42 Days and Counting...

When I got home from work yesterday morning, I was greeted with a kiss and hug from my lovely wife, a much sloppier smooch from my pooch, and a big box from my friends at Ellsworth Handcrafted Bikes!  What a nice homecoming!  I had a couple of clients to train that morning, so The Great Ellsworth Bike Build-Round 2, would have to wait until later in the day.

Hey...like the box says...

Those that ride, know.

So here I go again...round 2 of the Great Ellsworth Bike Build.  Believe me, I am not happy about crashing, nor am I happy about breaking my brand new bike...but I am happy about getting to build it up one more time.  You see, after putting it all together the first time, I realized that I would have done things just a little different if I had the chance to do it over again.  Well...now I have that chance, so there are a couple minor thing that I am going to change.

One of Ellsworth's design flaws (actually, the only one I could find) is the way they designed their internal cable runs.  Most bikes, with the exception of some high-end road bikes, run their brake and shifting cables on the outside of the bike.  Yeah, it looks a little cluttered, but that's just the way it is.  On this bike however, the Ellsworth engineers designed the frame so that the cables would be run within the frame, providing a much cleaner look, and less chance of the cables snagging bushes and branches while riding.  It looks very nice when its all done, but there is a flaw.  The cables tend to bounce around and slap against the inside of the frame, causing unwanted noise...which I absolutely despise!  I like my bike to be as 'whisper quiet' as possible...it's one of my anal-retentive issues...deal with it :)

A look at the internal cable runs...leading into the frame...

...and back out at the rear of the bike.

I got a little work done yesterday, and I got up early this morning to get after it.  So far, I have the forks, handlebar and stem, crankset,  and the rear and front deraileurs mounted.  I started to run the shifter cables, then realized that I had accidentally cut the cable for the rear shifter too short.  So now, I have to wait until a bike store opens so that I can go buy a new cable.  I have never swapped out a shifter cable before, so I am entering uncharted territory...thank the Lord for the internet!  One quick google search, and up came nearly 39,300 hits (in just .24 seconds) about how to change the cable...just what I needed!

It's coming together...again

The inside of my rear shifter...uncharted territory!

I'll keep you all posted on the progress.