Goal has been met

 

So... technically, I met my goal. 

Summer is long gone and we're well into December, but I have a roller!

I got my tires, tubes, and rim strips and couldn't wait to put them on. I probably should've been patient and finished the rear triangle, but I was too itchy to take this thing off the table and push it around the garage making engine revving noises...

The rear triangle is all welded, but I still need to add the smooth bronze fillets, and "cap" the tubing ends. Plus all the filing and sanding that goes with creating the smooth transitions from one tube to the next. There's probably a week's worth of hand-work waiting for me. Of course, the whole rear end needs to be taken apart AGAIN to do this... (all those engine revving sounds were totally worth it!)

This is the first time I've taken the bike off the build table. It was a pretty incredible moment for me. It's always been on that wooden table 8 inches off the ground, and it never had tires... so, even though I have drawings of exactly how tall, long, and wide the finished bike will be, it was still really cool to stand next to it in the garage and realize that the tallest part on the bike (which is the acorn nut on top of the fork cap) is still slightly under 36 inches!  As the bike sits in the pic above, I can straddle the top tube flat-footed... and I'm only 5'8". I wanted this bike to have an aggressive, low stance, and it does.

I'm totally excited to keep going, and really proud of my little creation. The 4 next things on my list of things to do will be: finish the fillets/bronzework on the rear triangle, fab up a rear stand, add the steering-stop, and make the foot peg brackets. Then the brakes will need plumbing, a seat would be nice, some way to shift the gears, something to hold gas...

But in the mean time... anyone interested in a slightly-used build table?