cudak888 

But who wants 531 when you can have gaspipe?

-Kurt

AdventureManCO 

Kurt,

I'm starting to see that there may be hope for your after all.

AdventureManCO 

So I found this thing out in the garage, to be used for the Le Grande. The only question is - is it good enough for the Le Grande?








No, it is not.


So! We need to send it out for a little makeover. What, you may say? Well, I won't give away too many details, but I'll say I'm sort of in a 'Millium Mood', so we are going to see if we can shed some weight and do it in a very stylish way.

The RD is going to take a little trip to the spa, while we focus on other parts of the build. Stay tuned.

jdawginsc 

That really is a pretty color choice. Looks like 53 CTC.

I think you made a wise decision to wake up. My brother Jake and sister Rosa were hoping a change was gonna come in your thinking. And putting fenders on there will help steer you right in the fallin' rain, rather than notice that is your blood down there.

Hey, I just tell it like it is.

Mad Honk 

Ah yes, jdawginsc ,
I have reversed course after a visit to Sister Rosa and will keep the Raleigh in the barn. The voodoo reversal was excruciating and involved a bit of Creole rationality. I have had a bit of gris-gris applied to me and now feel a bit better. I almost sent the group to CO while in a voodoo fog. I am super glad that Sister Rosa was able to set me free from this oppression. I am finally close to back to normal after the voodoo attack Smiles, MH

SJX426 

Stack Height is about 41.5mm.

Obviously the grey color in the picture shows the result of the out gassing of the plastic. I treated it with Black Out which can be found at any automotive store. I think it protects against UV. It doesn't last forever so repeat applications are needed.
The last time I showed this picture was a few years ago mad maybe a couple of decades of pages on this forum. I thought I might keep it in the raw, but others have tried, and corrosion happens. The only way to treat the steel is with WD 40 every couple of years. The frame is intended to be painted BRG with tan saddle and tape.
The bike was disassembled for paint and has been in that state since 2013.
104_PaTrek. on Flickr

AdventureManCO 

If there is just one singular person that I would trust to speak to the durability of any single bicycle related item, it is you. I remember pouring through your Trek 600 rebuild thread and hearing about all your other stuff that broke and couldn't help but thinking 'man this guys breaks a lot of stuff!' but you've got the chops to fix all of it so I have mad respect for what you do.

I think I saw that one for $25 on the bay...I'll give it some thought. For now, we are staying elite/snobby with the Super Record stuff, but eventually we may go 'starvation diet' mode with the bike, to try and lighten it up as much as possible - sort of like trying to dig to China with a spoon.

AdventureManCO 

I have no idea what y'all are talking about, but the jokes and poking fun are all welcomed here Happy Thursday! Updates will abound!

scarlson 

Ha, honored!
I do not know why I break a lot of things. Been that way since I was a kid. I broke a Phil BB and a Record hub flange at age 14! Then moved on to wheels and Blackburn racks before I graduated to frames. Now half the time when I break something I end up finding someone broke it most of the way for me and I just finished it off. Or maybe that's just what I tell myself so I can feel better.

But somewhere along the way I developed an eye for broken things, and It's gotten to the point where my friends get scared when I start looking at their bikes. Sometimes I wonder if I'm like that kid in the sixth sense. You know? I see broken things. People use them just like regular things. They only see what they want to see. They don't even know they're broken.
Like, maybe everything is broken. To some degree. It's just how I see the world now. You know how many people are probably blissfully riding around on Trek 61x frames and forks with cracks in them? Probably all of them! I just haven't seen them yet!

AdventureManCO 

Oh man...

Please for the love of all that is good, lovely, and innocent in the world never get near the Le Grande - it might just fall apart from you looking at it too closely...

AdventureManCO 

Okay!

Well, the build must go on, and I did something today that I've been meaning to do for a while now, and that is send some things out to the 'bike spa'. It turns out AZ has one of the best ones, famous from back in the day, but then closed its doors for a time. But. Rumor has it that it has once again been accepting worthy projects.

Projects like the Huffy.


Therefore, I deduce that if you wish to take advantage of the bike spa, you might have the best luck if you pick yourself up a Huffy







Sending out the 'bike spa' package



I decided to rike to the post office on the 'less-than-the-Le-Grande' bike...which every bike, except the Le Grande, is now the 'less-than-the-Le-Grande' bike. 531 tubing? Less than the Le Grande. Ride 'thrill factor'. Less than the Le Grande. Weight? Absolutely less than the Le Grande.


