2/14/13

Puerto Rico is a beautiful island. Much of it is covered with tropical rain forest.  June and I spent most of a week recently on the other part of the Island.  Not quite desert, but hot and arid.  Mid to high 80s in the winter, few showers while we were there.  Dry grasses, cactus, dry shrubs, most birds came out only at night. White limestone and bleached coral everywhere.  Beautiful, but in a stark and unfamiliar way.  I felt far from home.  Glad for that though since there were a few snow and ice storms while we were away.

When we arrived in San Juan at the beginning of our trip, I was nervous, apprehensive, feeling very much out of my element.  Those who know me know that I am a home body.  I like my ducks in a row.  I get nervous when I don’t know what I am doing, where to go, how to do stuff, can’t speak the language.

Our last night at Copamarina, we drove further west, got lost, found our way and got dinner in a tourist and fishing village.  The Mofongo was great. (the wine was terrible)  The return drive to the resort in the dark of a moonless night found us lost again, then found, again.  Funny, no worries once we were lost though.  I should have at least been frustrated if not concerned.

On that drive over to the fishing village, we passed at least five “serious” cyclists.  They were doing their training in the evening cool.  We hadn’t seen a cyclist riding a race bike on our trip until that drive.  And that was the moment I finally, completely relaxed.  Far from home, ducks all out of kilter, strange country, a language that I am not even passable with.

But cyclists, people who love what I love.  Doing what I love to do.  Home.  Anywhere we all ride, it’s home.

1/6/13

FORGET IT

It’s usually not that bad.  Thinking back over the last few years there is always at least one winter ride, usually more, when I feel as though I’ve never ridden a bike before.  The really humbling ones require that I not ride for a few weeks beforehand, that the ride has significant hills and that it is at least chilly.  Maybe below 40 or so.  When the stars align, it gets ugly.  It has been a number of years since I bonked, so that is usually not the black hole I find myself in during those rides.  I hydrate well, so you wouldn’t think I’d cramp.  Me neither.  

When I do begin to cramp, my MO is to excuse myself from the group and whimmel home on my own.  Not much fun, but it is surely better for the group and less painful for me since backing way off usually reduces the cramping to a manageable level.  

So you ask; what happens on unfamiliar roads, with folks who won’t abandon the old one to an ice flow?  What happens is yesterday.

Cloudless.  Almost no wind.  Most of the ice was melted off of the dirt roads.  Beautiful.  Friends, good riders.  Only forty miles in the plan, and that’s all there was when we finished.  With 6500 feet of climbing.  With one ride in my legs in the three weeks since I got sick.

The cramps began after about twenty-five miles.  Just those little twinges that raise the red flag.  Five miles later the big ones started.  Another few miles and any climbing over thirty seconds brought them on full force.  Worse than the pain was the frustration that my legs were not my own to control.  The few muscles I could still control were full-on just to generate 175 watts while the others were working at cross purposes.  I thought; just shut up!  And the other riders wouldn’t leave me to die on the ice flow.

Off the bike, both legs completely seized for a few minutes before letting me go and walk again.  Brad’s stew was amazing and the chips and dip that Bill had been promising were the ticket.  

Every damn year.  And I know how to fix it.  Hell, all I have to do is ride a couple of times a week.  But this time of year is when I can get more work done than I can in the summer.  So there you go.  

I’m told that women usually “forget” the worst of the pain of childbirth shortly after their child is in their arms.  Leg cramps can’t compare … but getting back on my bike causes me to forget the pain as well.  So it is with all the pain that cycling can bring.  Broken bones, dislocated shoulders, road rash, screaming muscles, burning lungs.  It all goes away on that next cloudless, calm, beautiful day.

12/12/12

OLDER AND WISER?

As I approach my 60^th birthday I find that I don’t feel my age.  I’ve heard from many of my elders that while they feel the physical effects of the years that have past, they feel much younger within their minds.  I am beginning to approach the time when the way I feel inside is not the way I will appear to other people.  For now, it seems as though a lot of people think that I am younger than I actually am.  I’m not sure that this is a good sign though.  It is nice that people think of me as younger than I am, but there may be negative reasons for that view.  Yesterday evening brought one of those telling examples of my immaturity into very clear focus.

