Baptisted by the Rains of 2007

As I’ve mentioned before, the Dallas area (and much of Texas and surrounding states) are experiencing a much wetter than normal year.  In fact, I believe as of this afternoon we will have the second wettest June on record.  Up till yesterday afternoon I had stayed at home when it was pouring rain.  Working on VeloBase.com, browsing BF’s, or other non riding activites while it poured rain outside was my only cycling outlets.  And it sucked.

Yesterday I was determined to ride, regardless of the rain on its way.  I looked at the radar, I thought I had time enough to get out for a short ride and home before the next round of rain arrived.

I miscalculated.  I figured I had time enough to get from my apartment, over to Richardson Bikemart, and back again before it rained.  I, in fact, had exactly half that amount of time.  It started raining the moment I stepped back out of RBM.  With my options being either waiting at RBM for an unknown amount of time for the rain to pass, or riding in it.  I chose to head for home.  However, about 2/3 the way home, it was quite obvious that the rain was heavier than I cared to ride in any further, and I took shelter in the doorway of a school till the cell blew through. 

I arrived home, soaked to the bone, but happy that I got out on the bike.  It wasn’t too bad, even with the water drops stinging my eyes.  I’d do it again… and may just do that today.

Waxahachie = Hills

Saturday morning I packed up the truck with the Flyte SRS-3 and all my gear and headed down to Waxahachie, TX for the Cow Creek Country Classic ride.  Registered for what had to be the hilliest 46mi I have ever encountered.  For the most part the ride went smoothly, except for the wide range of speeds I was going at during the ups and the downs.  But hills will do that to you.  You can read my report as well as others in this thread on BikeForums.net: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=312946

VeloBase.com – Component View Screen v.0.1

Quick update to show off the progress in the last 5 days.  Now have a semi-functional display screen built up.  Pulling data from the object (though not yet the database), and pulling the Caption from a Services object (though not yet populated with actual captions). 

Click Link for Photo

Plan to get everything I have currently hooked up to the database as a next course of action.  From there it will be my next task to get the add page developed (at least a preliminary version of one).

VeloBase.com – The Ball is Rolling

Quick update of the weekend’s development’s.  First – I posted a thread on BikeForums.net’s Classic & Vintage forum about the website.  Got some good feedback so far on the site and I’m pressing forward with the goals laid out in that thread.  Read about it here: http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=310220

Second – since it rained all weekend and I had no time to go ride, I worked on VeloBase.com most of Saturday and a bit tonight.  User Registration is complete, with assignment of the default USER role.  For now, I plan to manually assign the rest of the roles to the few early users of the site.  I will add automatic role assignment as time progresses.  Meaning my first short term goal is completed.

Third - this week I want to get some sort of display and possibly an add component screen developed.  Once I can allow users to add components to the database I will have something worthy of deploying to the webserver.  It will not be much, but it will be enough for the early users to get their hands on and give me feedback on.  Not till then do I really think I’ll get much in the way of really good feedback on what needs to change and what is good as is. 

More Rain, more pain, more velobase.com

Texas received the wettest May in recent memory, and if I cared to look, probably on record.  Something like 23 days of 30 were wet that month.  Then the weather guys proclaimed that there was no more rain in the future for a while.  Apparently ‘a while’ is like 3 days.  And so it’s gone on that about ever 3 days of dry weather we have 4-5 of wet.  At least of high humidity, threatening to rain any minute if not actually raining weather.  Tomorrow, rain or shine, I am going to Tour de Italia.  I’m going to ride.  And hopefully keep the rubber side down.

I’m not sure what I did to my back last weekend.  But it still hasn’t completely healed.  And as I said, I’m riding tomorrow morning.  I have a feeling me and Vitamin I (aka Ibuprofen) are going to be good friends over the next 48 hrs.  I’m tired of not riding due to one thing or another.  Starting a full time job here at work now my week-day ride times have more or less come to an end so when the weekend rolls around – I will ride.  Period.