I decided to take the dirt path back home, and it was a bit of a by-the-seat-of-your-pants ride. Lots of fun. Would have been more fun on the Le Grande, but I'll take it.

noglider 

This thread is so funny. It helps that to get the humor, you need a lot of highly specialized knowledge. But it also means we can't share it with many others.

Mad Honk 

noglider ,
You should be aware that the specialized knowledge is the special sauce that makes this so much fun. The part about the Neville Brothers is just a bit of the fun. By now you should have received the fork for you Lambert frame and there was a secondary gift in the box for you. I am wondering if you even opened the box. smiles, MH

scarlson 

How exactly is that frame held together? Brazed? Welded? Paint doubles as a glue? Brooklyn chewing gum?


I think I have seen better penetration in the MIG welds of a Bosal aftermarket muffler. Actual footage of the Bosal aftermarket muffler factory below..

stoneageyosh

Not to get too technical, but you have to assume that the material used to bond/braze/weld(???) the subject frame could be any of the above. Also, if there was any gas surrounding the tube joints at time of fabrication it is doubtful that it was from a high pressure gas cylinder. More likely it would have been a byproduct from the worker’s lunch.

AdventureManCO 

Who knows! I was telling a friend (sounds like William Wude) about it, and he had maybe thought it was after I had painted the frame, as in, maybe there was an adhesion problem and it showed up recently. Nope! Cracks were there from the start (maybe a factory option???) when I picked it up! I noticed the seat cluster soon after I got the frame, and was pretty concerned about it...but the closer I looked, the more I thought that maybe it was just an artifact due to messy mitering. The top tube does not extend into the seat tube, and of course it is lugless, so it is in effect a small fillet brazed joint. The very edge of that joint, where it looks like a crack is, is the tail end of the top tube, and it looks as though the paint just maybe never made it on there very well, or since it is a high spot, it poked up a bit from the paint and simulated a crack. Or its a crack haha, but after I rode it 100 miles, I sort of forgot about it.

Then! AFTER the 100 miles, I noticed the bottom tube / BB transition. I got concerned for about 2 seconds, and then just started laughing. I mean, it held together, right? I do just think it is the paint, as I have a pretty good visual of that joint from the inside of the BB (LOTS of room to look around from that perspective), and you can pretty clearly see the braze joint, and it looks pretty solid. But, I might have to fly scarlson in to have a look. I mean, better for it to just fall apart now during the build stage, right?

If we assume worst case scenario, and that those truly are cracks...we have a lot going for us right now:

1) It is a Huffy, so expectations = not out of line
2) We know about the 'areas of concern', so we can monitor them for change/growth/miraculous healing
3) If we get a crack, the tubing is thicker than normal AND fillet brazed, so braze repair: A-OK
4) Got a near-matching paint that will cover over any burnt off paint

Therefore, any true, legitimate crack will just be a small speedbump in the blissful journey of Huffydom!

smd4

No matter what anyone says, I think this is the key to happiness.

Mad Honk 

My spin on this is: Paint covers a multitude of sins, including brazing issues and flaws in the tubes. Smiles, MH

AdventureManCO 

Correction: Paint has now covered a multitude of sins, including brazing issues and flaws in the tubes. Although, if I really wanted to cover up all the flaws, I'd have to keep spray painting the frame over and over so much I'd eventually end up at 1 1/8", and wouldn't need to use any adapters anymore

AdventureManCO 

Quick update:

It's been a slow day at the Team Le Grande Racing Headquarters.

Unfortunately, no headset cups (yet!), and since about 1/2 the family is sick, I've been on watch duty for if/when the kids come out and need something, which = no garage time.

But it's all good. I'll find some time tomorrow or Sunday to get out there and redo the engine turning on the BB adaptors, regrease the Campy BB, and throw everything together and get some cranks installed




Now, in the meantime, to keep up with the pointlessness of this thread, I came up with an idea today.

At work, the guys were discussing the Nato Phonetic Alphabet, since we use it when we are on the phone with guys when they call in for tech support and stuff. One of the guys found a 'Redneck' phonetic alphabet, which was pretty funny (X = Ex-wife), and I thought that this is something I needed to do for the Le Grande build, since I may be on the phone with some of y'all and we may need to communicate more clearly.

