2/20/2006
Ed's NoCom was sold to me (Warren) in the spring of 2005. A
new NoCom is really a NoCom kit. It takes a lot of tweaking to
make it roadworthy. Ed had already modified the front dropouts
to allow the use of a 406mm Stelvio front tire, and
tweaked the bike so it performed well. I
rode it all year without modifying anything. I think that's
some kind of record for me. |
 |
That winter I decided it was
time to change a few things.
I ran the cables inside the
frame, made a cutout in the seat back to allow storage of
pump, tubes, tools and small water bladder inside the frame,
added a front derailleur and built a new set of wheel disks
for the front wheel.
|
|
Also I modified the return chain
routing. This is a trick I learned from Larry and Allen. The
chain tube is just held in place by a big plastic wire tie. It
floats but is kept from rubbing on the seat and idler, which
reduces chain friction. |
 |
 |
Here's the NoCom
in spring 2006.
Rear brake and both front and
rear shifter cables enter the frame through 3 small holes an
inch or two behind the headset and are routed through the
hollow body. Because no two NoComs are the same, this may no
be as easy on another NoCom. |
2/22/06
I have been working on a couple of other speed bits for the
NoCom. The first is a rear fender, which will not only keep the
water off the back of my head, but will allow my to use my aero
helmet. Without it, the tail of the aero helmet would rub on the
wheel.
|
|
 |
The second is
remote steering. The pink protuberance in this picture is
the beginning of the remote steering arm mold. I still need
to finish shaping it, cover it in fiberglass, and make it
pretty before it will be able to be used.
I really don't like tiller
bars, though I think they are more aero than the superman
bars. Remote steering allows a tight human package while
retaining good control of the bike.
|
12/26/06
Over the past year I have a few changes to the NoCom. I
finished the mold for the remote steering, but have not yet
created a steering arm from the mold as I'm now fairly happy
with the tiller setup.
I added about 2" of height to the
headrest and removed the fender. (in this photo it still needs
sanding and clear-coat) The headrest provides something for my
Aero helmet to rest on, which keeps it off the tire, and doesn't
detract from the looks (like the fender did). |
 |
 |
I changed the
shifters to bar-end friction shifters, which allowed me to
narrow the handlebars a bit. Narrowing the handlebars pulled
my elbows in to my sides. They were flopping around in the
wind a bit with the wider handlebars. I moved the brake
handles to a stem mounted position. They are now thumb
brakes. I haven't cut them up to mount them directly next to
each other yet, I'll see how they work on the road first...
They should be much more aero. |
|
Here's picture of the derailleur cable
coming out from behind the seat stay. There is an ovalized hole
on the inside of the stay for the cable to enter the frame
through. A small unobtrusive cable tie secures it to the lip on
the edge of stay (a black tie would have been better!)
I had been waiting on a new
front boom with integrated front derailleur post from Dana for
about 9 months. This would allow me to finally install the Rotor
cranks. These are all small improvements but when you add up a
bunch of small improvements it makes a big difference in speed. |
 |
 |
1/14/07
I couldn't wait any longer. I finally bonded in a new
derailleur mount tube to allow use of the RotorCranks.
I had it all epoxied on last weekend and then had to break
it off when I found that I had put it it the wrong position.
Doh! This week I got it in the right place. I still need to
polish it up so it's shiny like the rest of the bike...
|
|
NoComs seem to accumulate holes in
the frame. Here's how you can fill in all those holes while
keeping the bike looking nice. If you can get behind the
hole, first lay up a small piece of fiberglass on the inside
of the hole as a backing. You can wet the fiberglass out on
some plastic wrap and use that to mash the fiberglass into
the inside of the bike without having it stick to your hand.
This still leaves you with a shallow hole. To fill that you
need to make some "NoCom putty", which is a mixture of
epoxy, microballoons or cotton flox, and graphite. The
graphite makes it black. A little goes a long way. A little
sanding and some clear coat and good as new... |
2/03/07
It's the middle of winter, there's snow on the ground, and it's
been 0 degrees F outside for a week. Yeah, I'm going a bit stir
crazy. |
 |
 |
Introducing Darth
NoCom. Yeah, that's me in there. These helmets were on sale
for $10 at Walmart before Christmas. I couldn't resist.
Think they'll let me race in it? |
2/04/07
I decided that I could deal with the center mounted brake
levers, but couldn't bring myself to cut up the expensive Paul
levers. Instead I hacked up a pair of somewhat heavier, and much
less expensive Forte (Performance) levers.
In this picture I have cut off
the tubing clamp portion of the brake lever, and disassembled
it. The levers will be bolted to the carbon fiber bracket using
the lever pivot hole, and the threaded clamp mole. |
 |
 |
Here you can see
the bolt passing through the lever pivot holes of both
levers. The larger bolt seen below is screwed into the old
clamp threaded hole on one side. The other side was drilled
out to allow a bolt to be inserted from the side of
one brake handle, and screwed into the other. |
|
Here's the brake levers reassembled
and bolted to the carbon fiber bracket. Some washers are used
between the levers and the bracket on the upper bolt to provide
proper spacing. The top of the lever was filed smooth and spray
painted black to match the handle. |
 |
 |
A slot was cut in
the bottom of the NoCom handlebar, and the bracket was glued
into the slot with some JB-Weld. Looks nice. |
|
Alan A. Put me on the Watties box. I'm
somebody now! |
 |
 |
2/5/07
Right to left, Alan, Sean and I on our NoComs, cheesing it
up after a training session.
We are taking a class called
"The Grind", at a local bike store. The three of us, plus 5
roadies, follow a computerized training run, while watching
our wattage on a big screen. It definitely takes some of the
boredom out of Winter training. |
9/03/07
I have been riding the heck out of this bike all year. After
breaking the 1 hour record on his NoCom, Sean was able to get
Terracycle to build a larger 23T idler to replace the stock one.
We all bought one. |
|
|
|
