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Built the Habanero
I don't have a whole lot of review to give yet since I've promised to
ride the bike gentle until the Head Mechanic gets back on Tuesday. I trust the bike shop manager, second mechanic, and trainee not to be blithering idiots. I've known the three of them for quite some time and I also know enough about bikes to see that they didn't make any glaring mistakes but a promise is a promise. My first attempt at anodizing it failed because the 9-volt batteries I'd bought were ****. The second attempt at anodizing it failed because I wasn't willing to complete rewire my friend Jason's e-bike battery pack to get the voltages I did want. The third attempt at anodizing it was performed with an audience of literally dozens in a motorcycle repair shop in a small town outside the Hainan Provincial High Level Sports Training Academy. With clever use of coca cola, tide washing powder, and sandpaper as well as two twelve volt batteries, and some jumper cables, an irridescent purple mottled with blue and bronze was achieved. Unfortunately, despite the cast of many, I was the only person with a camera of any kind (my cameraphone) and very few photos were taken. I then got my old race bike (a second-hand mostly aluminum frame with carbon seatstays and chainstays), slung the frame over my shoulder, and biked to the bike shop. Future plans to eventually get a shiny pretty Chris King headset in a complimentary color and maybe hubs to make wheels to go with were immediately thrown out when it was discovered that the somewhat acceptable Cane Creek headset on the old frame was incompatible with the new frame. Now that I have a very nice brand new FSA headset I'm not especially likely to go around buying a new headset anytime soon. And if I don't have a reason to have a King headset my blingbling purty reason for getting matching King hubs goes away. The mismatched components from being sold a race bike with a handful of old training parts on it were mostly replaced. Per the recommendations of rec.bicycles.tech I went with an Ultegra double. Per the recommendations of the Merida China mechanic I spent a large amount of the Tour of Qinghai Lake geeking with I chose 105 for the brakes and front derailleur. The 105 rear derailleur and 105 ten- speed cassette were chosen for the purely practical reasons of 'being what was in the store at the time'. Although Ultegra brifters were on sale the 105 brifters I already had were barely touched when I got the bike and I decided to keep them...besides which when it comes to brifters I like the handfeel of Dura-Ace better than Ultegra. I also kept the original Shimano 550 wheels that came with the old bike. I also got mixed carbon-aluminum handlebars that have the comfortable flat top found on fancy carbon bars without the fancy price tag, and an oversized carbon stem. I still need a new saddle (on order), a carbon seat-post (on order), a proper seatbolt (on order), and the frame decals. I am not a proponent of custom geometry. I think the whole idea of custom geometry is silly. But Mark at Habanero Cycles was very insistent that I was not a perfect fit for their smallest stock frame and equally insistent that their very first customer in Mainland China ought to get something perfect. I thought this was entirely unneccesary overkill that meant the purchase of The Bike took an extra six months. I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't been so thoroughly insistent. I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't given me such a deep special discount for being the first customer in Mainland China. I would not say that I have an especially short torso but at 5'6" I am short enough to want 'small' in most bikes and because I'm female I'm carrying weight on my chest that makes me want the bars up a little higher. I have, so far, ridden the bike somewhat less than 20km. Slowly. Because I made a promise to the shop not to stress test it until after the head mechanic got back. But wow. Even though this bike is supposed to be the race bike and even though this bike is set-up so that it needs to have the funny shoes and padded shorts ... I have a feeling this bike is going to get more use than the other two bikes. A lot more use. Enough of a lot more use that I may have to follow up on that guy in Shenzhen who does custom steel bikes so that the very nice sport touring set up I have on the other road bike can be used. I won't go so far as to say it is the nicest bicycle I've ever ridden. That remains the bicycle that a member of the Japanese National Team let me try out at last year's Tour of Hainan. But it fits. It fits so well that I'm actually thinking of turning the stem down. My resting position has my hands perfectly on the brake-hoods. Down on the drops is a bit strange feeling because my hands are naturally right there in that bumpy ergonomic hook space and I can't push them forward because they are already where they are supposed to be. -M |
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Built the Habanero
On Sep 30, 3:07 pm, "
