In with the new...

...whether it be politicians or road bikes.

Day after Election Day and since Team dicky has let his liberal politics slip into his latest entries I must stand for conservative cyclist everywhere and say “We are taking America back”. Yesterday a clear message was sent to the socialist agenda in Washington that the majority of Americans know what it means to be an American and won’t let it be taken away so easily. As it stands we haven’t won control back yet but at least now over the next few years one foot can hold the brakes down even if the other is smashing the gas and in the end hopefully there will only be a lot to spinning tires and blowing smoke until we can get a new driver for the American car.

Now back to more nonpartisan cycling related matters.

Progress is still being made everyday toward making the first annual Bricks at Campbell Criterium a reality. I have talked with security and you can all rest assure that your safety will be taken care of at the race. Also it looks like January 29^th is going to be a go for the date.

I thought I would touch on my road bike a bit more today as it is kinda a big deal and only received brief coverage last week. I have taken it in to the bike shop for them to look at the brifter (or the pieces that use to be a brifter). All the mechanic could say is “Why would somebody do this”. He assured me he would do his best to get it back together right but that it would be a tedious process. That was Saturday and Im yet to hear any word back. I told him that I had faith in his abilities, and I do, but none the less I have been keeping an eye out for a used Ultegra flightdeck to take its place.

I have in the back of my mind this idea to drop this bike into the 16 pound race day weight range at some point even if that is 16.99 pounds. I know I promised a more exact weight last week but when I hung the bike on the scale the needle (yes, needle I still have an old timey scale) stuck at about 15 pounds. I wish this were the weight but for some reason I don’t think the measurement was accurate. Never the less I would day I have around two pounds to drop to get it to my goal. The wheel set on it now weighs in at 1900 grams and the tires at 300 a piece. So Id say there is easily a pound and a half to drop right there. I have been looking at a wheelset from Bicycle Wheel Warehouse called the Black race ten that comes in at 1450g for $350 which seems reasonable t me. Combine that with some low 210-220 gram tires, ultegra cassette and then a few odds and ends like seat, seatpost, stem and maybe shifters and I think I can get there for a reasonable cost.

Hope that wasn’t to much weight weenieing for you but now that I have a frame worthy of a bit of weight weenieing I can see it coming.

I did take the bike out for a very short ride (with only one shifter and no front brakes) and though the ride was short I had a huge smile the whole time. Until I bought this bike last week I had only set on one other road bike for a bit of fitting at a bike shop to see what size I needed to look for, the 54 feels perfect to me. I cant get over the feel of the bike through the corners and how easy it gets up to speed. It rolls so smooth and fluidly through the flats and around the corners thos little skinny tires hook up. Honestly I don’t know how to describe the ride or how the bike performed because as I said I have no experience on a road bike but coming from my 5 years on a mountain bike this is a whole new animal that I think ill be getting much more familiar with over the next year.

That being said I kinda have this goal for the next season of hitting 1500 miles total ridden. Im not really sure what kinda goal this is but I want to keep up with every time I get on the bike from November 1^st 2010 until November 1^st 2011(seems like a reasonable cut off from when I stop racing one season and start preparing for the next). I first thought Id make it 1000 but this upcoming season I have 3 centuries and one metric century planned on the road as well as a 6 hour race where I should hit 50 miles and a 24 hour race where I expect to hit well over 100 miles not to mention racing shorter races every weekend in the spring and fall. That will get me around half way to 1500 in racing alone. This winter I plan to be on the bike almost every day and between the first week of December and the first week of January (Christmas Break at college) I plan to be putting in 100 mile rides every week along with several other shorter ones as kindof a month long training camp. So in short I thought 1000 would be to easy and honestly Id say 1500 s gonna be readily attainable. However, I dare not mention 2000 though Ill keep it in mind.

Hopefully next week Ill have the bike back and have a full first real ride report to give.