Framebuilding Class, Part Deus

Day 4. Fitting seatstays, welding the rear triangle together.

In the morning we measured, bent, and mitered the rear seatstays one at a time. If you're good using the grinder this could be a relatively fast task and the files don't get too much play. The more difficult part for me was bending the seatstays. Just like with the chainstays if you bend them and not crimp (we crimped this time), it seems like it takes a few mess-ups or lots of practice to get it right. The tube-bender is a pretty cool tool, but it seems like there must a better method - or a bender that would give you more precise bends when bending two tubes to the same sweep. It'd be great to a set degree or something instead of trial and error which ends up you (me) bending the tube back in the vice a little or crimping it too much and hammering it back to round. Yeah, all those happened to me. Luckily steel is pretty tough.

Once the bottom of the seatstays have been cut to fit the dropout, and the tops have been cut to be equal but opposite on the seat tube, you're ready to tack weld them into place. This fixture didn't have something to hold the seatstays in place which would really have been helpful - to 'set' them before you weld them in. I really could've used three hands to do this part since not only do the tubes want to fall out of place, they want to rotate putting the bend in the wrong place (damned gravity) . To pull this off, you can vice grip the tubes together near where the future brake bosses and brake bridge will be (not recommended) or just hold them with your left hand and tack weld without using any filler rod by just melting the tubes into a bead. After tack-welding these into place, as well as them to the dropouts, the day was nearly over so I decided to leave and come back in the morning and weld the rear triangle together when the espresso is fresh in my bloodstream.

Day 5. Welding the rear triangle, and brazing the brake bosses, cable-stops and seat collar, and various touch up.

Here Chris shows me how in the hell to get the torch in between the seatstays just below the seat tube collar. That area is such a tight - steep angled area that i had some issues with making it work. This brings me back the part of TIG that I had the hardest part with - proper torch angle so you don't burn through the skinnier tube, and positioning the frame at the proper angle so you can succeed at the first by getting a good line of sight. More sleek welding masks would help! I was a freaking bumbling idiot at times here, knocking over the frame by hitting it with my mask, trying to lay the frame on this side, then the other, then in the bike stand...i just wasn't getting it.

After much advice, I finished the welding by noon Saturday. Now it was time for the brazing which i stupidly didn't get any pictures of. Right after lighting the torch and seeing the way heat and capillary action pull in the silver filler rod under the cable stops and seat collar, i was simply hooked. It was like being a kid at a birthday party and having that creepy magician pull a quarter out of your ear - it was freaking magic. Magic and BADASS at the same time - like you just witnessed the history and 'form' of what steel fabrication is all about, right there in front of your eyes. Without melting tubes, they just connect. I imagine lug and fillet brazing are the same way and I hope eventually to take a class for those types of frame fabrication too.

After the brazing, we used various 'boring' tools (no pun intended, seriously) to clean out the heat, seat, and bottom bracket tubes from any overheating that may have occurred inside or just from the tubes themselves not being the correct internal diameter. The heat can deform the tubes to make it so a seatpost can't fit into the seat tube, so you must use expensive Park tools to make sure all the cool components you buy fit into the actual frame. This is kinda important obviously but I bet sometimes forgotten. Then the filing begins on the outside of the frame to touch up any bad welds and clean up the excess silver filler on the brazes. Once you like what you see, you're finally DONE and the bike goes to the painter. As you can see, this is an labor intensive process, but I'm told experienced builders can finish a frame in a day if they have their shit together.

In the end, seeing the bike frame take form after being just a bunch of separate tubes was insanely cool and inspiring. Seeing the completed frame made the somewhat tedious parts worthwhile and even fun because you know that it's part of a bigger whole. I want to do it again, and do it better - much better. The result is now a utilitarian piece of steel; a frame you can ride for years, decades, and if done right your entire cycling life. (That can only be said of steel or titanium in my opinion.)

The bike is something I've known and loved for years, something that has changed my life in so many ways and given me unmeasurable joy. Someday, I hope to be able to share that with others by providing custom lifetime frames...we'll see how that goal takes shape though. It's a lot harder than I thought and will take a ton of time to master, and time is not something that I have in excess these days. But one can always dream.

