I have a few projects that I want to fund, so out with a few bikes I have.

New ANT Roadster $600.00

• Basic bike
• Coaster brake only
• Lights & Bell
• ANT full suit ring
• 57 x 58cm [perfect for me at 5'7"]
• Down tube paint has a few bubbles in it, but other than that a few hundred miles and it good shape.

This bike was a prototype for a new model I am working on and I am so happy with this bike, that I am moving ahead with the project, based on this geometry and design. Best riding bike that I have ever made. A fun bike to ride, not much to it.

Road bike $2,100.00

• 52x x55cm [fits someone around 5'7" to 5'9"]
• Sloping top tube design with big head tube for up right seating
• Up right stem, but can but I can change for lower drop.
• Shimano 105 10 speed
• 34/50T rings x 12/30 cogs
• currently fitted with 700 x 25 tires with fenders [at 22lbs total]
• Very low miles and in perfect shape

Nice bike and I would be happy to keep it, but I have this project I want to get going with.

Random Fixed gear Roadster to be built $3,000.00

I have a bunch of parts that have been building up for last few years and I am going to turn them into a bike. I plan to make this soon and as a medium sized bike, but if you buy it now I can fit it to you. The parts are already decided, so not much room in that area, but a real nice bike.

• Paul’s rear hub, fixed only. black.
• Sturmey front drum brake hub
• Red rims
• Schwalbe delta cruisers in brown 700 x 35mm
• King HS, 1″ threaded in gold
• ANT stem
• Oxford bars
• Honey Leather tape
• Brooks B72 saddle
• Straight alloy post
• Woodys fenders, compound curve in Leopard wood
• Reverse brake lever
• IQ Cyo Dyno headlamp & battery tailight on fender
• I plan to coat frame and fork dark green #6007 [or buy it now and choose your color]. I could also go with black frame and with cream tires.

If anyone is interesting, please email or call.

January was really busy with frame classes…as well as November and December.

In November & December, I had Michael Brown training to start his frame shop that is called Maestro Frameworks.  Michael is just about ready, actually he is ready, just waiting on his milling machine and alignment table, that I am shipping to him this week.

Michael has been involved with bicycles for a long time. Starting as a road racer in the late 70s, a pro wheel builder and then owned a retail shop in Pittsburgh from 88 to 91…also while working full time as an engineer for a natural gas company. He was offered an early retirement from the gas company and thought this would be his chance to get back into the bicycle business. Michael has also been working as a cycling coach and is well integrated in the Pittsburgh cycling scene.

In January I had a return visit from John  Chisholm  from Halifax, Nova Scotia . John is trying to raise state funds to build a bicycle factory called Halifax Bicycle Works. We built a prototype last year and then built two new prototypes this Jan. Probably another year in the making, but this is pretty exciting stuff.

While John is getting skills to make the prototypes, he is not planning on working in the shop. He just wants to create the operation and be able to provide Canadian made Roadster bicycles…that he can sell in his own shop and distribute. John stays quite busy as a producer of documentary films for National Geographic and other Television projects, as well as a professional musician too!

Then we had Scott’s class where we built a nice set of Roadster frames for he and his wife [sorry no pictures].

The followed up with Josh’s class building his dream bike [and could be for many others]… Custom lugged touring bike, Alfine 11 speed, belt drive, disc brakes, Nitto racks, Versa shifter, VO fenders, Schmidt hub and lights, Mavic A719 rims, Pauls post, Brooks saddle, dual leg stand and a custom stem…also Pitlocks for everything!

Sorry no finished pictures. It was a long week and it was snowing when we finished [indoor bike shots in my shop are really bad]

I am without classes until February 27th. I have a lot of bikes to build and other projects to attend to. A few bikes did not happen in the weeks of Michael Browns class, so I am a bit behind and have a few other shop related fires to put out. I believe that I can get caught in the next weeks up to Feb 27th and get back on track

Here is an easy link to find your representative and call them. and below more information.

This is all such a pain in the ass! So often I just need to work and do not want to take the time to call my representative [and talk to staffer that does not care about me]…but sometimes you just have to do it.

Corporate supporters of Senate 968 (PIPA) and HR 3261 (SOPA) demand the ability to take down any web site (including craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) that hurts their profits — without prior judicial oversight or due process  – in the name of combating “online piracy.”

PIPA and SOPA authors and supporters insist they’d only go after foreign piracy sites, but Internet Engineers understand this is an attempt to impose “Big Brother” controls on our Internet, complete with DNS hijacking and censoring search results. Incredibly, many Congress Members favor this idea.

