Back in the garage

Not so long summer is slowly over. This weekend we did a little tour but it may well be the last for this season. It sounds sad but at the same time I'm thrilled because I can dive back into the Shovel project.

What have I done during the summer to advance it? Lots and lots of thinking but not saving money for the parts - shame on me. I wanted to go surfing and to Norway so there went my money. Though it was the plan from the day one since I promised to my wife that the project will not take ALL our money, while it probably will take the most. Building a bike is not that cheap, not in Finland anyway because with the price of the useless frame and the few boxes of parts I could have bought a car that would still run. Didn't need the car did I? But that is my excuse for some things pending - priorities.

Anyway, I said I've been thinking. And the thing I've been thinking about is what kind of bike I want to go for in bit more details. It is soon time for the first decisions which will be about the wheels. I will need to re-use the hubs from the old wheels and what I need to buy are the hoops and spokes. Smart move would be to leave assembling of the wheels to the professionals but similarly it would be way smarter to just to buy a damn bike than trying to make one. So you bet I will be trying myself.

Why are the wheels the first thing to decide and why is it so important? It is because deciding the size of the wheels and putting them as far apart as I intend to (determining the wheelbase) will dictate how the frame needs to be built. So there we go, get the wheels or at least make up your mind. Draw the frame, calculate the right angles, buy big pile of beer and as friends to make a frame jig. Then starts cutting the frame in parts and welding it into new shape.

I'm telling these things as if you would know nothing about bikes. I don't intend to write this to anyone with experience -- what sense that would make for anyone with knowhow to read this. Except for the entertainment of seeing a newbie struggle and learn. If you that's your reason, I'm totally fine with it.

I mentioned some mysterious angles and I'll dive into them in the next post.

Mirror mirror -- you are worth nothing

Oh, I forgot to tell. I installed the mirrors from the project bike to my riding one for the summer. They look pretty but are useless because I can't adjust them so that I would actually see something. Maybe if I flip them upside down or something.

Summer is for riding

Summer in Finland is short and the winter is long. So the winter is time for building and summer is for riding. Also, I have been saving money for the parts and drawing sketches of the frame. More about this at some point but now for something different.

Different bike shows are, of course, good places to meet people, to get ideas and to have some fun.

It has been a damn rainy summer (yeah california, the opposite of what you have), but we have made one trip to Sweden and one to Joutsa. Both happenings were bikes, beer and tent on a field type of scenarios. It's truly amazing what some people can build - it is inspiring in a way but also it makes one wonder about his own skills (or the lack thereof) - but to live is to learn, or to ride or what ever makes you smile and wanting for more. 

Mirror mirror

For the two past couple of visits to our garage I've been working with the riding bike and not the project. The reason is that snow is gone and sun has been shining. Thought right now it's below zero (Celsius, I'm european if you didn't guess - but I'm sure you did) and there might be some more snow to be coming but I want to be ready when the time is right. Anyway, soon I should be getting back to writing about the project again.

The handlebar is on it's place and the electric wiring from controls now runs inside the bar. I did cut all the wires to be able to get them inside and I still have to re-connect them all. The new handlebar is not much higher nor wider than the old one, but now that the wiring runs inside the distance from controls grew longer. It means, that I'll have to see if I can just tin the wires back together or do I need extend them all. Then the only thing left is to hope and check that everything still works.

There was yet another subplot to the story. Since I for sure wont be needing the mirrors for the shovel quite yet I decided to borrow them to the sport. I can return them then after a year or probably two when I might have shovel on the road. These vintage pieces just look much nicer than Sports original ones. But as you can guess, nothing ever works without a little effort. I had to re-do the mounting bolts holding the mirrors because the ones from Shovel were too short for the Sport. But nothing major and it went well while sipping some beer - after all it was a Saturday evening.

Spring is coming

There is not much happening with the project. Frame is stripped and the transmission is still unopened. Though I drained the oil from it to find there was no oil. I'm changing the handlebar to my other bike mostly because there happened to be one extra lying about. Have to drill holes so I can pull the wiring inside. Not that I actually wanted to hide them but it's a structural necessity.

And the bike itself 

But surely there always needs to be a pic about the project no matter how unrelated so here 

And here 

The frame

The frame doesn't look all that rigid. But it's hardly a problem. Otherwise it's close to the time to start to figure out what to do to the frame. Hardtail - probably not but the tail looks bit weird so something needs to be done. Maybe I'll try to dry fit the engine and gas tank and maybe saddle to help envisioning what it could become.

Wrote the text above the pic couple of days ago and now I'm adding this. The more I spend time staring at the frame and looking bike pics on the internet, the more convinced I become that it has to be turned into a hard tail. I wasn't especially for it for couple of reasons, one small being that have so nice looking vintage pair if suspension to go with it. But there is no denying that it'll probably just look so much better as hard tail. There seems to be no obvious way of having suspension there that would look as nice as I'd like to. But I'll reserve a right to change my mind as many times as I want to; especially if I can come up with an installation that would both work and look awesome. 

My gas tank arrived

The person who sold me the project runs a actual bike repair shop. He said that the bike I bought, originally came with a gas tank, but it had some special painting on it and he therefore took the tank to a display at the shop. Too bad I don't have a picture of it and I haven't seen the original tank myself. But hopefully I can visit the shop and take a pic just to have it. Anyway, I got a new tank. I'm going to skip some details here but I had to make a quick decision on what kind of tank I wanted and just said that I wanted a wide one, because that much I knew. And it feels like a right bet.

Well there it is then. It feels almost too easy to start with a clean, smooth tank like this since I've seen how much some people put effort into actually making a good tank out of something that looks like it was hit by a train. But let's not celebrate quite yet and remember how much experience I have on installing any sort of tank. So I'm sure there will be just enough work for me even if I don't have to fix the tank itself, because, let's face it; currently I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do or how it's supposed to be sitting on the frame. But that is just temporary - eventually I will know.