Framebuilding Class, Part I

I have a new found respect for bike framebuilders, especially TIG welders since that's how I'm attempting to build my new frame. Being a closet OCD perfectionist that hates to do things poorly, I am finding TIG welding little skinny steel tubes quite difficult! I like to think I have a steady hand, good hand-eye coordination, and good eyesight, but all of these traits have come into question these last few days. Granted, this is not something you learn in a week-long class, but OMG, I suck.

Here's a photo essay of the week since Monday when the class in Denver started. The framebuilding class I'm taking is from a local builder. For this class, I chose to build a singlespeed cross frame with Paul's dropouts.

Monday, Day 1. Measuring, Cutting, and Mitering.
Using BikeCAD Pro, we took my measurements and put them into the program. We futzed around a lot with these numbers - for at least an hour - and compared the resultant/recommended geometry to my Independent Fabrications Planet Cross that I love so much. The BikeCAD program, I learned quickly, gives you a good starting point. You really do have to know what you like and make the appropriate changes to such things like head and seat tube angles, top tube length, and more. The standover and seat tube lengths are less flexible I'm told. The program spits out a CAD drawing with tube lengths to cut and miter angles. The tubing we used is US made True Temper - not the lightest tubing but good for the first frame since they're so thin enough. They are not straight gauge but .9/.6/.9 double butted tubes.

Milling the downtube. Doing the mitering by hand would be insanely time-consuming but I hear there are many framebuilders that don't have Bridgeport milling machines and use only a hacksaw and files. That is indeed impressive but would take much longer to miter the tubes and fit and weld the frame. It's likely what I will do for awhile as the above machine costs around $3k used. I still think this is just a over-hyped drill press and one could do the same thing with the hole saws and a big drill press...but what do i know.

Here's the BB, Seat tube, and downtube being fitted using an Anvil fixture (frame jig). The Anvil is one sweet jig but I think I would like to get the Henry James fixture as you can more easily weld within the jig and it is a better jig for brazed and lugged frames which I would eventually love to learn how to build. The mitering process is one of trial and error, at least for beginners. You look, file, replace the tube, find where it's hitting the other tubes right and where there are gaps, and then file some more. Repeat over and over. I spent an hour getting the downtube to fit with the headtube and bottom bracket. This is apparently where people lose the love - where the romantic notion of being a framebuilder suddenly disappears - because the mitering process is truly a laborious process that I can see takes years of experience to master. You need the tubes to be touching all the way around because any gaps make the weld weaker and simply harder to weld together.

Day 2. More mitering and tack-welding the front triangle.
By the end of day 2, I had relatively successfully tack-welded the front triangle of the frame. I say 'relatively' because I blew a couple of good holes in the tubes in a couple of places. Nothing that can't be fixed, but even tack-welding these thin tubes was more difficult than I thought. There's a bit of yoga that goes into welding a frame since welding flat surfaces is WAY easier than round tubes. Getting the frame positioned in a way you can see the joint clearly is key. You tack weld around each tube around 6 times so that it holds the tubes in place. Some builders then weld the frame in the fixture itself while others put it on a welding table or bike stand that is connected to the table and weld it there. Theoretically, the tack welds should hold it in line if done correctly.

Day 3. Weld the front triangle, start mitering the rear tubes.
Here Chris shows me how to cut the chainstays lengthwise to fit into the Paul's dropouts. Instead of using a hacksaw for this, he brought out the secret weapon -- the air-compressor-powered cutting wheel...pretty sweet tool, i want one. This cutting wheel can cut through tubing in seconds compared to the hacksaw.

By the start of Day 3, I had the front triangle tack-welded. I started that morning, after a late night out at a metal show in town, tired. So to practice, I used some scrap tubing and practiced on them instead of my frame, just to be safe. I am REALLY happy I did because the hour I spent on the practice tubes got me past my frustration and feelings of inadequacy (wait, what are we talking about...?) and I gained enough confidence to weld the actual tubes. It's a pretty sure bet beginner TIG-welders blow thru tubing, a few times. I did exactly that but after watching how those holes get filled I was able to fix my errors myself which was probably the best feeling of the day second to actually making stretches of bead that looked relatively OK.

Here's the bottom bracket after we finished welding it. We did these joints first, and Chris did the most 'sensitive' tubes first (where the down and seat-tubes touch) to show me how it's done. So these welds should look better than below which is all me.


