Annodization take 2

Well the second round of annodization went much better. There are moments when my high school self would have hit my current self upside the head, and my first swing at annodization was one of those. I wired up the batteries in parallel in attempts to try and add up the voltage. Well, it doesn't quite work that way, and switching to series hookups made all the difference. It was much quicker, you could hear a little crackaling, and could definetly hear hydrogen gas bubbling out from under the paper towel. Sweet. The first picture of the headtube is a bit weird looking because of the flash. I did the whole headtube in the deep blue, and then tried to bring out the "A" headbadge by holding the electrode there longer, thus making it a brighter blue. Sort of worked, I'll have to touch it up in the daylight. The last two pictures show the flames on the toptube, which came out pretty well. A little leaking occured with the stencil, but I'm confident that once I get a good stencil made for the lettering I want to put on, then that problem will be eliminated.

Annodization...part 1

I was really excited to begin annodizing my bike, but so far the results haven't lived up to the hype. I think my biggest problem is lack of voltage. I'm just using 27 volts for now, and I want to do at least 45 next time to try and get a deeper blueish color instead of the yellowish/brown there now. I'm thinking I also need a voltmeter to track how quickly I'm killing the batteries. Anyway, here are some pictures of the first round with the annodization... probably try it again later in the week when I have some more time on my hands. There is some promise though, hopefully in a few weeks time my bike will look faster than me.

Carbon Wheels...

So I finally got my carbone glued up, and it's smooth, and sounds schweet. I've heard carbon wheels ridden around before, but the sound from a carbon wheel sounds like an airplane taking off, which is very different than what a normal aluminum rimmed wheel sounds like. Now it's not all about sound. Style counts too.

Memorial Hall

This past Saturday I was in Philly for the PA state criterium championships. The course was about a 0.6 mile 4 corner standard course. The interesting thing was the fact that you could see the entire course from the center, and the large puddles on the outside or inside of the turns. Right from the gun the rain was pouring down, and there was even a clap of thunder or two. For a moment I thought it might be called, but the weather cleared a bit, and we were able to do the 40 laps.

It was extremely easy to move around in the field, being that the roads were extremely wide and the field wasn't too large (no more than 75 I would say). I stayed up in the top 1/3 for the whole race. About 5 or so laps in I found myself right at the front when a lone dude who had been off the front was caught. I figured now is as good a time as ever, and took a little dig for myself. I was only out for about 3/4 of a lap, but it served as a decent warmup. I didn't let myself slide back more than 5 or 10 spots when I got caught. I've had the habit of letting myself get thrown right to the back of the field when getting caught back in, and I was happy with staying up front this time. The last lap proved a bit more difficult to move up than any of the others (who would have figured) and I ended up getting boxed out going into turn 3. Coming out of turn 3 the guy I was following through, a Cornell kid (who had been pretty sketchy all race) decided to go off into a large puddle and into the field next to the course. I had to ease up for a moment to get around his ass, and that little bit was enough to kick me out of contention. Still very happy with the effort though. Kyle C. was up there and got 15th while Jeff S. flatted with 5 corners to go and wasn't able to get up for the sprint.

I'm looking forward to a hard week of training. My next stint at a paid training ride , or racing as you may know it as, should be at Pieffer. Maybe here I can finally do the 4/5 ; 3/4 combo. Look out.

Worst Speed Ride Ever

Well I did the speed ride yesterday, and it pretty much sucked right from the get go. It was a lot bigger than when I did it two weeks ago, so I was looking forward to trying and sticking around longer. I figured less pulls would mean I could stay in the wheels longer. Well it was also a helluva lot faster I think, so I was off about halfway down 45. Rode by myself for much of it, then caught Frank from Wheelworks, and some other dude caught us, so we worked for a little bit. I took a good hard pull at the front, and then was not able to get onto their wheels again. So I rode the whole way home by myself. I took the shortcut through Merango, but I still didn't catch the group, they must have been flying. I saw the slower group that did the shortcut, and it was pretty big.

Well all of that wouldn't have made it the worst ride ever, just a bit frustrating. But on the way home I also completly broke my left STI lever which had been on the rocks for some time. For now it's stuck in the big ring, and I hope that it stays like that so I can "race" Memorial Hall this weekend.