The Race Is Over, A new Frame Begins

The Tour de France 1933

The Great Divide Race 2007 is over no racers remain on the course. Of the three singlespeeders none finished in regulation time but Nathan Bay managed to complete the course in 25 days and 8 hours. I am noticing a trend of repeat racers. Mostly people who pulled the plug early and come back for another go. Based on the increasing interest in the race coupled with a good number of return racers what am I to expect from 2008. 35 starters? 50 starters? I hope not. I think that 10-15 racers would be ideal.
In other news I have pulled the plug on my frame build from the company i will no longer mention. I am now getting a frame built by Independent Fabrication. IF has always been my dream bike and after dealing with the last custom frame builder I am quite resigned to paying the extra money to have the process handled quickly and professionally.
My experience with IF has been amazing so far. I had a bike design with CAD drawings in under 24 hours. There are invoices and clear production schedules. These things seem so rudimentary but I went 7 months with the last frame builder without drawings, phone calls or a realistic time estimate (10 weeks was the original quote back in january. I received one email in April suggesting that he might start my bike the next week but it looks like that did not happen.
I will be more than happy to forget the whole thing happened as soon as I get my deposit back. I WILL get my deposit back or this will get ugly.
Training wise, I feel some snappiness in the legs after taking it easy for a week. I am trying to emphasize hard rides with high cardio versus the endurance based riding of early summer. I am getting a new wheel built up for the mtn bike so hopefully I can get back over to the CDA forest for an 80 miler. I am not in too much of a hurry because the temps are over 100 degrees every day. North Division Bikes is doing the wheel build. I have always liked the shop but since it isn't the most convenient shop to my house I never go there.I also dropped of my parts list for the frame. Two days later no word back. I am developing a theory that bike shops don't call people. They are more than content to wait for you to come back in. As much as LBS talk about the threat of internet sales they don't act like they are afraid of losing anyones business. I am not ruling out sourcing the parts myself. Hopefully North Division will come through and it won't come to that.