wrote: I don't have a whole lot of review to give yet since I've promised to ride the bike gentle until the Head Mechanic gets back on Tuesday. I trust the bike shop manager, second mechanic, and trainee not to be blithering idiots. I've known the three of them for quite some time and I also know enough about bikes to see that they didn't make any glaring mistakes but a promise is a promise. My first attempt at anodizing it failed because the 9-volt batteries I'd bought were ****. The second attempt at anodizing it failed because I wasn't willing to complete rewire my friend Jason's e-bike battery pack to get the voltages I did want. The third attempt at anodizing it was performed with an audience of literally dozens in a motorcycle repair shop in a small town outside the Hainan Provincial High Level Sports Training Academy. With clever use of coca cola, tide washing powder, and sandpaper as well as two twelve volt batteries, and some jumper cables, an irridescent purple mottled with blue and bronze was achieved. Unfortunately, despite the cast of many, I was the only person with a camera of any kind (my cameraphone) and very few photos were taken. I then got my old race bike (a second-hand mostly aluminum frame with carbon seatstays and chainstays), slung the frame over my shoulder, and biked to the bike shop. Future plans to eventually get a shiny pretty Chris King headset in a complimentary color and maybe hubs to make wheels to go with were immediately thrown out when it was discovered that the somewhat acceptable Cane Creek headset on the old frame was incompatible with the new frame. Now that I have a very nice brand new FSA headset I'm not especially likely to go around buying a new headset anytime soon. And if I don't have a reason to have a King headset my blingbling purty reason for getting matching King hubs goes away. The mismatched components from being sold a race bike with a handful of old training parts on it were mostly replaced. Per the recommendations of rec.bicycles.tech I went with an Ultegra double. Per the recommendations of the Merida China mechanic I spent a large amount of the Tour of Qinghai Lake geeking with I chose 105 for the brakes and front derailleur. The 105 rear derailleur and 105 ten- speed cassette were chosen for the purely practical reasons of 'being what was in the store at the time'. Although Ultegra brifters were on sale the 105 brifters I already had were barely touched when I got the bike and I decided to keep them...besides which when it comes to brifters I like the handfeel of Dura-Ace better than Ultegra. I also kept the original Shimano 550 wheels that came with the old bike. I also got mixed carbon-aluminum handlebars that have the comfortable flat top found on fancy carbon bars without the fancy price tag, and an oversized carbon stem. I still need a new saddle (on order), a carbon seat-post (on order), a proper seatbolt (on order), and the frame decals. I am not a proponent of custom geometry. I think the whole idea of custom geometry is silly. But Mark at Habanero Cycles was very insistent that I was not a perfect fit for their smallest stock frame and equally insistent that their very first customer in Mainland China ought to get something perfect. I thought this was entirely unneccesary overkill that meant the purchase of The Bike took an extra six months. I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't been so thoroughly insistent. I wouldn't have done it if he hadn't given me such a deep special discount for being the first customer in Mainland China. I would not say that I have an especially short torso but at 5'6" I am short enough to want 'small' in most bikes and because I'm female I'm carrying weight on my chest that makes me want the bars up a little higher. I have, so far, ridden the bike somewhat less than 20km. Slowly. Because I made a promise to the shop not to stress test it until after the head mechanic got back. But wow. Even though this bike is supposed to be the race bike and even though this bike is set-up so that it needs to have the funny shoes and padded shorts ... I have a feeling this bike is going to get more use than the other two bikes. A lot more use. Enough of a lot more use that I may have to follow up on that guy in Shenzhen who does custom steel bikes so that the very nice sport touring set up I have on the other road bike can be used. I won't go so far as to say it is the nicest bicycle I've ever ridden. That remains the bicycle that a member of the Japanese National Team let me try out at last year's Tour of Hainan. But it fits. It fits so well that I'm actually thinking of turning the stem down. My resting position has my hands perfectly on the brake-hoods. Down on the drops is a bit strange feeling because my hands are naturally right there in that bumpy ergonomic hook space and I can't push them forward because they are already where they are supposed to be. -M Can you explain the anodizing? Sounds interesting! |
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Built the Habanero
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#4
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Built the Habanero
On Oct 1, 5:46 am, Zoot Katz wrote:
On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:57:10 -0700, wrote: Can you explain the anodizing? Sounds interesting! Basically you run a current through the piece submersed in a non-conductive tank of electrolyte solution. Different voltages produce the different colours. http://mrtitanium.com/anodizing.html -- zk Mmmm, got any pics of the effects on a bike frame? Would this have any detrimental effects on the frame? Donga |
#5
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Built the Habanero
On Oct 1, 11:43 am, wrote:
