The answer is "yes."
Since my first post I've done very little with my bikes. I had EP at MonkeyWrench put on some Road BB7's on my 29er. I would have loved to do the work myself, but I had no experience with them and after getting into trail riding I've realized how important a reliable brake set-up really is.
My friend Carl did contact me with a little bit of a project though. He scored an old Bianchi and had aspirations of fixed geardom. We e-mailed back and forth for a week or so about what needed to be done, and when we could do it.
We ended up getting together a couple weeks ago, to begin tear-down, in the "shop/studio/laundryroom/basement of my house" with some french press Ethiopian Sidamo from Coffee Emergency. It all went pretty well, except we (mostly I) almost messed up the threads on Carl's fork. Whoever the last owner was thought it would be a good idea to put locktite on the threads and nuts. . .hmmm. We had to go to Cycleworks to pick up the rear wheel and some parts anyway, so we just took the bike there to get some assistance from a proffessional, thanks Damon. When I was tapping the lockring loose it jumped a thread or two and we were a couple of grunts with the wrench away from disaster.
The rest of the tear down when pretty smoothly. I took the frame back to my parents to utilize my Dad's abundance of powertools to grind off the old cable-stays and chop the drop bars.
Today Carl got up early, bright eyed and bushy tailed to finish the conversion. There where no major set backs. The guys at MWC had to hook Carl up with another interior nut for the quill stem and he had to make a second trip back to his house for the chain. Overall everything went very smoothly and he was off and spinning by noon. The bike isn't completely finished. . .but when is a bike really finished? I'm going to shellac some cork bar tape for him this weekend and he is seeing a honeybrown B17 in his future.
oh so close.
Damn these Surly cogs and lockrings are so classy. . .just when I was feeling content with my bike too. Oh bike lust.
The finished product. Way to go Carl. Carl asked for my help, but really did almost everything himself and proved me wrong more than a couple times. If you see him cruising around downtown give him a thumbs up or way to be