Short blurb on VeloBase.com.  It is now displaying a temporary page with some sample images and such.  I hope to work on the user account system this weekend and get that working within the week.  At least allow me to manually add users and let them log-in to the system.  From there the plan is to add the ‘Add Component’ page so that we can start building the database.  There will be a lot of consideration going into how to handle editing, adding, and ensuring that duplicate entries are not created. 

Right now the plan is to start with a general add page where you put in basic information about the part.  Brand, model, year, and a few other things.  The system will then search for anything similar already in the database and return a list of possible matches.  If you realize that the part is already in the system you can either Add, Edit (if you have permissions), or create a Variation of the part.  Suppose you want to add the Campagnolo Nuovo Record crank – of which there were at least a couple variations.  You have a version that is different enough from any of those listed that you add a variation.  The ‘Base’ Nuovo Record crank information is copied over to a ‘Add Variation’ page where you can modify any of the information needed to enter this new version.  Should help reduce or hopefully eliminate duplicate entries and keep the database as effective and useful as possible.

If you are interested in helping build the VeloBase.com database once functional, please leave a comment to such effect and I will get back to you when ready. 

VeloBase.com – so it begins

This evening I purchased the domains: Velobase.com, Velobase.net and Velobase.info.

 The reason?  A vintage bicycling database.  Parts, frames, and more.  Coming soon.

There is an amazing amount of information out there about older bikes, their components, and as a newer generation is starting to get interested in them, or the vintage guys are acquiring new frames, they want to know about them.  Problem is the information is spread all over the web, and there is no easy way to search for what you are looking for.  Say you have a Campagnolo crank set, or a SunTour rear derailleur.  But beyond that, you’re clueless (been there done that myself more than a few times) on what exactly it is, what it works with, or when they were even made. 

The goal of VeloBase.com is to let you answer a few questions about what you have in front of you, and the page returns you a list of possible components and information about it.  What is the BCD of that Campy crank, is that SunTour derailleur work with the shifters you just bought on ebay?  With a little help from the cycling community the answer may just be there.  Additionally there will be links to other resources that have been long established that you might be able to find or ask about the part in question.  Hopefully once you’ve found out what you want to know, you’ll come back and add that information to VeloBase!

So development officially starts tomorrow.  I’ve done some preliminary planning and such.  But tomorrow the code starts flying.  First phase: vintage components.  Specifically, Cranksets.  That will be the first component that I add to the database and develop the site’s automated pages.  Hopefully other components will be easy to add and expand on quickly thereafter. 

Serotta – another delay

The Serotta project is starting to build up delays that could rival many NASA projects.  I started by deciding to paint the bike, which in itself was both necessary and would greatly increase my desire to own and ride the bike.  So off to David’s at Southwest Frameworks.  David is a busy guy with lots of bikes to be working on and my frame was in line with the rest of them.  Then, after much anticipation, the frame was ready.  Only for David to accidentally put a chip in the paint while finishing buffing. 

So back to the paint booth it went.  And another several week wait while it went through the process of paint.  Then, on the day before I was to pick up the frame and fork, the fork left with another frame on accident.  So it was about a week before David was able to get the fork back and I could get down to pick it up.  At the same time, David had to do some additional buffing on the clear coat.  So after that I set the frame and fork a side for a week to make sure the paint was fully hardened before starting to build it.

So then I started building the frame, with the Campagnolo Super Record equipment that had been on the bike.  I was half way through that slow build when I bought a set of Campagnolo Chorus Ergoshifters which shifted the build quite a bit.  The Super Record equipment shifted over to my Gazelle and the new Campy group that I had partially waiting in the parts box and the new shifters started going on the Serotta.  Of course I still had a few parts to get.  Wheels, which soon came via ebay.  Chain and Cassette were out of stock at my favorite online shop and were ordered once back in stock (should be here in a few days).  I needed more of the derailleur housing to match the rest of the bike, so had to order more of that from Velo-Orange.com.  And I needed a cassette lock ring and set of cable stops which I sourced from my local bike shop.