Chris has a Miller 200 amp welder, water cooled, argon gas, etc, etc. It has a 'pulser' which increases the amps from a low to high value (5 - 38 in this case) approximately every 1 second. This makes the uniform round bead that is so characteristic of TIG-welded frames. It helps even the novice make ok looking welds (I'll take myself out of that since the above doesn't look so great). Some don't use a pulser and go it alone. In those cases, i think the bead is smaller and may not be as uniform but is no less strong.


By the end of day 3, I welded the rest of the joints myself and fixed my own mistakes for the most part. We also mitered, fit, and tack-welded the chainstays to the BB.

Throughout the day I needed a bunch of coaching and hands-on guidance. It was extremely helpful to have someone standing over you for awhile telling you what to do what to STOP doing since it's very hard to see through the dark welding mask what you're actually doing sometimes. The key for me was to get comfortable and get a good sight on the joint you are trying to weld - don't get too twisted trying to weld the joint, move the frame around in the fixture to be in a good position. Relax and be patient. Wait for the puddle to form...don't rush it. Put in the filler rod only after the puddle has formed and you have started moving the puddle forward along the joint. Patience...relax....be steady....be comfortable...and don't try and do too much too fast.
Hah, I guess I could use this way of being and knowledge in other aspects of my life such as work and bike racing.

Friday and Saturday I finish the frame, more later.

Singletrack in April

That may not be saying much for some of you, but up high nothing has melted out enough to ride...almost. I'm not saying where, and there are some ice/snow patches, but on my 3 hour cross loop today I ran across some of that narrow singletrack that whet my appetite for more. The cross bike is so rad. It does everything! Not the best at singletrack, but just as fun as a MTB in my opinion, in a little bit different way. Good as gold for dirt road and just fine for pave'. I'm never selling the Indy Fab...but it is time for a new paint job (or touch up paint...?) as some surface rust is showing in many places where the paint has chipped off.

This must be the last weekend I'll have the closed road to myself, it's totally dry now and the Ranger gave me the steering wheel wave as he passed by so I guess I'm good to go ride that thing when it's closed to cars!

Spring is officially here in another way - I hear the Pasque flowers are coming up! There are none at the ranch, but we're always last to get them anyways being in Siberia here.

Supply run

Saturday.

The weather was threatening, but as it never rains here, and it was predicted only to be a 40% chance of scattered showers so I offered to go get dog meds and also some small bike parts down in the Flatlands. I could've driven or taken the bus but I'm on a crash course for the Growler race so I decided to make a big ride of it. I changed backpacks at the last minute because the Ergon is squeaking at the shoulder strap joint which has been quite annoying. So back to the good ole Deuter for now.

I left late, around 11:30am, and as soon as me and the Hunter were 5 minutes from the ranch, the sprinkles started. No worries, 'that's kinda nice!' i thought to myself...reminded me of riding in the winter in Marin. Of course, the more eastward I rode, the heavier it got and the colder I got. By the time I got to the 3K drop into town I was pretty much soaked. The raingear bottoms have lost their DWR, my shell gloves had also lost their Nikwax, and i left my booties in my other pack - so the 45ish degrees didn't feel so great in wet wool. My feet and hands froze immediately. No worries, I thought to myself, I'll go to the bike shop and get my parts and also perhaps a dry set of socks for the ride back up! I could also go to a Laundromat and use a dryer for a few minutes.

I get to the shop and rummage thru my pack and realize I forgot my wallet in the other pack, as well as my camera (hence, no pics), which means I can't buy socks or my bike parts. It also means I can't take the bus up to Ned since I don't have any my bus pass or any cash. The cash that was stashed in my pack was also transferred to my waterproof winter pack months ago and I of course didn't remember that. I was basically screwed. So I went to pick up dog meds and headed to Vics to warm up before the ride home. At least it had stopped raining but I was drenched and was not drying out.

As I was riding from east back towards the foothills, I thought about the several friends houses I was passing where I could go knock on their doors and borrow some clothes for the ride back up. There's my cousin's house...there's J&H's house, down a few blocks is B&M's house, SpeedRacer's right there...!....NAH, i concluded, I made my bed and now I gotta sleep in it, or maybe more fitting - I jumped into some wet wool and now I need to sleep outside while the winds suck out every bit of warmth from me. Although my hands had warmed up and I had a 2nd set of gloves, I run out my socks and insoles but my feet were not warming up...they felt like dead bricks of flesh on the ends of my ankles. 'They'll warm up as I ride the 3K back home' i thought to myself.

