update

well this bike renovation is not going very well.  for one, everything is taking a lot longer than i planned.  my wheels turned out to be the bottle neck.  i can do anything until they come in.  i can’t do the breaks, because the rim needs to be in. also i can’t put the break levers on till i get the shifters… and the shifters are supposed to get here with the wheels.

the hubs rims and assembly was ordered over one month ago.  the lame shop where i ordered it from seemed to order the parts in serial.  once they ordered the hub, and the hub came in… then i found out about not having the shifter…. so they ordered the shifter. then once that all came in they decided to order the rim then the rim became back ordered… i don’t really think that they did it like that, but from my point of view that how i found out about everything.  finally last week, i sent some really angry emails to them, and asked if they had any other rims in stock. they actually had a much better rim in stock, that they would sell me for a reduced price.  anyway i jumped on it and they finished the wheel and the next day it got shipped.  now that the wheels are in the ups tracking system, i’ve been watching it. usually ups takes three to four days… it’s been 6 days.  there was a weekend in there but still.  and now today is delivery day and the package has not even checked into colorado yet.  i know it’s going to be late, and damaged or lost…. crap.

the next item on the list is my thomson seat post. i ordered a beautiful post from some bike shop in san diego.  right off the bat i got an e-mail telling me they were going to be late [not back ordered…just late].  so i called up and had them send the brake cables i also ordered from them so i wouldn’t delay the project.  i can build the bike without a seat post, but the brakes are a little more key.   they sent the cables express usmail for 9 dollars.  it was just a small padded envelope!  they could have put some stamps on it and sent it for 75 cents.  and it would have gotten here in 3 days… which is how long it took.  so a couple of weeks later i get an e-mail telling me it’s back ordered.  i called them again and tried to change my order because maybe my seat post length was the problem. the guy told me to just hang tight for a couple of days. i hung on for almost two weeks.  finally yesterday i called and they still had no eta.  i canceled the order and found a bike shop on ebay that had one for about the same price.  i haven’t gotten the “your item ordered yet” but they sounded like they had this thing in stock.  we’ll see though…

the last item on my waiting list are some cyclocross tires. these things are so cool.  i wasn’t even going to put knobbies on my bike, because i was planning to ride it on my commute first.  so i am in no real hurry to get these, but i’d like to put them on my bike before i get it all dirty.  i called them the day that i ordered, because i wanted to add something. the lady was glad i called because wanted to tell me that her shipment was stuck in us customs… and it would be there for 7-10 days.  oh well… two days later i get an e-mail from them telling me that my items have been ordered and will be shipped via fedex.  i never got an e-mail from fedex or a shipping number… so i think they just ment that they looked at my order.

finally, i am really pissed off this morning. i just found out that i deleted my bike renovation post about how to install the headset.  i am really irritated about that. it took me almost longer to write about installing the headset than it did to actually install it.

later