On Oct 1, 5:46 am, Zoot Katz wrote: On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:57:10 -0700, wrote: Can you explain the anodizing? Sounds interesting! Basically you run a current through the piece submersed in a non-conductive tank of electrolyte solution. Different voltages produce the different colours. http://mrtitanium.com/anodizing.html You don't even need to have a tank. You can clip one electrode to one end of the frame and wrap an electrolyte solution (in my case Coca Cola mixed with Tide soap powder) soaked cloth around the other electrode and 'paint' with it. Mmmm, got any pics of the effects on a bike frame? Only good pics I have (so far) of the effects on a bike frame are professionally done by an artist who specializes in anodizing titanium bike frames. My favorites are these two: http://www.titaniumarts.com/media/bi...no/planets.jpg http://www.titaniumarts.com/media/bi...o/splatter.jpg Would this have any detrimental effects on the frame? Only if you manage to monumentally screw up. But It would be difficult to screw up sufficiently enough to actually damage the frame. I've got a small raised spot on the downtube near the water bottle cage from the drop of molten titanium that came off of the top tube when I didn't notice that the cloth wasn't completely wrapped around the electrode and I managed to make a spark. This can be sanded off and is no problem. It's covered by the water bottle cage and I don't care. The corresponding mini-dimple on the top tube, however, is ... annoying ... and I am currently in search of a solution for making it invisible. One thing about anodizing though is that it produces an oil on water mottled look. The artist Leni Fried says that "[she] find[s] the effect to be too subtle [and] usually recommend[s] doing a series of fades, patterns, images and graphics so the frame has more contrast and areas of interest." Personally I think her fades, patterns, images and graphics are beautiful but too much. I'm a 'less is more' kind of person and when I finally set brush to paper (or coca cola to bike as it were) I didn't sufficiently trust my skills to try doing patterns. As it is my bike is a irridescent 24 volt purple with a bunch of places where I then scratched the frame up with sand paper and re-anodized it an irridescent 12 volt gold. Even if you were to dip-anodize a whole bike frame to get exactly the same wavelength all over the bike you'd still end up with a subtle mottled look because different parts of the frame are farther or closer away and are reflecting different light. So far I've only had two people say that they don't like the color of my bike. One of them thinks it looks like the color of oil on water. The other one says purple is an inherently ugly color. -M |
#7
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Built the Habanero
On Oct 1, 11:50 pm, "
wrote: On Oct 1, 11:43 am, wrote: On Oct 1, 5:46 am, Zoot Katz wrote: On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:57:10 -0700, wrote: Can you explain the anodizing? Sounds interesting! Basically you run a current through the piece submersed in a non-conductive tank of electrolyte solution. Different voltages produce the different colours. http://mrtitanium.com/anodizing.html You don't even need to have a tank. You can clip one electrode to one end of the frame and wrap an electrolyte solution (in my case Coca Cola mixed with Tide soap powder) soaked cloth around the other electrode and 'paint' with it. Mmmm, got any pics of the effects on a bike frame? Only good pics I have (so far) of the effects on a bike frame are professionally done by an artist who specializes in anodizing titanium bike frames. My favorites are these two: http://www.titaniumarts.com/media/bi...o/splatter.jpg Would this have any detrimental effects on the frame? Only if you manage to monumentally screw up. But It would be difficult to screw up sufficiently enough to actually damage the frame. I've got a small raised spot on the downtube near the water bottle cage from the drop of molten titanium that came off of the top tube when I didn't notice that the cloth wasn't completely wrapped around the electrode and I managed to make a spark. This can be sanded off and is no problem. It's covered by the water bottle cage and I don't care. The corresponding mini-dimple on the top tube, however, is ... annoying ... and I am currently in search of a solution for making it invisible. One thing about anodizing though is that it produces an oil on water mottled look. The artist Leni Fried says that "[she] find[s] the effect to be too subtle [and] usually recommend[s] doing a series of fades, patterns, images and graphics so the frame has more contrast and areas of interest." Personally I think her fades, patterns, images and graphics are beautiful but too much. I'm a 'less is more' kind of person and when I finally set brush to paper (or coca cola to bike as it were) I didn't sufficiently trust my skills to try doing patterns. As it is my bike is a irridescent 24 volt purple with a bunch of places where I then scratched the frame up with sand paper and re-anodized it an irridescent 12 volt gold. Even if you were to dip-anodize a whole bike frame to get exactly the same wavelength all over the bike you'd still end up with a subtle mottled look because different parts of the frame are farther or closer away and are reflecting different light. So far I've only had two people say that they don't like the color of my bike. One of them thinks it looks like the color of oil on water. The other one says purple is an inherently ugly color. -M Recently I built up an older Litespeed Classic into an SS/fixie and it is so much fun, my road and MTB have been sitting in the garage. I had been thinking to strip it soon for some new stickers and a new headset. I wonder if I'm game to do some anodizing! It's already the coolest commuter in town, but anodized (like the pics) it would rule. Purple an ugly colour? Obviously this is a person with issues. Donga |
