Larger Milan

We have been working on building the pattern for a slightly larger Milan for a while now.  It has languished for quite some time but has seen some work lately while I have been waiting for parts to arrive for  Milans that are on order.   It is a bit taller, about 2 cm at the shoulders and a bit more at your feet.  Most importantly it is longer by 8 cm with the door opening moving forward the same amount.   The limitation for really tall folks in the GT was that if they had really long legs their shins would not clear the front edge of the door unless you moved the bottom bracket further forward.  Short cranks help some for this but mostly you ended up with the bottom bracket too far forward to be in a good pedaling position.   I have also increased the width at the shoulders by 6 cm.  So now if you only just fit in the Quest you will have space in the Milan XL.  Any suggestions for a better name?

Here you can see the extra width at the shoulder.  I have the first side almost done and just need to make more templates to be sure the two sides end up being the same.  

The other side with the template in place where all the fill needs to go.  I have left the shell open just in case I need to add some material on the inside.  I did need to cut some away and fill in the nose to get a nice shape as just cutting the  original apart and rejoining it longer caused a bump to show up.  The orange bit is the modification to add the rain gutter to the mould.  

Motivation

This ride turned into a long way to go for a couple of beers.  My friend suggested we ride to Powell River to check out the craft brewery there.  Sounded like a good idea.  The weather was nice, the ride is a reasonable distance the only complications being catching ferries and getting back before it was dark.  I left here early caught the 7:00 ferry and met my friend south of Campbell River.  Had a leisurely ride down to the next ferry.   A half hour wait for the ferry, one hour and half ferry ride and just a short ride to the brewery for beer and lunch.  Arrived at the brewery, as cars were parked out  we pulled around the side.  It didn't look very open as we passed by.  In fact it wasn't open but not all was lost.  As soon as we pulled around the side we were invited to help pick hops off vines collected from the local area that were growing wild.   No sooner had we started and we were offered free beer.  A new enthusiastic employee was quite diligent at keeping my glass filled.  After picking hops we were given a tour of the brewery.  Ended up buying some beer and then off for lunch a short way away.  Just barely made it to lunch and didn't need to order any more beer.   After lunch not 100 meters from the pub I had a flat.  Didn't stop soon enough and I ended with three punctures.  After fixing these and using all my patches it was a bit of a rush to the local bike shop for another repair kit and then the ferry.   Getting off the ferry was interesting as I had to rush to refill both front tires which now both had slow leaks.  Rode about twenty minutes pulled over and refilled the tires.  Did this once more and then decided to try for the ferry home as it was getting dark.  The rest of the way was mostly downhill with two smallish uphills.  I was suitably motivated at this point.  Not only was I losing air but there was still an hour of riding to go.  Probably was over 60 kph for about ten-fifteen kms and then over forty most of the rest of the way.  Made it to the ferry with half an hour to spare.  Added more air and made it home before 9 with a total distance of about 140 km.

Link to the brewery  townsite brewery