I needed to run a couple of errands and I figured that doing them on my bike would allow me to kill two birds with one stone.  I needed to stop in at a friend’s in Emmaus, and on the way back I could then pick up a fifty pound bag of glass beads for our sand blaster.  Great idea.  Or maybe not.  I got my backpack out of the attic closet, cut the check for the glass beads and I was off.  The trip down to Emmaus and then over to the sandblasting supply was lovely.  Cool clear afternoon ride.  What could be better?  After loading the bag of glass beads into my backpack I began to feel a bit concerned.  I had increased my weight on the bike by about 35%.  But I had committed myself to getting home at this point so off I went, kind of.  My weight distribution on the bike was now way off and I felt like I was five again as I wobbled across the gravel parking lot.  At the stop sign up the street my saddle rails broke.  I balanced the saddle shell on top of the seat post for the last five or six miles home. 

I am truly lucky to have made it home at all.  Really really stupid. 

Christ, I am almost sixty!  Would a car have been so bad?  Well maybe.  But when I got back I actually weighed the bag of glass beads.  Not sure what happened, but it came in at about sixty-five pounds.  I can see a twenty year old or even a thirty year old doing something like this but sixty?  I’m not sure what the lesson is here.  Maybe next time I will make a wiser decision.  Likely not though.  Those wiser decisions will only come when I am finally physically incapable of doing such stupid things.  Maybe that is where wisdom comes from … an incapacity to do stupid stuff.  I’m on my way for sure.

8/17/21

Yesterday evening and again this morning I get a pair of “thank-you” notes from recent clients.  Last night’s was from a couple living in Philadelphia who picked up their frames in the spring about a month apart.  The second was from a woman who uses her bike to commute five days a week and spends a LOT of time on a bike.

I am posting this entry, not to get a pair of testimonials up on the interweb, but to illustrate two things.  First, the trio of clients represented are very different riders riding very different bikes in very different ways.  We get all kinds here and with the exception of mountain bikes and recumbents, we build for them all.  Second, what we have been able to do for these three riders is what we live for.  We have been able to make their time on a bike better in a number of ways, sometimes safer, and more memorable.  Reprinted below are the two letters with some identifying information and names deleted for privacy.  And yes, the second letter did bring tears to my eyes when I read it.  We have a great time here at Spectrum.  Thank you everyone for giving us the opportunity to do what we do.

“Tom,

07/11/12

… this time due to changing products and price increasies from DuPont.  These pricing changes effect all of the work that we produce.  New Titanium and Steel frames will see a price increase and frame refinishing prices will go up as well.  

Here is the deal; As DuPont’s prices for the bulk of their products we use have steadily gone up through the years, we’ve tried to hold our pricing as best we could.  The big one just hit though.  We had been using DuPont’s 3440S IMRON-6000 clear system since it first came out a number of years ago.  Great stuff.  Cost about 240.00 per activated gallon.  They’ve discontinued 3440S and we now need to use 8840S.  This stuff is now 350.00 an activated gallon.  ”Holy Shit!” you say.  $350.00 a gallon?  Yup, pretty crazy.  I will admit that it is really good stuff though.  

So, for the new prices, hit the order / pricing sheets on our web site by clicking here. 

I wish that this was not necessary.  We have to stay in business though.  At least we’d like to.

 06/21/12

OK, so here’s the deal, and I should be kicking myself for not zeroing on it sooner.  When I’ve had fisheye issues before, it had almost always come down to a problem with my mixing cups.  Like when Dixie changed their cup liner formula and my paints went nuts years ago.  But since I had new “100% paper” coffee cups, I figured that the cup issue had been solved.  And then each time I found something wrong with my filters or pressurized air system, I jumped on each “answer” as the solution.

Nope.  Gary Prange, the guy who runs Screen Specialty (THE decal manufacturer) wrote me an e-mail once he heard of our problems.  It WAS the cups after all.

