Prepped

Picked up the frame and fork from the LBS the other day. I dropped it off just to have the head tube and BB shell raced and faced, but immediately realized there was other work I needed them to do for me because I do not have the tools (or know-how for that matter) to do so. These tasks included reaming the seat tube, racing the fork crown, and installing the headset (and fork subsequently). After considering the time, effort and cost involved for me to apply frame saver I had the professionals do that as well. The assembly is coming along well so far. I've built the wheels and will have a forthcoming blog post on that process. I still need to true them though. A job I'm not looking forward to based on previous experiences with truing wheels. Little by little the Soma Smoothie is making its way to completion. I still have a few of odds and ends to secure - handlebar plugs, headset spacers and front derailleur clamp - that will hold up the assembly for a bit, but at the pace I'm going right now being short a few parts is only a minor bump in the road. The salmon pink color of the Chris King headset really pops out against the white frame. I like it. A lot.

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.

On Second Thought

Somewhere along the way when my decisions with the Soma Smoothie build took a turn toward a classic style one part just didn't belong any more. The carbon forks were keeping the bicycle from totally embracing the look of years gone by. What the Smoothie really needed to complete its vintage aesthetic was steel forks. The change will add many more grams to the overall weight but the difference will not concern me, I'm not racing in the Tour. I'm actually quite excited about this development and even more anxious now for the final result. Another mind changer had to do with the nature of the material of carbon parts. Odds may be in my favor that the forks will not break, but I still don't want to tempt fate considering the price I will have to pay in flesh alone in the event of carbon failure. Even if the forks were to merely crack, not breaking completely and sparing me from gruesome injury, they would still be compromised and need to be replaced. In comparison, steel provides piece of mind. Steel is resilient. Steel is reparable. Steel is real.

So what to do then with the Profile Design Silencer SL fork I already have? Craigslist. Don't want to end up with two forks for one bike so I gotta sell before I buy again. I listed the fork and a week came and went with no responses. I listed it again and the very next day I got an inquiry. Another day later it was sold. I took a minor hit in recouping my money, but that's par for the course in these cases. The buyer turned out to be a 16-year old guy who showed up at my door with a scale in hand. It's safe to say this kid was a complete bike geek, and I mean that with sincerity. The way he thought out loud about the carbon fork and it's addition to his bicycle in run-on sentences. His preoccupation with verifying the weight of the fork on his digital scale, never averting his eyes from the matter at hand while we talked. Our interaction was both fascinating and strange. If you've witnessed or encountered fanatics of Magic the Gathering, or comics, or Star Trek, and their enthusiasm for their love of these things you get the idea. Except for this young man it was bicycles. I was kinda proud to be contributing to his passion. This sort of zeal for beloved pastimes that is equally endearing, amusing, admirable and troubling is the reason why the Comic Book Guy is my favorite Simpsons character.

Within a matter of a few days of the Craigslist sale I had ordered and received a new Tange chromoly steel fork with lugged crown. Thank you Soma! This baby was intended to pair with my Smoothie frame, down to the sparkly pearl white paint. The sleek blades of the fork compliment the traditional tube sizes of the frame, whereas the fat blades of the carbon fork were disproportionate and it looked mismatched. The correlating color scheme is an important improvement as well. An interesting note in finding the fork on the Soma Fab website is it is not listed under the "Forks" section, but rather in the "Frames" section as an option with the pearl white Smoothie frame. I guess that makes sense being this particular fork was intended for a particular frame of a particular color, but then if I'm looking for a fork I would intuitively go to the forks section, not frames. I just so happened to be browsing the frames section and discovered the fork by dumb luck. Anyhow this whole situation played out how I had hoped it would and I am on track to finishing a sweet bike build. I'd like to continue this paragraph so that it extends to the bottom of the photo on the left because that's just how my mind works, but I'm out of thoughts on this subject.