#8
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Built the Habanero
Here's a good link for small anodizing jobs with stencils:
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/3...cbccdrcrd.html |
#9
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Built the Habanero
On Oct 2, 11:11 am, wrote:
On Oct 1, 11:50 pm, " wrote: On Oct 1, 11:43 am, wrote: On Oct 1, 5:46 am, Zoot Katz wrote: On Sun, 30 Sep 2007 05:57:10 -0700, wrote: Can you explain the anodizing? Sounds interesting! Basically you run a current through the piece submersed in a non-conductive tank of electrolyte solution. Different voltages produce the different colours. http://mrtitanium.com/anodizing.html You don't even need to have a tank. You can clip one electrode to one end of the frame and wrap an electrolyte solution (in my case Coca Cola mixed with Tide soap powder) soaked cloth around the other electrode and 'paint' with it. Mmmm, got any pics of the effects on a bike frame? Only good pics I have (so far) of the effects on a bike frame are professionally done by an artist who specializes in anodizing titanium bike frames. My favorites are these two: http://www.titaniumarts.com/media/bi...pghttp://www.t... Would this have any detrimental effects on the frame? Only if you manage to monumentally screw up. But It would be difficult to screw up sufficiently enough to actually damage the frame. I've got a small raised spot on the downtube near the water bottle cage from the drop of molten titanium that came off of the top tube when I didn't notice that the cloth wasn't completely wrapped around the electrode and I managed to make a spark. This can be sanded off and is no problem. It's covered by the water bottle cage and I don't care. The corresponding mini-dimple on the top tube, however, is ... annoying ... and I am currently in search of a solution for making it invisible. One thing about anodizing though is that it produces an oil on water mottled look. The artist Leni Fried says that "[she] find[s] the effect to be too subtle [and] usually recommend[s] doing a series of fades, patterns, images and graphics so the frame has more contrast and areas of interest." Personally I think her fades, patterns, images and graphics are beautiful but too much. I'm a 'less is more' kind of person and when I finally set brush to paper (or coca cola to bike as it were) I didn't sufficiently trust my skills to try doing patterns. As it is my bike is a irridescent 24 volt purple with a bunch of places where I then scratched the frame up with sand paper and re-anodized it an irridescent 12 volt gold. Even if you were to dip-anodize a whole bike frame to get exactly the same wavelength all over the bike you'd still end up with a subtle mottled look because different parts of the frame are farther or closer away and are reflecting different light. So far I've only had two people say that they don't like the color of my bike. One of them thinks it looks like the color of oil on water. The other one says purple is an inherently ugly color. -M Recently I built up an older Litespeed Classic into an SS/fixie and it is so much fun, my road and MTB have been sitting in the garage. I had been thinking to strip it soon for some new stickers and a new headset. I wonder if I'm game to do some anodizing! It's already the coolest commuter in town, but anodized (like the pics) it would rule. Leni Fried style anodizing requires a LOT of work. But coca cola and tide (borax would be preferrable but I couldn't find it) is pretty alright. Purple an ugly colour? Obviously this is a person with issues. Yep. One of my housemates[1] has also pointed out that the color is not especially even, found every single place where I made a short circuit and sparks (we're talking near invisible damage), and let me know that my saddle isn't actually level[2]. He also critiqued the mechanic's skill[3] with regards to how my cables are routed on the handlebars. -M [1] I don't usually have housemates that aren't four footed and furry but, my Haikou job with the bike race has me sharing an apartment with two others including one of the Chinese commissaires. [2] He pointed this out to me on a different bike around this time last year. I completely failed to see anything wrong at that time but dutifully made the incremental change and the bike got lots more comfortable. I can only seen the non-level-ness of this saddle when I stare at it for a long time and even then it isn't easy (for me) to notice. [3] Said mechanic having been employed by Shimano for a whole six days at this point I don't really expect perfection and, as previously mentioned, am already treating the bike light until the head mechanic gets home. |
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Built the Habanero
On Oct 2, 12:16 pm, wrote:
Here's a good link for small anodizing jobs with stencils:http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/3...cm1000004eecbc... I know about the link. So far I'm not doing a very good job with getting stencils I like. -M |
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