Backing up a bit, I am glad that I did all the retrofitting work cleaning up and fixing I did, even though it took a huge amount of time and significant expense.  It surely needed to get done … like a year ago. 

So what gems of wisdom did I get from Gary?  As it turns out, those 100% paper coffee cups are only 99.999% paper.  Along with the paper and some sort of adhesive that holds the seams together, there is a microscopic layer of a silicone compound which lines the cups.  This is where it gets confusing though because the cups were working just fine for me, like for at least a few months, when suddenly they weren’t. 

Garyhad discovered years ago that the silicone layer can be made effectively inert as it seemed to be for me at first.  However, during the cup’s manufacturing process the silicone needs to be cured properly.  I don’t know how they do it, but it clearly does not work all the time. 

Solutions; for now, I hand clean each cup with PrepSol before I use them.  When I use ten or twelve cups a day, it kind of sucks, but it does work.  Ultimately, I want to find an inexpensive source for PETE cups that are the correct size and shape. Gary uses polypropylene cups but my solvents melt them.

My booth is really clean, the air flows better, my pressurized air system is clean and in great shape and I can even see better with clean glass over my booth lighting.  The worst part of this ordeal was not the frames I had to repaint or the additional time and work lost.  It was the anguish of not knowing what was going on and the uncertainty of when I would be able to get going again.  Since the source of the problem was found, I’ve been cooking in the booth.  Jeff has rarely seen me the last couple of weeks.  He just hears the rumble of the exhaust fan upstairs.  

06/08/12

This is just nuts.  It is now over a week that I’ve been trying to nail down what is contaminating our paint system.  

I’ve replaced:

• Primary intake filters
• Secondary intake filters
• Exhaust filters
• Compressor outlet filters
• Paint booth high pressure air supply final filter
• Booth air supply regulator, manifold, quick connects
• Paint gun supply hose
• Paint booth blow-off gun and hose

I’ve cleaned :

• The paint prep room
• The paint booth
• Areas outside the primary filters
• Paint gun, three times, with new gun cleaner.  Completely disassembling the gun each time.

So this morning, I switched from our 100% paper mixing cups to the old standby clear party drink cups.  I first mixed a very small batch of epoxy primer with no reduction.  Eureka!  No fish-eyes.  Next, I added a slow reducer; 8585S.  Still good.  Next, our regular fast reducer; 8485S.  Excellent!  So what’s up?  The paper cups that I had been using, I had been using for six months with no problems.  Did they somehow get contaminated, even though the are stacked, nested upside down?  I hate using the plastic cups for any number of reasons, so my next experiment is to break open a new sleeve of paper cups and see what happens.  Stay tuned …

06/05/12

The day before I left for the Ballers weekend in Virginia, I roasted a bunch of coffee for the campers … until my roaster overheated and caught fire.  I couldn’t get things under control until I’d carried the roaster outside and doused it with a bucket of water.  The problem turned out to be the roaster’s age and a seized motor bearing.  I ordered another roaster.  The shop stunk for a few days from the burned plastic fumes but that appeared to be the only consequences.

I got back home after a few wonderful days on the bike with old and new friends ready to get back in the paint booth full time.  My first work was to finish up the priming of the last three frames in a seven frame batch.  And disaster struck.  As soon as I started shooting Ed’s frame, I saw hundreds of “fish-eyes.”  For a painter, fish-eyes are a clear sign of contamination, either in the paint itself, or on the surface being painted.  I naturally assumed that the fire a few days before had left contamination on the frames and forks around the shop.  No problem, I figured.  Simply replace all the intake and exhaust filters, re-blast Ed’s frame and two others and I’ll be good to go.  

This morning, I did just that.  But just in case, before I began final media blasting, I cleaned out the blasting cabinet and flushed it with new media so that everything would be pristine.  Off to the paint booth with Steve’s fork to prime the steerer with an epoxy base coat.  Horrible, no better!

