Bling!!!

Just for grins I decided to hit this arm with some polishing compound before stopping for the day. Real happy with this. Now I'll start in on the other one.

More crank work

It's no surprise that when I went back down to the garage today, I wasn't happy with the work that I had done yesterday. I noticed a few spots that needed more sanding with 150 grit. So yesterday's efforts were in vane as I roughed things up again. Here's after I was really done with the 150.

This is after 220 and some 400 wet sanding. At this point I had one arm in a bench vise and noticed 2 nice gouges in it after repositioning it. Back to 150 again and no more vice.

I also decided that, while I was re-doing things with 150, that I'd go back and touch up some gouges that I had lazily left on the back of the crank arms and then I decided to take off the factory stamping as well.

This is how I just left this arm. This is after a ton of 600 wet sanding, and then I jumped straight to 1500 wet. Then I used a buffer that I mounted in the vice and used rubbing compound. This is pretty good but not at all what I was hoping for. I still have a long way to go but they're gonna look good.

Cranky

These XTR 960 cranks arrived today. These were purchased for a bike build that I've had dancing around my head for several months now. I bought them strictly to run singlespeed. The previous owner had done a decent job of polishing them but then I got hold of a hacksaw.

I lopped off what I didn't want.

Then I spent the rest of the day with a file and sandpaper. There were a few deeper gouges that I wanted to get rid of. Because of their location, these were quite tricky.

I was pretty happy with the top 2 arms here. The lowers were a real good time (especially the inside where they meet up with the crank arm). I spent a good hour with some 150 grit sandpaper getting out all of the deeper imperfections and I'm almost there now but decided to take a break. I've always thought these were the sharpest set of cranks. Ever. They will look stunning with a Blackspire ring. I'm hoping I can unload my Cannondale road bike and come up with the frame/fork that I want to run but we'll see if it's meant to be. I'll post more pics of the cranks as I work.

We just got back from my friend Leo's wedding up in Erie, Pennsylvania. I had never been up that way and it was gorgeous. Very green. I was in the wedding party so that's the reason for the tuxedo. If I was not going to live in the mountains, I would absolutely have to be by water and the Great Lakes are like being on the ocean. The weather was fantastic until after the wedding was over and then there was all day thunderstorms. It's been years since I've woken up to rain and thunder and seen nothing but gray skies all day long.

So long

My friend Tim might have someone interested in buying my road bike so it's heading that direction. I hardly used it at all this year and it deserves to be ridden. For some reason, I am unable to do longer than a 2 hour ride on it without having a horrible pain in my upper left arm. This thinning of the herd will allow me to build up another bike. I have something in mind but I'm not letting the cat out of the bag just yet.

I have something on the way from ebay. The transaction didn't go very smoothly so I'm hoping I didn't just toss 100 out the window but we'll see.

The highlight of the day was seeing the cub cruise through the front lawn. My neighbor yelled at some people walking and the race was on as he booked it across the creek in front of the house and then through the field. Him and mom have been hanging out over here for about a month now but I had yet to see either of them. Never gets old.

Update of sorts

So I had to take Bodhi in to the vet for his annual shots. While I was there I thought I'd check in on Hooter the Long Eared Owl. Turns out that the surgery to his left wing didn't fix it because the joint was broken. This meant that they were going to put him down but, at the Golden Hour, they found an educational agency that would take his sassy ass. So he's going to a local woman that does educational presentations in the area here (at Mueller State Park, the Wolf Sanctuary, etc.). So I'll get to see him again once I find out when he'll be making appearances.

I also got a call from my fabulous doctor yesterday. This is odd. When does your doctor ever call you out of the blue? This is the same doctor that did not want me to be on a CPAP machine even after the test results showed huge improvements in my oxygen intake and sleep patterns when on it. Instead, she wanted me to take drugs that would make me wired all day and, hopefully, sleep better at night but never get to the actual root of the problem. This is also the same doctor that wanted me to get a saddle sore cut out. Anyways...I visited her a bit over a week before this year's CTR with a sore throat. They said that since I was already on 1 antibiotic for the saddle sore (Cephalexin) that there wasn't any reason to do another for the throat. They also said the results were negative for Strep. So yesterday she asks if I'm still feeling bad and does my throat still hurt. Well.....yes. It does actually. That's because the results (the real ones I guess) really indicated that I did (do) have Strep. So now I'm on Amoxicillin which is probably what I should have been on the first place. I am now looking for a new doctor.

More cool bikes

I stole this picture of Eric's bike from his blog. It takes a lot for me to get a little jealous of someone else's ride. I love what he's done here. The Wolfhound is not a bike that I've ever liked. I'm just not all that into crazy bends in tubes (unless it's more traditional like a McClung, Pereira, or Retrotec kinda thing). I do find fillet brazed bikes to be really attractive though. The rest of the build is an Eriksen post, Blacksheep fork and mustache bars, and Industry Nine wheels. I will admit that, for a few seconds, I did consider tripping him at the start of the CTR, spraying Tri-Flow in his eyes and then punking him for his wheels but I kept it classy. It's probably a good thing I didn't do it too because I recently found out that he has a clinic over in Pbville that practices Traditional Chinese Medecine and I'm going to see if he can help me out with my neck.

Absolutely lovely build Eric. It's inspired me and, although I love my Orbea and they will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands, I am considering building up something over the winter. Details forthcoming.