Topcap for the Monster

With the fat bike coming along so nicely I decided It needed a bit more bling.  I looked around he web for a purple top cap.  What I found was pretty disappointing.  Most of them were from overseas and just plain purple top caps.  I had remembered seeing a place that did custom top caps.  You submit your design and they engrave it for you.  So again I headed back to the web and found a few places and finally decided to give Kustomcaps.com a try.  After I found there downloadable template with the helpful instructions I opened up Illustrator and went to work.  I had the basics to work from.  If it was to be a Purple People Eater.  It had to fly, have one big horn and one big eye.  I had a few sketches I had done earlier.  They were more for a illustration that I want to do on the front fork.  However they would be a good starting place for my design.

  

So I printed out a bunch of the templates side by side on a piece of paper.  Then I started sketching again.  Getting the little monster to conform to the space given.  I had laid out six templates.  I figured I'd fill all six and get the little devil out of my system.

 

I then took a few of these in to Illustrator and made a functional design out of them.  I took my three favorite.  Top right, Bottom left and Middle left.  Then I went a step further and put them on a purple top cap.  Using Photoshop it wasn't that hard.  I also found a gold binder bolt.

I decided I liked the one with the Narwhal like horn.  So I packaged up the AI file just the way they asked and sent it off.  Now when I sent it off I didn't expect such a quick turn around.  I must have sent it off at about 10am in the morning.  By 4pm in the afternoon it was done and on it's way to me.

Not too far off of my photoshop job.  I like it.  I think it'll make a great top cap.  When I get it and get it on the Alubooyah I'll take some more pics.

Present state of Phat

Getting the Chris King headset installed this weekend was a .... well hard.  I had to modify the headset a bit to get it to fit correctly.  So right now I need to finish off the brake routing, add the rotors and tighten everything down.  I may have to bleed the brakes I'm not sure.  The drive train needs a chain of which I have two.  Need to measure it out and get it on.  Need to run cables and adjust both derailleurs.  I need to get my fatty Strippers in and get both tires running tubeless.  Add some grips to the "Ugly White" bar, that will be taken off the minute I get enough dough to get a purple bar.  Then fit the whole thing to my riding position.  Not sure exactly what that will be on a fat bike but I have plenty of adjustment in the seat and 3-4 stems I can try out as well.  It's not together yet but it's getting closer.  Eventually I want to paint the front fork purple and get some other purple bits for it.  Time and a bit of money.

For the love of bikes...

Ya know why I like bikes? I think it has to do with there simplicity. I mean even my Turner Full suspension mountain bike is pretty simple. Two wheels, two cranks, some other pretty simple bits add it all together and you get a bike. If you just look at the bike with out riding it all the politics and BS in the world just seem to fade away. That's with out even throwing a leg over it. If you get on it and ride, you enter a new world. Spin those cranks, navigate that road. The old fades away and a new reality comes into existence for a little while. This is why I work on my own bikes. This is why I ride. This is why I love bikes.

Alubooyah

Well it was bound to happen.  The temperatures dip and I'm writing blog posts again.  This one's kinda big...literally.  Against the wishes of my mother and girlfriend I bought into the whole fat bike thing.  About a month ago I was looking at Craigslist in Denver.  Saw an ad for a Alubooya.  Didn't think anything of it.  Then again a week ago I was looking at Craigslist again.  Low and behold what's still there?  Yep you guessed it, the Alubooya.  I don't usually low ball people but I figured..what the heck.  Well here it is.  Almost all the bits for a full fat bike.

My Summer so far...

Well it's been awhile since I've posted so I figured I'd try to sum up a bit.  Sort of a photo remembrance.

It seems to always come up very quickly, but Joab did well in the Gowdy Grinder.  Two loops of Stone Temple at Curt Gowdy State park.  He would have done really well if he wouldn't have flatted on his second lap.  I'm proud of him he did well.

These were from the WNBC MTB camp out.  There were only a few of us but hopefully it'll grow with time.  Clifford is still a great rig to haul stuff camping.

Simon, my buddy from Canada stopped by for a short ride.  It was good to see him.

I've been trying to get some good rides in.  Both road and gravel.

We lost some good friends this summer also. 

That's about it really.  Nothing super exciting.  How's your summer going?

Back to Jones

I've been fighting what bars to have on my Yipsan.  I've thrown a ton of bars on this thing.  The latest was a German almost Jones bar.  It had a weird rise and with a long stem slammed I still feel like I was sitting upright.  So I found a great deal on another Full Jones bar this time.  However I am trying out ESB grips.  Which right now are working really well.

German Jones like bar thing

New Jones bar with ESB grips.

January 27th gravel ride.

Well the forecast was for sunny skies and little to no wind today January the 27th, 2015.  When I saw that sunny skies equaled 70+ degrees I knew I had to get out and ride.  So when the clock struck 2pm I was out the door.  Got home put on my garb and was gone by 3pm.  I'd pre programmed a route at work.  Twenty seven miles should be enough for this "Not yet in shape" bod.  It didn't start cooling off till about half way thru the ride.  Then with about 8 miles left it got darn chilly.  I'll have to edit my original route because I used some of Garmin's roads....which aren't actual roads.  It was a great ride however.