Daddy Gets A New Pair Of Shoes

For about a month my Dell laptop was out of commission. I wouldn't say it crashed, but rather crashed and burned except it burned first then crashed. The motherboard overheated and one, or more, of its components fried causing the computer to freeze up. It took some trial and error troubleshooting to figure this out and so a couple of new sticks of RAM, a new recycled CPU and new recycled motherboard later the computer is up and running again. So on with the blog post.

If Darth Vader's Imperial stormtroopers had a cycling brigade these shoes would be standard issue. And that's about the nerdiest Star Wars reference you will ever hear from me. A little personal history first before I continue on about this Shimano R086 cycling shoe. The last pair of cycling shoes I owned were made by Cannondale. They were good quality and just comfortable enough. I bought them in 1988 or '89. Rather than having the velcro straps common to most shoes today these shoes were lace-ups. They were made of a full leather upper with a hard plastic sole and that is about the extent of their construction. When I say leather upper I mean that's all it was, leather. One layer of leather, no lining. Holes in the material allowed for air flow but there were really not enough of them. You see too many air holes would compromise the structure of the shoe. If you've worn cycling shoes and ridden a bicycle in them (and chances are that you have if you're bothering to read this blog) then you know that structure is important. You need to feel that the shoe is firmly holding your foot in place on the pedal. You can't have the foot moving around in the shoe during the act of pedaling. You can't have that feeling of the foot rolling off the outside edge of the shoe. These Cannondale shoes did not provide that level of confidence. The leather upper was tough enough to take numerous scuffs and scrapes, and it formed to my foot just fine, but it was too flimsy to hold my foot in place like I needed it to. Why did I buy these shoes in the first place? Two things: money and selection. There was one shop in my rural town that even sold cycling shoes, and of the handful of models they had on the shelf this was the pair I could afford. I had these shoes for 10 years, using them for about 5-6 of those years, until I rid myself of them. That was another 10 years ago. So about 20 years in advancement of cycling shoe technology has come to pass until now when I have purchased my second pair of cycling shoes...the Shimano R086.

I've ridden in these shoes twice now on my current steed, the KHS Montaña Comp which has been modified over the years from a 21-speed hard tail mountain bike into a single-speed urban commuter, and first impression is very good. They offer the necessary amount of support and structure expected in a shoe. The toe box has a generous patch of mesh material to allow for air flow into the shoe and keep the foot cool, yet the end of the toe has enough firmness to protect the little piggies. Three adjustment straps do their job well of fitting the shoe to the foot. The outer sole is made of plastic, hard enough to sufficiently transfer power from the foot to the pedal. I'm not sure a graphite or graphite composite sole is actually necessary in a cycling shoe unless you compete at one of the highest levels of the sport. The fit of the shoe and feel of the interior is very comfortable. For a moderately priced shoe for a recreational rider the Shimano R086 has so far proven to be a good value. And of course they look pretty damn cool with their black on white color scheme.

No Dice

What we have here is a very nice lugged steel fork with a polished crown. It is part of the Soma Stanyan frame and fork set. I saw this on the Soma Fabrications website and thought it would be a very nice alternative to the full carbon fork over which I am having second thoughts. Knowing it is made for the Stanyan frame I sent off an email to Soma anyhow inquiring if the fork can be purchased individually. It doesn't hurt to ask. Here is my inquiry verbatim:

  To Whom It May Concern,

   I'd really love to have the polished, lugged fork that comes with the 
  Stanyan frame for my Smoothie. Do you sell that fork separately?

  Kevy

A few days later I received a response from Soma which was simply one sentence:

  Sorry we don't right now.

Well, that certainly answered my question.

Busted!