So it wasn’t the fire.  That turned out to simply be an annoying coincidence.  At least I cleaned up our paint area and replaced all our filters.  So what was going on?  Since I keep all of our primers and paints sealed, contamination of fluids was out.  The only source for contamination left was the compressed air supply.  

We have a five horse rotary vane type compressor and a backup five horse reciprocating Quincy compressor.  We only run the rotary except during maintenance cycles.  It is not rated for breathable air, but its output is cleaner than most reciprocating compressors.  Could our pressure lines have become contaminated?

I had Jeff drain the shop system and open our drain valves strategically located at the low points in the system.  They proved to be completely dry of either water or oil.  Now what?  If the main lines were clean, could small amounts of oil have built up in the gun feeder lines in the booth, or in the booth regulator or final filter?  After Jeff restored pressure to the shop system, I disconnected the gun feeder line from the regulator manifold.  Using a #10 finishing nail, I activated the quick connect outlet from the low pressure side of the manifold.  HOLY SHIT!  Oil!  Lots of it.

So the rest of the day was taken up ordering new hoses, final filter cartridges and disassembling the in-booth supply filter, regulator, manifold, outlet valves and quick connects.  At first I was stumped since the feeder pipe into the regulator, just like the lines in the shop was clean and dry.  It turns out though that the final filter in the booth had done its job so well over the last few years that the replaceable cartridge had absorbed minute amounts of sufficient oil over many hundreds of hours of painting and that it finally could hold no more and began seeping large quantities of oil into the gun feed line once it had finally failed.  It was my fault since I should have replaced  the $22.00 cartridge at least a year ago.  

So the worst of the work is done.  My hands stink of oil and I wait for the new cartridge and gun hose to arrive tomorrow.  I have ordered an extra cartridge to be used in a regular maintenance schedule.  

This is the sort of thing that frustrates us and many very small businesses.  Our systems are so limited and there is never the time to preempt any number of little catastrophes, that we get hit with these things that put us back another day, or two days or a week.  I hate it.  Our customers try to understand what we are and that “stuff” happens, but they properly and understandably want their bikes too.  I just hate it.  Of course, these things hit the cash flow pretty hard as well.  

As Rosanne Rosanadanna used to say; “if it ain’t one thing, it’ another.  

Thanks for reading.

05/30/12

We just got news from Merlin about a price increase in titanium and related manufacturing costs.  We are sorry to have to tell our future clients that we are instituting a price increase, as of today.  Both of our titanium models’ prices are increasing 150.00.  This is the first price increase in our titanium frames in many years … it had to happen some day.  Today is that day.

For those who are currently in our titanium Q, not to worry.  Your price holds where it was when you ordered your frame.  Again, we are sorry to have to make this price change.  Thank you for your decades of support.  We will continue to do our best to earn it going forward.  Now, go ride your bike.

05/07/12

Frustration:

I spoke with a current client earlier today.  He and his wife have known us for many years.  He understands.

He will be getting his new bike in a few more weeks after he gets back from a vacation.  John ordered his new frame way back in September.  It used to be that our long delays were largely a result of supply problems.  Merlin always seemed to have delivery schedule problems from the get-go, and that problem only improved somewhat when the company moved to Ooltewah back in 2000. 

When Merlin decided to end its custom frame fabrication in 2010 and we began working with Seven, delivery times improved significantly in both speed and consistency.  Of course, Seven has always been known for their efficiency and organization along with their building skills.  Wonderful.

So what’s the holdup?  During our chat this morning, John reminded me that that over the last few years it seems that our clients have asked more and more of my skills as a painter.  As the paint work has gotten more complex and time consuming, our deliveries have again slowed.  We continue to survive since more complex paint jobs are more expensive, but delivery times suffer.  And that is the frustration.  We get one bottleneck fixed and another develops.  No easy answers since I am too picky a painter to cut corners. 

Do I work more hours?  When I was younger, that might have been an option.  But at my age, eleven hours of work is pretty much my limit each day.  My family deserves my time and I need to continue riding as well. 

So maybe I should offer full custom paint jobs, as long as they are all black.  Thoughts?