<RANT>Try to imagine jack-booted thugs throttling free speech, poisoning the Internet (greatest of American inventions, the very pillar of modern democracy), and devastating one of the our most successful industries. Totalitarian, anti-American, massively-job-killing nonsense.</RANT>

Tell Congress you OPPOSE Senate 968 “Protect IP Act” (PIPA) and H.R. 3261 “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA):

• Phone your Member of Congress via nifty Progressive Change app
• Contact Senators who are refusing to meet with constituents about PIPA.
• Reverse Robocall pro-PIPA & pro-SOPA MOC + Lobbyists (More at Ars Technica)
• EFF Congressional Emailer – Oppose Internet Blacklisting (PIPA & SOPA)
• ECA Congressional Emailer - Don’t Censor Our Internet!
• OpenCongress Congressional Emailer – Oppose SOPA
• Generic Congressional Emailer (You’ll need your Zip+4)
• Petition Congress – Protect Innovation, Dump SOPA (Progressive Change )
• Outside the US? Sign Petition Opposing US Censorship of Global Sites (EFF)

Supporters of PIPA and SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corp, TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Rupert Murdoch, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)

Opponents of PIPA and SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX)

Where does your Member of Congress stand on PIPA and SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)

PIPA and SOPA Are Too Dangerous To Revise, They Must Be Killed Entirely 

Congress needs to hear from you, or these dangerous bills will pass – they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from corporations experts say are attempting to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet — recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora’s jar of “chilling effects” and other unintended (or perhaps intended?) consequences.

Don’t believe it? Monster Cable has labeled craigslist a “rogue site,” earmarked for blacklisting and full-takedown under PIPA – resale of stereo cables by CL users reduces Monster ‘s new cable sales. (reddit).

There is still time to be heard. Congress is starting to backpedal on this job-killing, anti-American nonsense, and the Obama administration has weighed in against these bills as drafted, but SOPA/PIPA cannot be fixed or revised — they must be killed altogether.

Sen Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR) are championing an alternative to SOPA/PIPA called Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) that addresses foreign sites dedicated to piracy, without disrupting basic Internet protocols, or threatening mainstream US sites like craigslist.

Tim O’Reilly, a publisher who is himself subject to piracy, asks whether piracy is even a problem, and whether there is even a legitimate need for any of these bills.

Learn more about SOPA, Protect IP (PIPA), and Internet Blacklisting:

• Growing Chorus of Opposition to PIPA and SOPA
• Open Letter against SOPA from 83 Prominent Internet Engineers
• Why SOPA and Protect IP (PIPA) are Bad, Bad Ideas (Techdirt)
• Piracy not a problem, PIPA and SOPA are unnecessary (Tim O’Reilly on GigaOM)
• PIPA and SOPA News (Google News)
• PIPA Wikipedia entry ::::: SOPA Wikipedia entry
• SOPA FAQ (CNET)

Other than trying to stop our elected government from taking away our freedom [or at least our free choice] I have been very busy in the shop [as you can tell by no blog updates since Christmas!].

After this weeks class I will make a big post with updates.

Last Christmas I  wrote a post here, and asked my readers to please send a Xmas card to “Al the van man”.

The outpouring of help was amazing and in the end Al ended up with 450 cards  and gifts from all over the world!

I got a card from Al on Easter and Thanks Giving. I wrote back to him this Thanks Giving and Xmas. I did not ask how his cancer was doing, just wished him well. He sent me a Xmas card and letter telling me that had a bunch of polyps removed, but that was not enough and that he does have colon cancer and this January he was going in to have most of his intestines removed

Al had also written to me with a heart breaking story about his earlier life with his first wife and his missing children. So distressing that I had denied his request to post it to “The Internet thing”…I will just leave it that Al is a nice guy and is still going through some hard times and probably will up until he passes away.

If you all that sent a card to Al last year was wondering how he is doing…he is still hanging in there, but he would love to hear from you again, just to get him through one more Xmas and New year.

If anyone would like to pitch in again and send Al a Holiday card, then please do   he would appreciate it very much. Al is all alone and still writing to a kid [me the old guy] who had bought an old used van from him 6 years ago.

Albert Dandeneau    10 Tell St. Fl #1     Providence RI        02909-1044

Thanks, Mike

A few weeks ago I got a surprise visit from Glenn Eames from the Old Spokes Home.  The Old Spokes Home is a very special bicycle shop and Museum located in Burlington VT. I had never met Glenn, but we are Flicker contacts and I knew of his shop. It had been a long time since I had taken a look at his website and it has been very much improved with a great library of his collection.

Glenn was in Holliston, picking up a bicycle he had bought. The guy selling it knew of me, because he tried to sell me the bike. While I would love to have a stable of turn of the century bicycles, I just do not have the space and money to do so…my hat is off to people like Glenn and I thank him for posting his collection on his website.

The bicycle that Glenn bought is called a “Sterns” and it is a shaft drive bike. At the end of the 1890′s bike boom, shaft drive bikes were the cream of the crop and this one is a fine example. I wish I knew more about bicycles of this era. While I know a little, there is so much to know, so many companies that existed and so many that were bought up or put out of business by patent laws.

I found this bike pretty inspiring. Not to copy or make shaft drive bike…just inspiring to make more antique style bikes that have this same feeling. I did take a few measurements, just out of curiosity.

• HT angle 66.5
• ST angle 74.5
• ST length 520mm
• TT length 575mm
• Chain Stay length 460mm
• BB drop 70mm
• Cranks 165mm
• Wheel base 1250mm
• [I need to get these numbers into my frame program to figure out the fork rake, but I am going to guess about 60mm]

I took a thorough look through Glenn’s collection and saw some bikes that I really like. I have a few other inspiring bike contacts that get the ideas flowing.

