Dear List:
So here's this winter's project, a Bob Jackson frame taken in trade from fellow giraffe, David White. Alas, Dave, when you sent it to me, it was a garish orange and yellow, and caused pain to my retinas, so I just had to send it to Matt Assenmachers for a repsray.
http://www.flickr.com/
While the frame was getting ready for paint I also took a 6 arm set of Gipiemme cranks on trade, and I certainly needed a frame for them. But if we were going to have oddball cranks, shouldn't all the parts be, well, odd? So this is like a Norman Rockwell April Fools day picture with odd touches all over it, things that worked well, but were, ---- different. Some things you may not see from the pics: the silver half stays and fork legs are paint, not chrome. I love the look of chrome legs, but it's getting so hard to get chrome work done, that I thought we'd go for a tromp l'oeil effect. Then the wheels are NOS bullseye hubs to Velo Orange Diagonale rims, very vintage looking but 100% new, if not exactly modern. Alas, the Suntour Comp V front derailleur protrudes so far to the rear that the originally intended Panaracer 32mm tires didn't fit and I had to use a set of Rivendell Roly Polys to get the rear wheel in without deflating. 17 inch chainstays, too.
Weather has been dreary and wet so I haven't ridden it yet, but I did want to get some pics up.
Thanks go to a wide swath of CR cohorts again, who as always help with these projects. David White, of course for the frame, Robert Clair who donated the NJS Nitto seatpost at last year's cirque auction (I think that was you, Robert) Steve Maasland for the Campy hoods, the fine folks at Velo Orange for new, vintage looking rims and Andy Grout for the Modolo brakes are the gents who spring to mind. I know I'm forgetting many, and lots of these parts came from CR sources, so thank you all for this nice bike.
Harvey Sachs, is this funk worthy?
Tom Adams
Manhattan, KS, USA