Le Chacal rides. After a heroic wheel-building effort from Sulaiman, we finished assembling Le Chacal today at 7pm. I report that it rides extremely well. It feels solid and similar to my Specialized Stumpjumper mountain bike. I am very happy with it. Tomorrow I will attempt to disassemble and pack it into a small suitcase. I leave for Liberation Day parade on Tuesday.
I need to stage a better photograph later.
When I get some more time, and after I’ve made revisions to the bike, I’ll do a proper neutral background picture of the bike. In the meantime, in my excitement, this is the best I have. Notice the over-long stem. The extender is too long. To compensate, I flipped the stem upside down. Looks weird, but the handlebars are in a good position relative to the seat. It’s a bit daunting riding the bike, because it feels like there is a 4″ long spike waiting to drive into my chest. Anyway, Sulaiman can machine off the end on Monday. I love the Kenda “urban trials free-riding” tires. They’re sort of urban BMX tires with a neutral, omni-directional tread. Not knobby enough to suck on the road, yet enough traction to ride on dirt roads.
Le Chacal
We tried to achieve a “gun blueing” effect on the frame, by tinting the clear laquer blue, but it’s not very apparent. Tomorrow I’ll have a chance to see it under sunlight, which brings out something of a violet tint. Can I blue my next frame like a firearm? Would that be more durable than a paint job? Sulaiman put heavy coats of laquer and top coat to hide the imperfections in my frame. It looks rich. I managed to drop a (heavy) part of my park bike stand on the top tube, taking some big dings out of the paint. Turns out that my roll of electrical tape is a very similar black, so I “touched up” the scar with that.
Chainstay. The matte part of the chainstay is actually several layers of electrical tape to guard against chainslap. Probably insufficient. I’ll have to do something better later.
This is a bit finicky part of the bike. The rear v-brakes cannot fit on the seatstay, as would be traditional, so we had to mount them on the chainstay. It’s not ideal, but it works. The tolerances are VERY tight, tryin to get the brakes andjusted, but to not come out far enough that the pedal hits them, etc. This is definitely not great part of the design. Fourth Protocol will have a different braking system for sure.
Seatstay
S&S Coupling
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Wonderful job, you should be proud of your work.
You continually dazzle me:)
remember the red model bike that Pa bought Meg and me?
your bike looks like you took it and elongated the seat and the handlebar stems!
is the center of gravity right?
What a neat bike. Beautiful, and you made it! Hope it works well for you with no problems on your shakedown trip.
Most marvelous