• Gerold M
• Coventry Eagle
• Old Bike EU

I like

I found a new blog listed over at Lovely Bicycle, called Bikeyface. Really fun animated story’s and situations about biking in the Somerville Boston area.

Not sure if you have ever heard of the Dirty Dozen race/ride in Pittsburgh PA.  If you have  never been to Pittsburgh…it is very hilly!

On Saturday Betsy and I rode down the Charles River Bike Path. Betsy and I really love tooling around on paths, looking at old buildings and houses and eating good food New England is a great place to do that and the path along the Charles River is one of the better ones. We started in Watertown sq and rode up to Waltham to eat lunch and then to the end of the trail in Waltham.

The path up to Waltham has many wooden boardwalks, interesting bridges, trail markers and places to sit and enjoy the river.

Many sections of the Waltham path are hard pack gravel, which is my favorite, as well as being covered with leaves. It was a nice brisk day, but not to cold and very sunny. We are trying to enjoy as many of these Indian Summer days that we have left. When we got to Waltham we went to lunch at the Watch City Brewing Company.

We were hoping to have some of their Pie Eyed Pumpkin Ale, but they were all out. We had had some of the Pumpkin Ale over at Redbone’s a few weeks before and that inspired us to go the WCB to have some more. However it was a happy accident, because we found other selections to be just as enjoyable    The brewery is in a section of Waltham that is very near the mill complex that houses the Charles River Museum of Industry. We highly recommend a visit to both.

After lunch we continued on the Waltham section of the trail to it’s end. On the way you go past the mill that housed the Waltham Watch Company. What an out standing mill!

Not much further past the mill is the end of the trail. I think there might be some more little un-connected trails here and there, but we did not explore that and decided to turn back. The City of Waltham was really and industrious city which was also home of the Orient Bicycle and my Nichols Milling machine.

We enjoyed the return trip so much that we decided to continue down the other section of the path toward Cambridge. The next section is called the Paul Dudley White Bicycle path. The path built in the 1960′s and named after the cardiologist who was bicycle advocate among many other things. Dr White brought bicycle riding to a national level in the mid 1950′s after treating President Eisenhower. I think this might be the first designated bicycle path in America?

I have sure enjoyed the Dr. Paul Dudley White path for many, many years and one of the main reasons I love Cambridge. We celebrated the path by going to our favorite coffee shop in the sq Peet’s Coffee

Just found this. Thought I would spread it around.

For Michael’s first week we made some heavy city bikes. Using thick wall tubing makes it much easier to grasp the frame welding process, to work your way up to the thinner wall bicycle tubing.

We made two of them and got the together late Friday night, so we could use them for a tour of Boston on Saturday. Michael had not been to Boston before, so Betsy and I gave him the big bike tour of the sites. We love to take guest around Boston by bike, not to mention a beautiful fall day. It was a bit windy and brisk, but we were dressed for it.

The bikes were as simple and basic as you can make a bike and really one of my favorites to ride. A nice black Roadster, one piece cranks, coaster brake. The only additions were a bell and lights.

These bikes conjure up a scene like this

Winter has not even started yet, but Spring will be here before you know it…especially if you plan on having me build you a bike or take a frame building class

I am booked up into late May of 2012.  The next week I have open is the week of May 21st to 25th  So if anyone was on the fence about booking a week for a bike or class for this coming Spring, you might want to get in touch.

My brother sent me this picture of an Austin City worker, that was riding this cargo bike made by the Austin Bike Zoo. A few years ago, Betsy had a conference down in Texas and while we were riding around on Congress street we saw the Bike Zoo’s Snake Bike. At that time I did not know of the bike Zoo and it was to dark to get a photo. Looks like a pretty cool place and they now sell these Cargo Bikes.

This Wednesday will be start of a 6 week frame building class for Michael Brown of Maestrocycles. Michael is a semi retired engineer, from Pittsburgh PA, who used to own a bicycle shop back in 90′s and is currently a cycling coach.

When I have a 6 week course we build a total 6 bikes for the student and also I build a few ANT bikes with the student helping with frame prep, but I weld the ANT’s. This summer I had Michael up for a one day welding class and he has been practicing all summer, as well as welding up projects for the shop [welding tables and such]. He has found a nice space to lease in Pittsburgh and will be stetting up shop shortly after finishing the class.

I still need to deliver tools to my other extended students and will be finishing up their tools today and tomorrow. I have tools for Tomo Nakano in Kyoto Japan, Neil Hinton in Tokyo Japan and Anya Watson & John  Hanson in the DC area.

My next bikes in line are:

• Rod’s Basket Bike
• Jose’ Basket Bike
• Constance’s Truss bike
• Paul’s Truss bike
• Blue Lug’s Truss bike
• West End’s Truss bike
• Matt’s Truss bike
• Mark’s Truss bike

Mmm…kind of seeing a trend here

Not sure if any of my readers view TED [Technology, Entertainment and Design], but you might want to look into it. Lots of great talks on many different interesting subjects.