Ok, this may be the final update. Tonight, I dropped the bikes off at the velodrome. Amara was there with around 25 kids who were just finishing up the Tuesday night track class. They looked exhausted and very happy.

Final steps:
Built the bikes up with all the stuff provided by FSA/Vision, Specialized and some other suppliers, applied decals and all the other stuff to complete the bikes. There was too much chaos at the track to bother taking pictures so, I just have the following. As for the pictures, I like the name down the seatstay and fork blade - it reminds me of old road racing bikes with advertiser stickers all over them. I remember back in the 80's a racer could get a bit of money for submitting a picture of themselves in a race (presumably winning or battling for the lead) with a sponsor's decal visible in the photo. Anyway, the look seemed appropriate here.





Link to flickr photo album

I would be lying if I said I was completely happy with how these turned out. On one hand, I am happy or proud that I have made progress but, I still see all the little imperfections and things I wish I had spent more time on or thought through more carefully or just been a better craftsman. Some individual thoughts:

1. I'm 100% confident of the structural integrity and overall design however, after standing them up on the banking, I realize I could have lowered the BB a bit without sacrificing the safety margin.
2. I'm super happy I insisted that components be delivered before paint for a dry install. I would have ruined the coating by putting dimples in the chainstays to clear the cranks. Also, we got 25mm tires and the rear end was measured quite precisely for 23mm. In the fully forward position, the rear tire touches the inner arch of the seatstay wishbone. The bike wouldn't ever be ridden like this but, I was trying very hard to avoid this interference. With the 23mm it was designed for, there is 1-2mm clearance.
3. I still got a few pinholes in my fillets. I was very particular to look for these before sending to paint. Apparently when the coater blasts the fillets, it cleans out dust/flux that might obscure the pinholes. I need to work on how to avoid them OR go to wet paint and use bondo.
4. Chain stays are still a challenge to install without chowdering up the vertical alignment of the rear dropouts.
5. Powder coating has limitations but I'm quite happy with the look of these.
6. I need a new decal solution - which is dependent upon the powder coat vs wet paint inner debate.
7. batch building is certainly more efficient
8. frame building is F@5&^ing HARD!

Thanks for following along. If I have other updates on these bikes, I will post them here.
Duane