More Road

Spooky Road Frame. It is Aluminum, very light Aluminum.

Built with campy 10 speed ergo levers, 9 speed chain/cassette from Shimano. Chain/cassette should be changed every 2000 miles or so, this lowers your cost from $130 to just $40. After a couple rides and trainer rides the levers are broke in and super smooth. The frame itself is surprisingly stiff. I stood on it a few times and the bb doesn't move.

Complete it weighs 16lbs. I could lower the weight by upgrading the $30 post to an american classic or carbon post, antares saddle, 10 speed cassette/chain, and rear derailleur but in this weather it is hard to talk my self into it.


Velocity road cages come in all colors and are $8, 25 grams each.


Volker Bicycles has a 2 year anniversary party tonight from 5-6:30. Come by and drink some free beer before heading to critical mass, or whatever you do on friday night.

Road Bike

I almost road this for GOTHR today, luckily, I did not. Ended up riding through a blizzard for 3 hours with the snow turning to water as soon as it hit the ground, meaning our bikes were covered with ice by the time the ride finished. Steve and I road our track bikes again which were much easier to clean and way more fun to beat up. With the temperature being 24 degrees it was not very comfortable and I don't think anyone was in high spirits, but the work had to be done.

Back to the bike. This is an xenith sl model, the superlight 900 gram frame with bb30 and 11/8 to 11/2 tapered headtube. It is super stiff and smooth. This bike has 7900 on it. I have been riding sram since the debut of rival and I love it. I must say I don't absolutely hate the 7900, in fact, it is 10x better than 7800. But I will be going back to sram once my road season kicks in once April arrives. Anyone want a complete da 7900 group of $1200?


Wheels=are awesome. I love wheels, and these are the best I've seen so far. 1460 gram full carbon clinchers with sapim bladed cx-ray spokes, and super smooth ceramic bearings. Most people who know carbon wheels wonder what's different with these? How are they different from Hed, zipp, reynolds, and Mavic? They are lighter...stiffer...and braking...braking is phenomenal! After a few descents down state line or Rainbow Blvd. from 39th to sw boulevard you can definitely feel a difference. Not only do I notice a huge increase in performance compared to other tubular and clincher carbon wheels, I also believe the braking is better than most aluminum rims as well. These things come with yellow swiss stop pads which are used, and they work like champs. The final ingredient to the wheelset is corsa-cx 23mm tires and challenge latex tubes.


Best part is these things retail at $1800, compared to the $2325 zipps and $2450 Reynolds.

Street Cred.

Street Cred is happening on Saturday. Find more info. HERE!

The shirts above should be ready to purchase at this event.

GOTHR

Another awesome gothr ride today. I believe there were at least 9 of us and we covered 49 miles. Only 1 stop, which was to repair a flat and with the pacelines we were able to get the ride finished before the snow got too bad. Wind was not awful and the roads stayed relatively dry until the end of the ride(by then my socks were soaked). I was able to use my fender on the rear to keep my back dry but my track-geometry bike kept me from installing a front fender. Definitely feeling a lot better after this ride than previous, hopefully I'll be able to keep up the pace during the week.


Tomorrow is the McCoy's ride. Leaves at 6 from Volker Bicycles, cruises around for about an hour and ends at McCoy's for $7 pitchers/pizza/burgers. A true bargain and a great time. Mtn./cross bikes are probably preferred with the snow accumulating.


Click here to see Jake's fancy 305 map of the gothr ride.

Weekend

Weekend, so far-so good. Got good mtn. biking in this morning before it got too warm. Did 3 laps before it I started getting my shirt dirty.

SC has some good pics of the party and mtn. biking.


Hopefully the weather will stay good for GOTHR. Starts at 1:00 tomorrow, leaving volker bicycles. If there is snow on the roads, I would recommend riding a mtn/cross bike instead of road bike. Plan on a 4 hour ride, then a super bowl party somewhere...

This is good!

I promise!

Riding.

I missed the Urban CX race on saturday, due to not planning ahead and getting someone in the store. It was obviously a fun time. I heard rumors that r5 was there and also that we wasn't there. I had a few guesses on who it was, but I keep getting turned down.


Sunday was a good day. We got in about 60 miles by the time the sun set. Here is the route. Joe used my Garmin 500 with powertap. It works great! So much info, especially when you use trainingpeaks. Steve and I road are fixed bicycles again. We had pretty good gearing, around 44/20, and could keep up just fine. The ride was much better than the previous week. Though I prefer the Longview route, having the sun go down around 3 and pedaling the last 15 miles into a 20mph headwind was not ideal when you can't shift.