So that brought me to today.  I had the new housing, and installing it and hooking up the derailleurs would put me in position to only need to do the final adjustments when the cassette and chain came in.  So I’m working on the frame and first a large chip of paint comes off the frame at the seat post clamp area.  A chip about 1-2mm across, about the size of an unground pepper corn.  That one I could have lived with, it would be covered by a saddle bag 90% of the time.  Shortly after 3 more of these chips suddenly come off the top tube.  Those I could not live with.  And it was about the last thing I needed to deal with today.

I immediately called David, who’s phone, I would later find out, was knocked out.  Unable to get in touch with him, I went to the task of tearing down the bike and driving it down to David’s shop.  I got down there, completely unannounced, on a Sunday afternoon.  David’s only concern was to the problem I was having with the paint and was more than happy to look at it and completely committed to making it right.  So that is where my frame is tonight.  No longer in my study, no longer only 2 parts away from being on the road.  And it will no longer be accompanying me to the Tour de Italia next week. 

Such is life, and while I certainly don’t like having to send it back to the paint booth, I know David will make it right.  And I know there are far larger problems in the world than having to have a bike painted over again when I have 3 others in the next room.  But that doesn’t change the fact that I really want to get it on the road and show it off!

Vintage Bicycle Identification Wiki?

I’ve had the thought of creating a website that helps the vintage bicycle community in some way.  Some ideas have come and gone as I decide them too much of an undertaking, or not worthy of working on just yet.

But I think I’ve come upon an idea that might just be worth while.  An identification website that would allow people to identify different vintage bicycle parts, and eventually expand it into frames as well.  I haven’t started programming on the site yet, and will probably be some time before I do as I’m still in the prelimary design stage right now.  Hopefully it will be a site that the community will not only be interested in helping build, but also use. 

Getting back in shape…

would be a lot easier if it didn’t rain 24-25 days out of 31.  After getting back on the bike after 3 weeks off due to surgery, I went another week and a half till the weather cleared up long enough to get back on the bike 4 days of the last 5.  I took Friday off to rest up for the weekend’s riding.  I’m guessing with today’s ride (without cyclometer) I have over 65mi for the last 5 days.  Not a bad for getting back on the bike after so long. 

 Was out on the Flyte for the first 3 days, the last ride was on the newly rebuilt Gazelle… which you can read about in my previous entry. 

Murphy, his law, and all things that happened today.

I was determined to get the first ride on my newly rebuilt Gazelle Champion this morning. After putting all the Super Record gear off the Serotta on the bike it was begging for a good shake down ride. I had planned to ride with a fellow BF member this morning at 8:30. At 8am I was about to fill water bottles when I heard the distant rumble of thunder. Crap! Not MORE F’in rain! Sure enough there was a fast moving line of strong storms approaching the area. Well there goes that plan.

Fast forward 4hrs and the sun is out, while a bit windy, it was shaping up to be a great second half of the day. Decided I wasn’t going to let this break in the weather get away I jump on the Gazelle. I’m running a full campy super record group, unsure if I had everything tightened down completely. And to top it all off the rear wheel is running an old tubular tire which hadn’t seen the road in probably close to 8+ years. The front wheel is running a brand new clincher tire and tube. So if anything is going to happen, it’s going to be the rear tire right? No worries, I only plan on going around the block a few times. No need to grab the saddle bag with tube and CO2.

20min later I’m a lot further away from home than a block or two, a quick visit over to jsharr’s place and then heading for home. Half way back, I hit a pot hole and heard a lout twang. I knew instant something had happened to one of the wheels so quickly braked to a stop. A quick check of the rear wheel, still up. Front wheel… no such luck.

This is the second time I’ve had a front flat, without a tube/tire, on this bike, after a major build/rebuild. You’d think I would have learned my lesson the first time right? Guess it will take two times for this lesson to sink in. So once again I have to call for SAG, this time a quick call to jsharr and a promise of a some time soon secured a ride the rest of the way home.

So, everyone, no matter how short of a ride you plan on going on, grab the spare tube and pump or CO2. You’ll have more beer to drink yourself when you get home if you do.