Or not. About 1k higher on Flag, they were still solid ice, so I stopped and took the shoes off to hand warm them and put in some toe warmers I found in the bottom of my back from a couple winters ago. Let me just say, they did absolutely nothing to help and just made my shoes more uncomfortable on each pedal stroke. 'What does not kill you makes you stronger' and such thoughts went through my head. But really, I'm just an idiot - that also went through my head.

Cresting past the Reservoir about 3/4 the elevation gain home, the sun started to break through the clouds...it was warming up! Now 4 hours into my ride I was over the hump and ready to hit the 4x4 climb over Rhino Peak pass. My feet never did warm up, even though I was sweating everywhere else. I tried running beside my bike for awhile, shaking my feet beside my bike while coasting downhill, all with no luck.

In the shower at home, it took them 15 minutes to stop tingling and get past the pain of the big warm up. How, in mid-April, can I get my feet colder than they've ever been? And why? Because I was unprepared. I carry a big pack with too much stuff (claim many of my Pilot brethren) and THIS is why! I go light (enough), and bring what I need or may need. But changing packs right before the ride? That's just silly, boneheaded, like over-tightening a seat post bolt 5 minutes before a race and having it snap. Oops, no spare. So, maybe I should've stopped at a friends house, or hitched a ride home, or bartered with the guys at the bike shop for some socks, or SOMETHING instead of just riding past all that. But that's just me. No, it's not because I'm a recluse, shy, self-pity or deprecating, or don't want to put people out (although there are bits of truth in those). It's just how I'm wired - I gotta follow through and finish what I started. But I wasn't always this stubborn.

While racing MTB's years ago, the races I did not finish because of technicals or 'physicals' were some of the worst days of my life. I simply gave up in the end, because I wasn't going to get a good result, and when presented with an excuse, sometimes I'd take it. But over the years, I've realized that there are not many reasons to stop. Even if your frame breaks - shoulder it and finish the freaking race! So now, jaded and much older, I just keep going like it really matters, because to me, it does, it makes it that much more valuable of an experience. And it was just a simple supply run.

The week in pictures

Monday morning.
St. Vrain mountain to the left of Sugarloaf on the ride into work. Can you see my turns from the day before?

Tuesday and Wednesday. TIG welding class in Arvada.

My first TIG welds patched up these 6 squares of steel into cubes and we had some fun putting them on their ends like this. TIG is much harder than I thought, much more 'small' and precise, but apparently I picked it up faster than average (or so he said). Not the prettiest welds on those boxes but I'll get there. I always thought I wanted to braze - create frames with lugs and fillet brazing - but I must say that the beauty of a good TIG weld is hard to beat and this class made me appreciate just how hard it is to get that perfect looking weld. Next Monday, I start the frame-building portion of the class, so by next weekend I'll have a new cross singlespeed frame! More later...

Thursday morning, Elks Club. What are YOU lookin at?!

Thursday PM.

The ride home cut it a bit close to darkness. The problem with riding home in April is that when you don't get off work till 5, by the time you get home at 7:30, it's freaking back down to 40 degrees and you've been sweating into your woolies for 2 hours. But I'm really enjoying the long rides, I've missed them. The amount of time to just think and be alone with your thoughts, and to listen to music in earphones where I always hear things i somehow 'missed' in the same songs I've heard for years, and the way the miles magically cleanse away any and all baggage life adds on during the day. Yeah, I've missed spinning those miles away.

Friday.

No pictures. Grey day of low clouds threatening rain all day but none produced. Rode in on the Dam route and had a fine rolling tasting with Timmy to end the day right.

Let there be corn!

(Check out my new Spot Messenger page, it's linked down on the right. Now, whenever I use my Spot, you can see where the hell I am even if I don't know where I am.)

Top of St. Vrain Mountain. Audubon, Paiute, Sawtooth and Red Deer Mtn's from left to right.

Sunday saw me on the new spring ski setup (Trab FreeRando lights that I got for 40% off at Mtn Outfitters in Breck, thanks Zoom and MK!) brutalizing myself up Rock Creek on the most direct route up to the top. I wasn't in a hurry but I tend to go as fast as I can when I'm skiing alone. The great thing about April skiing is the potential for powder days on a solid snowpack, and on non-powder days you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn to ski the high peaks. It takes the snowpack longer to warm up with the lower sun angle and lower temperatures. Overall, the snowpack is probably not as good to ski or as "set up" yet on some of the steeper north-facing slopes ,but on the south and east faces - the slopes we've been avoiding like the plague all winter - I think that it's their time.

