer & Beers

The beer was very successful, so a big thanks to Matt Lockaby for the brewing equipment, brewing help, and showing up to set up the dispensing! I need to also thank a good & crazy friend of mine, Charles Locke. He piloted our post-ceremony bicycle rickshaw ride!

Look at the creepster in the car taking pictures of us!

That rickshaw ride was great. Charles and I used to work for Happy Rickshaw together and wrench side by side over at Charlottesville Community Bikes. Well, the Rickshaw fleet in Charlottesville was slowing down and was eventually sold to a group in Delaware, so Charles ended up buying a bike shop (Syklo) from Ken Margolius. Charles closed doors about a year later, and instead joined Will Canup in a local bike rickshawing venture. Oh, hey, Will, are you going to be back in town soon so we can do another beer tasting with my sick new glassware?! (Check out Will's blog from Italy: romestrong)

So needless to say, I've been busy. I'm hoping to actually start working on the Rockfish F-1 BMX in a meaningful way before the end of the year. I've been giving it some serious thought, and I've determined I need a Sachs 3x7 hub on the back. Yep, that's three gears internally and seven externally. Unfortunately, they're going for top dollar on eBay these days...

Currently drinking a Saranac Summer Ale out of a new Lenox Brandy glass!

Hammering Bikes & Campagnolo Keychain

I've spent a lot of time working with the general public at Charlottesville Community Bikes. The scariest thing I ever hear while I'm working there is a mechanic "using" a hammer on a bicycle part. When this situation occurs, I immediately stop what I am doing and approach the culprit for damage control. By the time I arrive at the scene of the crime, the deed has usually already been done. I once heard it described, "An ounce of technical know-how is worth a ton of brute force. When you have an itch on your ear, you don't take a sledgehammer to it."

However, there are some (albeit few and far in between) times when the use of a hammer is appropriate in bicycle repair. Today I came across the perfect use for one:

The dented head tube on my Rockfish.

The head of the hammer just fit inside the head tube.

All it took was a little leverage action from the handle of the hammer. It rounded out the head tube easily. Pressing in a headset should not be a problem now.

Right there where the dent was.

As circular as it needs to be.

Also, Do Right Fear Not's Shifty Keychain post inspired me to snap a photo of my bike keychain:

An aluminum Campagnolo toeclip that snapped. Dremeled it smooth.

All's weld that ends weld

Got the Rockfish back from Quality Welding yesterday.

 Before:

 After:

Gotta love the rose knot in the center.

The weld isn't too pretty, but I'm sure it'll be fine for a lightweight rider like me. It's in a hard to reach area and it's on hollow tubing. I'm glad handed it over to a professional for this one as I would have just mucked it up if I tried repairing it with my gas-less mig welder. Quality welding only charged me $30 for it, so I feel like I got a deal. I'd rate the overall customer experience a B/B+.

Brian contacted me about getting him decals when I order some. Maybe I'll get a deal by ordering multiple sets at once.

RIDING MY BIKE TO WORK TODAY.

123 Polo

Played some bike polo on Thursday night. It's exactly the release that I needed after a shitty long day at work. I always end up breaking the shifting cable for my commuter when I play because it extends out of the rear axle and bike polo is a very contact-oriented game. That's why the Rockfish needs to be built as a polo bike. It can serve as a bike I can wreck without commuting consequences.

I'm definitely getting better at polo... the practice and confidence really helps. Will Canup showed up to polo and it sounds like I'll see him tonight at the Paranormal.

Rockfishin'

Charlottesville Community Bikes moved to a new location on Preston Ave in late 2009. Since then, it's been quite the task to clean out the old space. There were crappy bikes up to our ears in there. Back in August we had help from a group of UVA Project SERVE volunteers to bring one last load of metal recycling to Cycle Systems (formerly Coiner's). As we were tossing crappy Huffy bikes into a giant pile of steel, a diamond in the rough caught my eye:




This Rockfish frame happens to be a special local bike creation from two Charlottesville,VA locals, Nick & Boris. I got the scoop on them from Scott Paisley over at Blue Wheel Bicycles:

The Rockfish bikes were a project that my original frame building partner, Nick, and Boris created. There was a push to create a new racing format to encourage BMX riders to transition into bicycles as adults. The idea was parking lot criteriums with adults on super quick handling small wheel bikes. I built one prototype on 24" wheels that Boris has been riding around town for years. I may have built one of the 20" wheels as well, but I don't remember, and don't think I did any more than advise on the steering geometry. Those frames were built by Cycle Craft in Tennessee. Nick still has a bunch of the frames unpainted somewhere.

In other words, these were BMX bikes built for Formula-1 racing. I scoured the internet a bit to find Nick's site. There are some good pictures and info on there, despite the Rockfish project being defunct.

I snagged this frame right as it was about to be tossed into a heap of scrap steel to be lost forever. I brought it home and have plans to rebuild it. Unfortunately, after closer inspection, I realized that there's a 1" crack on the back of the seat tube just above the bottom bracket:


So I need to get this tig-welded. I gave Charles a call to see if he would braze the crack for me. He convinced me that tig is the way to go for this crack. He claimed that he is getting a tig setup within the next couple of months, and I hope to pay him to do the work . He told me that if I prepped it by stripping the paint and drilling out the ends that it should be a fast repair. I ended up breaking 4 skinny drill bits trying to drill the ends of the crack out to prevent it from spreading. I also started stripping the frame with a wire brush attachment. In the past I've used chemical strippers, but they are such a noxious pain. As for the color... I've looked for metallic pink automotive paint, but to no avail.


Over the past few years, several of my local friends have also gotten their hands on these frames... but I have yet to see one of theirs working. The frames we find are usually significantly damaged or missing the fork. Mine is both. I have some leads on 20" wheel forks with long steerers and cantilever studs on ebay.

At first I was thinking about restoring this bike to it's original specs. However, I think this frame with 20" wheels would make an amazing polo bike. Charlottesville Bike Polo has really gotten organized in the past few years, thanks to Barry. They meet up at McIntire Skate Park on Tuesdays & Thursday evenings. I showed up thrice recently (after not having been since things got rolling) and damn, pretty good turn out and everyone is gettin tough.

I've also started recreating some decals for the bike. Back in the day (~2006) I found a Rockfish sticker at the old commbikes shop, and I recently got my coworker Andrew Stronge to walk me through scanning, retracing, and vectorizing it in Adobe Illustrator. If you need the vector file, drop me a line

Now just to find someone to reproduce the decals. Velographic looks promising.