Enough goofing around riding it all over town already. Last night we lashed No.1 to the roof of Jeff's 'toaster' and hauled it back to the shop to finish up. First we added a kickstand, nothing fancy, just something to negate having to lay the thing on the ground or lean precariously against a wall. Then we disassembled the front fork & rear head tube and prepped everything for more welding. We have to add an adequate length of threaded portion at the top so we can actually insert a stem to the required depth (whoops, my bad!). Also adding actuator arms to receive the cable steering on the rear head tube & front forks. We brainstormed how to route the cable steering through to the back and identified the parts we had and what we were missing. Initially Jeff wanted to route through the frame which would be awesome but I thought that we may be complicating things unnecessarily. Let's keep the cables outside for the proof of concept, I argued, and if it works design the frame with internal routing in mind to ease installation. Jeff agreed and that's how we will do it. It's still a project which I had not anticipated but seems obvious when you think about it for any length of time. Running brake cable from the front fork v-brake back to the handlebars is also not without challenges. Last night was not nearly as productive as previous sessions. The work seemed more burdensome, less focused which is hardly surprising as we have just come of two intense months of building culminating in a fair amount of euphoria over our success. Now we have the 'long tail' of finicky details and busy work which is not nearly as exciting. This is still valuable work as things like the cable steering will inform the next model. Hopefully one more session will corral all the final details and we can move on to No.2.....................
What about externalizing the mechanisms flush to the body so it maintains a streamlined-form but reinforces proof-of-concept for added interest? Hiding everything makes perfect sense, but some very interesting designs dating back to Dieter (and beyond):
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....prove that exposing functions can add severe interest to the design as oppossed to being just another bike frame/record player when functionality is the primary design driver?
I think that regardless, the design will speak volumes based on the amount of thought put into it thus far (and am looking forward to the final concept), but I wouldn't rule out hiding mechanisms quite yet.
Im thinking CNC-routed paths for the cables with a clever peg-'keep in' system to essentially reveal what would be just underneath the surface, would add interest to the whole concept of the bike itself? Consider rounded-rectangular "windows" along the path that give you glimpses of the routing. (route the paths, then cover every few inches with pre-shaped 'closure' sections?).
To have such a cable-based bike in terms of functionality, hiding everything kind of negates the fun of showing the engineering process involved with pulling off such a feat.
Would sign up for your class Mike, but I'm outta there in June. Will see you around town however.
Either way, make sure the damn kickstand works solid, I think this area alone could potentially be an area of immense innovation.
Simon
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