Longs Peak from St. Vrain

As you can tell, this is one really mellow slope. It's the perfect early spring cruiser run. You can get your early corn and get it safely. I was one of several people up here that were thinking the same thing.

I reached the peak at about 11:30am, and instead of waiting for the higher east face to warm and soften up a bit, I went west to the saddle and skied the steeper (but not by much) south face. It ended after approximately 800 vertical in scree so I benched west and bootpacked up to a S/SW saddle that had a nice looking ski run less affected by sastrugi moguls (the wavy way snow gets with high winds). It was a dreamy run...i always forget how much I love corn. You almost can't mess up (...almost).

The above was my 3rd run, this time down from the false summit of St. Vrain. The little rock cairn in the foreground is the only perspective you have on this hill. Riding down this last run, I couldn't help but grin when I realized I was effortlessly carving the corn on the longest continuous run I've had all year. Spring is here my friends, and let there be corn!

Road Closed

I took out Tank, on a few hours of riding in the hills south of Ned. The trails are nowhere near being clear of snow up here but there are so many great dirt roads that can be linked with paved roads in between, so I decided to try and link up a big figure 8 that I rode part of last year.

The dirt road above is behind the local state park and is one of the premiere rides in the area in my opinion. It takes a long paved road to get there but on a Saturday morning this is nearly absent of any cars except for the State Park Patroller.

Luckily said State Park Patroller didn't care (or notice) that I hopped the metal barrier to ride the currently Closed road that goes through the park. It's seasonally closed (snow), but I had maybe 100ft total of snow navigation at the very top; it was all rideable on bike. It felt like I was poaching singletrack road. I have never said this before but road riding is actually pretty fun (when there are no cars on the road). No worries about getting brushed, yelled at, honked at, or hit, you can swerve on such steep sections as the one in the above picture, and you can ride in the opposite lane if you just so wish. Imagine a world with just paths, and no cars...

I visited one such town in Nicaragua on the Mosquito Coast almost 18 years ago while hitchhiking around with a buddy. You have to get there by boat and there are no cars allowed (or couldn't get there?) on the beach town's roads. It was the most unbelievably peaceful town I've ever been to and I do think it had a lot to do with the absence of automobiles and the corresponding increased pace of life they bring. I know, I know, I drive. They definitely have their place in this world because "we've" made it so, but damn...how nice it was to ride a road knowing that I would not run into any cars.

Two days, two seasons

Wednesday

Thursday

The weather has continued to be psychotic here going from winter to spring and back almost on a daily basis. This week was highlighted by my girl's birthday on Wednesday with an amazing dinner from Leaf restaurant in Boulder. Happy Birthday, Smrp!

Don't ever take training advice from me. I suck at it, never been good at it. I just ride when I have time and feel like it. But lately I'm feeling the presence of that 64 fluid miles of the Original Growler bearing down on me in 6 weeks and realizing I haven't rode that long in a very long time. Not sure you can cram for an endurance race, but it'll be fun to try!

Previously on Tuesday, I hitched a ride back up the hill to the fire station from Hayride, and rode the rest of the way testing out the new Stans wheelset (29er 355's). Felt great, but as soon as i finished the short hour ride home and hung the IF on the rack, the rear tire deflated instantly...great...how does that happen?! I guess i'm not riding THAT bike tomorrow. (Note to others using cross tires on Stans - don't use Kenda small-blocks, Maxxis Locusts work great though.)

Tuesday night it snowed 6" and as i left my car at work I happily ponied up and got the Hunter out (with studs still on thankfully) for the ride into town. It was still dumping as I left the ranch and it felt awesome to get back on the Hunter. Future mountain tour ideas flowered in my head. The ride started frozen and then went to slush lower down - the kind of half-frozen slop that forms an ice casing on your down tube and bottom bracket. Properly dressed, i love that stuff. I ended up somewhat melancholy as it was perhaps the last wintery ride I do this year (I just jinxed us, sorry...but not really).

