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Long time no post. I Guess I've been busy working riding and prepping for school. This has been my first chance to sit down and get some blogging time in so I'll make the most of it. Consider your self warned.

One of our customers Co-Motion Speedster arrived yesterday and will be picked either tomorrow or Monday. Just hours after it arrived I unpacked the boxes to check to see that the parts matched the order spec. Every thing seemed to match properly. I removed the headset and bottom brackets in preparation for the application of a rust inhibitor. The bike was a floor model at Co-Motion and had to be broke down and shipped, where normally the frame arrives in one box with all the parts in another.
20 hours after letting the rust inhibitor tack up I started the real frame prep. Every thing needed faced and BB threads needed chased. The King headset was reinstalled and the bottom brackets and eccentrics were installed and torqued.
The Rolf Prima wheels are very nice and are bad on the scales with a 1880.7g weight. That's probably lighter than your average single bike wheelset. Despite their high quality they still needed a good bit of truing before they got my seal of approval. With wheel on the bike, the hanger could be aligned for the best possible shifting.

Now let the fun begin.

But first I'll let you know that I am just the messenger and was not responsible for the decisions that were made. I did not want to swap handle bars or cranks due to the amount of time involved and foreseeing the compatibility problems with interchanging front cranks of different years (chain line issues).

-The customer wanted a 42cm captain bar 44cm stoker bar and a 175/172.5mm crank set.
-The bike was sent with a 44cm bar front and rear
-The bike was sent with a 175/172.5mm crank set......
-Though we were told that a 172.5/172.5mm crank set was on the bike.

We have a Speedster on the floor with every thing different except the cranks. With that in mind, the boss wanted the front crank set from the Co-Motion speedster on the floor, which was a 175/170mm crank set (older model) and the bar which is a 42cm swapped over to the new bike.

By swapping the front cranks and bars we would have a setup that would satisfy the customers wants, but this would take allot of time and new bar wrap for both bikes.

To further complicate the situation we have a customer who wants the Speedster on the floor but with 172.5/170mm cranks and 42cm bars. If we perform the crank swap then both customers will get what they want. But if we perform the bar swap the second customer will have a 44cm bar... so we will need to order a new bar anyways. So why not keep the 42cm bar on the floor speedster and just order a bar for the bike that is being assembled.. because someone is a little resistant to think.. yeah at this point I'm loosing my cool. I like to do things efficiently and properly with no thought to price.

Despite my advice not to swaps part, I am told to do so. So I do it. Halfway through the crank swap I find that the cranks on the new bike wont be compatible with the ones on the floor bike. Ha, I called that one! I never took note of the arm lengths assuming that the boss measured up. After determining that the crank swap would not work I found that the arms were the correct lengths on the new bike. What this means is the new bike is set up properly other than the bars not matching.

Half the day was waisted removing cranks and bars that really did not need removed and after cleaning up the mess that I had made in the process I rode home.

New tool box!!!

The model is a CH Ellis 8803. This is the portable case of my dreams. It features full piano hinges, thick molded plastic, locking latches, has a life time warranty, molded feet and yeah..its black. It has a inside measurement of 17.75" L x 14" W x 10" D.

But its the stuff on the inside which counts. The CH Ellis 3710 pallets hold the tools in place with folding/locking side panels, holds 86 tools and also has a life time warranty.

Plenty of room for more tools
Still room for more!