Therefore, I present to you the 'Le Grande Phonetic Alphabet'. Please use it moving forward, in all pertinent communication with me.

A - Amazing
B - Barge
C - Confente-like
D - Dumpster
E - Elite
F - Floating
G - Gaspipe
H - Huffman
I - Italianesque
J - Jealous
K - Kiloton
L - Liberating
M - Marvelous
N - 'N'credible
O - Offensive
P - Panache
Q - Quick
R - Really Quick
S - Squealy
T - Team
U - Unbelievable
V - Vroom
W - WorldChampion
X - Xcellence
Y - Yowza
Z - Zoom

I'm open to suggestions for modifying, or you can make your own and we'll see whose is better. Best one wins (what, I'm not sure).

Tulok

I took an old Mercier down the massive grade into Garden City, Utah at top speed with those brakes. And probably Walmart universal brake pads. They stopped fine (truly) !
The front fork would flex back noticeably as you squeezed harder and that was scary…

the drive side crank fell off halfway up on the return trip… glad it didn’t happen at 60mph on the way down!

I think the huffy build is neat and I have spent way too long reading it.

Don’t rush the process!

AdventureManCO 

Oh, don't worry...we won't. You can be worried about everything else, and about me (personally), but that is one area where you needn't be concerned We are over 800 posts in and I think I've still just got a nearly bare frame.

Thank you for spenting an inordinate amount of your own, valuable personal time reading through such nonsense. I feel like I should almost apologize.

Mad Honk 

AMCO,
J- Or maybe O- So some more idle chit chat about music that is way off topic. I was invited to a concert tonight on the IU campus put on by some of the students. The student group is the IU Soul Revue that has been around for 60 year now, A great concert and a show that rivals most professional productions. Some of the new music they covered was a bit new to me, but man what a show! The band backing the group up, had six horns, two drummers, two keyboardists, And the band did flawless personnel changes mid show. Now if we can only see some parts changes done with the same efficiency on the Huffy. Smiles, MH

AdventureManCO 

It's a mighty tall ask...you know, 'progress'. Haha. Unfortunately, it's been a little bit of a rough night at HQ w/ some heath stuff, so I'm on sentry duty, which mean no stealing away to the garage tonight. But, let's make some fun out of it while we can.

I think that right now, we have 2 'real' Campy parts on the bike, the shifters and the front derailleur (that sucky cable guide doesn't count).

So, let's do some math (yes, your head will hurt, mine already does).

We are at 848 posts in, with 2 Campy components. That is 424 posts per part. Now, if you figure we still need to attach:

1) Campy Super Record bottom bracket
2) Campy Super Record crankset
3) Campy Super Record rear derailleur
4) Campy Super Record headset
5) Campy Super Record wheelset (yes, I'm generous enough to lump both wheels in together)

That is 5 more parts we'll need to add (I'm being merciful and not counting a Super Record post, although that may come eventually...

848 + (5 x 424) =

848 + 2120 = 2968

Therefore, I predict we'll be at somewhere around 3000 posts when things are all said and done

Now, taking things a bit further, we have 2120 posts to go (on average) for all the Campy to be attached, and only 42 days left to do it in, before the big event on June 3 when the bike will need to be ready. So...

2120 / 42 = 50.47

That is 51 posts per day. So, in order to reach our target, I imagine we'll need quite a lot of BS'ing happing in this thread, far more than previously thought.



This post is 64 days old, so at 848 posts, we're avg'ing about 13.25 posts a day. That's only 26% the rate we truly need. Therefore we are looking at wanting about a 300% increase in complaints, trolling, parody, arguing, and more to keep on schedule. Because, at the current 'BS' rate we are going, it would take us 160 days until all the Campy components are attached, and that just won't do

I'll really need all those lurkers to come through and start complaining about stuff, and then maybe things will start happening.

AdventureManCO 

Oh, and guess what guys! I learned something this evening.

I was watching some bike ad (all I do all day is sit around and watch facebook bike ads) and had a brilliant epiphany! Why in the world would I need to change any parts on the Huffy at all, to lighter, nicer, more well respected components?

My bike is already 'ultralight'.