Brave New Velo is a journal documenting the progress of building a new Soma Smoothie bicycle and the experience of such an endeavor for the first time. Thoughts, discoveries, trials and tribulations will be shared.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

The Gang's All Here

                   
With the recent purchase of a seat post, spokes and tyres, all major parts and components have been secured and the build is ready to begin. First up are the wheels. I've been resourcing a couple of reference materials to learn myself on the practice, or "art" as one master builder calls it, of wheel building. I will have a shop ream and face the head tube, face the bottom bracket shell, and press the headset. I'll then assemble the whole kit, have the steerer tube cut, and with some fine tuning it will be ready to roll. I figured the time to get to this point of the process would take 6 months or so. That was two years ago. Before putting even one mile on the bike a special relationship has already been established. I'll be damned if I give it a name though.