Droessiger CX

After building an XC Hardtail, I decided that I wanted a road bike that I can take on gravel and singletrack if need be, and use as a general purpose bike and commuter too. I didn't want it to be too bling either, because I might want to be leaving it around town, so settled on matt black with simple 9sp Tiagra kit. The 9sp also means a little bit of cross compatibility with the XC bike (eg only need 1 spare chain and powerlinks etc.). Eventually decided to buy a Droessiger CX frame for less than €200 shipped, columbus carbin forks, Tektro mini-V brakes (for compatibility with road STi levers), mostly Tiagra 4500 mechanicals, but SRAM chain and cassette. Wheels are Shimano 105 on Mavic Open Pro rims, with Continental CX Race tyres and Continental tubes.


The frame:


Frame showing "square" profile of the top tube, which might make it a bit more comfy when shouldering the bike:


First load of components arrived:


Crankset and BB installed. You can just about make out the "triangular" profile of the downtube:


Mostly built, gear/brake cables all installed and adjusted ready for test ride. Just need to put the bar tape on (which will be fun - not done that for years!):


The rest of the build photos can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/DrossigerQCross

ALRS 2010

My last rocketry event of the year would be the ALRS event in Switzerland again, and despite depressing weather forecasts, it was actually sunny all weekend. A few regular faces were missing this year, but the event was still busy with plenty of flights.

I didn't fly much in the end, just the VB Extreme 29 on a 24mm E15 for a perfect flight, the Saucer twice on D12s (first one spat the nozzle out, so flew again successfully), and the LOC Legacy on an F52-4T (which landed safely, despite the shockcord coming apart in flight).

There were a few "mishaps"... Mathias has a catastrophic motor casing failure (Pro75?) which caused extensive damage to the back end of the rocket:

and Frank managed to lawndart a full-carbon Raptor, which ended up in 2 bin bags:

All pics can be seen here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/andysrockets/ALRS2010