This is not a photo of a bike I own. This image is taken from the entertaining blog Busted Carbon which showcases cases of carbon failure in events of crashes, flying debris or even simple JRA (just riding along) scenarios. This picture and the many others at Busted Carbon illustrate why I will not have a carbon frame. I never want to be on a bike when the frame snaps like that. The odds are in your favor that it will not happen, but still if and when it does pray to your God that you come out of it in one piece. This damage isn't repairable. At least not worth your efforts to repair. As is testified to by some of the owners of these frames, the manufacturer isn't so willing to replace the frame either. Good chance you could be SOL. A steel frame will endure most of the crash and smash situations it's carbon cousin wont. I haven't been 100% on the carbon fork I bought for my Soma Smoothie, and seeing some of the examples at Busted Carbon has me closer to opting for a steel fork instead. The weight difference between the two doesn't mean much to me. The lack of options in a 1-1/8" threadless steel fork is the problem.

It Wasn't Supposed To Be Like This

This bottom bracket is where I make the major compromise on the Soma Smoothie build. The pre-built bikes on the sales floor of the local dealership require a variety of compromises. They will have some good components, but not the ones I prefer. Hence this whole bike build thing. Faced with my extremely tight budget for this project I just might have to cut a corner somewhere. Ironically (or is it coincidentally?), those pre-builts are great for a tight budget. The Record crankset I bought came with a complementary Token brand bottom bracket which seems will do the job just fine, but I've had designs on a much higher quality option like a Phil Wood or Campy Record. Something that will turn like butter and turn, and turn, and turn for a long time. For the time being though this little brick will have to suffice. Now I'm no weight weenie but this is clearly a heavy sucker, weighing in at 213g (.47lbs). Initially, I don't think I'll be effected much by the extra weight, but I will eventually be relieved to have the inevitable upgrade. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be a piece of crap. On second thought it is probably worth the money to at least invest in a higher quality BB, not top of the line necessarily, but better than this. Could save me some grief.

Something Askew: Shimano Dura Ace Skewers

Am I the only one who would spend weeks searching for just the right skewers? I guess most would just take the first acceptable option. But since I have the time to be picky, I will. My reasoning is as simple as I just wanted something classic looking. And as with all the other parts I've selected for the Soma Smoothie I didn't want to end up with a choice with which I wasn't absolutely satisfied. There are many nice skewers on the market designed to be pretty, practical and functional, but nothing really captured my longing for old-school-ish aesthetic than the Shimano Dura-Ace with its updated version of the skewers that your daddy and grand-daddy had on their wheels. They're sleek, shiny and understated. The problem I came up against was they are one of the more expensive products of their kind. With a little patience though I was able to secure a rear skewer and then a couple of weeks later completed the set with a front companion, both new, and both on eBay for half the retail price. Done deal and I'm very satisfied with the result.

Totally Not Tubular

What a dry spell since my last blog post! You really gotta be motivated with ideas and subject matter to write about in order to keep a well maintained blog. If you're not producing a couple of entries per week the search engines wont even recognize your blog. The purpose of this exercise has been to journal the process of building a new bicycle from square one, piece by piece, and record my thoughts and experiences throughout. And what could make following my chronicle of the venture interesting is the fact that I've never done this before. That is build a bicycle from the ground up...but also keep a blog as well. It's been a challenge though authoring a worthwhile read when the bicycle build is so drawn out and having not much to write about in the meantime.

Entering into the wheel phase of the Soma Smoothie build I had the opportunity to choose tubular tires over clinchers, which I've ridden on my whole life. Those who have tubulars will say there is a noticeable difference in ride quality. They will praise their superiority. Despite this there are good reasons to go with clinchers. To begin with, I am a recreational rider. I doubt the improvement in quality of ride will benefit me much. The performance level of tubulars is appropriate for professionals and avid racers, not really this "soul rider". Second, when I have a flat on the road somewhere far from home I'd much rather have the relative ease of an inner tube change than be faced with the uncertainty of whether or not a sealant will hold up in a tubular tire, or riding the rest of the way home with a replacement tire held on by what ever glue is remaining from the original. I'm sure one day I'll have a second set of wheels and learn of the joys and frustrations of tubulars, until then my primary, singular set of wheels will have clinchers.