Back In The Saddle

Been a while - a long while, actually, since my accident and tailing off on posts.

I'm basically recovered from the accident although I still get some pain in my ribs (I broke 9 of them, so this is understandable).

The Tommasini Diamante frame was a total loss.  The forks were bent back and the the top and down tubes bent.  A crying shame, but it is better to not get too attached to things.

I'm in Japan at the moment, here is some catch up stuff.

Here is my son learning how to ride.  These pictures are actually from late last summer shortly after buying a bicycle for my son.  Yeah, yeah, I know, no helmet, but this is Japan, just remember what it was like when you were a kid.

A little wobbly at first:

We who are about to ride salute you!

How quickly they grow up....

Also, right before my accident, I made up some very cool wheels.  First, I started with these hubs I scarfed off of ebay:

Yes indeed, those are a set of Suntour Superbe high flange road hubs, don't see too many of these around. And these ones are cosmetically excellent as well as having spoke holes in great condition.

Unfortunately, the races were shot and spare Suntour Superbe races aren't exactly growing on trees.  Fortunately, they use the same size as Campy Nuovo Record and those are a little more common, at least the rear ones.  For the front ones, I had a Campy NR high flange hub in great shape except one of the flanges was bent.

Removing the old races from the rear Superbe hub was a breeze using a small special tool from Loose Screws.  However, the old races from the front Superbe and donor Campy hub proved problematic. For the donor hub, destructive removal was ok (warning, graphic image):

Obviously, not a solution for the recipient hubs, which I took to a jeweler ultimately to get the old races cut out.  Here are the races I removed from the rear hub.  These hubs had evidently been sitting around for a long time.  Fortunately, the rest of the hub parts were in quite excellent condition.

I decided to move my Electra Ticino/Velocity Synergy wheelset that had been on my Fuji America to Mrs. Otaku's Trek 720 and build up these Superbes for the Fuji America.  So I needed some cool rims, ideally something that goes with the pervasive blue/blackness of the America.  Ebay, ever faithful, obliged with some blue Mavic Open Pro's, 36h.

I'm not making this up:

Well, I did make up the wheels:

I keep telling myself I'm going to get a truing stand, but I keep getting satisfactory results w/out one.  And here is the final outcome, sorry, not a very good picture:

That is all for now, just to catch up.