Longs Peak on the left, and Rhino peak on the right, from way south of there

Thursday saw my first ride home of the year, and being a bit early still and with recent snow I abstained on the 4x4 route over the backside of red rocks road and hit up the Dam longer way home. I've somehow never ridden this way UP, only down, and I now realize that this will be a staple of my springtime rides. The route definitely hurt me, and has more pavement than I'd prefer, but the beauty of the diversity of climes passed makes it all worth the while. Worked, after 3 hours and 30 miles, we feasted on food and sipped a Maximus. This morning I did the vice versa of last night's route and snapped a new chain only 5 miles from home. The overhaul of Tank was completed but still has 'issues' apparently...it's a never-ending battle I tell you fixing these damned bicycles!

Happy Friday and happy weekend all!

Parts

So I've been trying to shop for parts for my upcoming cross singlespeed frame that I'm building in a couple of weeks. I've been pretty amazed at how long I've been out of it in terms of new components for one, and also at how many of the things that T and I used to brainstorm over coffee are now out there...or at least some version of them.

Tubeless mtb tires and wheels are commonplace, no need to DIY anymore. Flared drop bars? Check. No more looking on ebay for WTB Dirt Drops. There are several versions out there now and with some diversity. The new Salsa Woodchipper? I'm getting a pair of those for the new bike. They don't flare much until very late, so you can stay on the hoods or in the drops with comfort in both. They look to have more real estate in the hooks versus the On-One Midge bars which I'm running now on the Indy Fab. This has been my only complaint of the Midge as my hands don't fit so well in the drops especially when getting bumped around on a rough cross course. There are others too though - WTB released a new version of Charlie's Dirt Drops which looks to be just ok. It has an ergo hook which i don't like and looks like it flares too early.

We used to have trouble finding flat bars with lots of sweep. This is one part that could still use some help since nice and light flat bars with more than 9 degrees of sweep are still impossible to find, but there are several burlier ones out there. Surly has the 1x1 but it's steel, pretty heavy even if it does have a 15 degree sweep. Soma i think has a similar one too. But with the invention of Jones H-bar and the like, there are options at least nowadays.

There are multiple single ring/singlespeed/1x9 cranksets out there. I had no idea. They even come with a guard ring. We used to make outer guardrings ourselves by ripping and grinding all the teeth off a bigger chainring. Then we'd do the same for an inner ring to sandwich the chain in the ring so it wouldn't fall off. They sell those in packages now too, carbon or aluminum versions. We tried the 3rd eye chain guide which didn't do the job for me. A local helped build a better one which looks a lot like what is available now with MRP, Paul's chain keeper, and Rohloff. I got myself a Paul's that i've been riding 1x9 on the Hunter since last fall and it works flawlessly.

Other new trends, i'm hating. Like that I have such difficulty finding an 8 speed front derailleur, shifters, or rear cassette. And that all handlebars are not 31.8 but most stems are. WTF?! "They're" making us buy gruppos instead of parts since parts are not even close to being interchangeable anymore. The Shimano-ization is complete but the irony is that SRAM's doing the same thing that we used to heckle Shimano about. I get it, but it's frustrating. I'm going back to square tapered BB's and cranksets with no spindle attached for my new single. I wish I had stockpiled certain parts while I could. One of the biggest surprises is the cost of new stuff. It just blows me away! Gruppos that cost more than a custom Ti frame...? Something is out of whack with that.

All this makes me want to go only singlespeed even more...one mtb, one cx, that's it. Oh, but maybe a Rivendell All-Rounder and have them part it out. They'll be around forever. I hope.

The Rat Pack

Hot Dog - The Movie.

Ok, so it's a pretty bad movie by most standards - the gratuitous boob-shots, the bad acting, the awesome (and when I say awesome I mean horrible) 80's soundtrack, and the dated skiing style and gear! Well, it's rad no matter what year it is. While watching this movie last night, I came to the realization that the Intergalactic Pilots are descendants of the Rat Pack. Yes, you heard me: The Rat Pack - that's the group of skiers in the movie that are the locals, the partiers from Squaw Valley, the skiers obviously having the most fun at what they're doing. They have a good time and do stuff racers seemingly should not do if they want to be fast, they cause all sorts of shenanigans, and not in spite of all prior they kick ass and end up with the big Victory in the end - whether that's winning a race or just doing it the right way. They take on the Euro assholes and just show them how it's done....right. Rudy is like Breatherite, and Harkin is...well...take your pick of the Pilots. Sure, the Pilots take racing seriously, but we also realize we do it cause it's fun! We race cause riding bikes is fun. We might even ski race cause skiing is fun. So even in a movie like Hot Dog, there IS something to be (re)learned and it's that life goes to 11!