Death and a rebirth

What happens when you have to many bikes, actually define to many bikes. New intro, what do you do when you have many bikes? Most are ridden but a couple are slowly seeing less an less action. Other's at certain times of the year begin to see more. That would be the story of the Blue CX6.5 cross bike. As the leaves change it becomes the season of random 2x10's falling off trees and road bikes that grow knobby tires. The fall does bring out some strange things.

I've never really thought much about cross and got the bike more for crappy weather rides/winter bike. Then this year came around. In the past I've usually done a single race but I'm feeling that craving to ride really hard for one hour, trying not to vomit and not trip over boards. That said the twins ordered me in some goodies to do an overhaul on the bike. I did get the weigh in before the rebirth, just over 20 pounds. ok, but can be a lot better.

The old build up

Aluminum seat post, not so light handle bars, 9 speed Tiagra shifters, 105 derailleur, wtb seat, Time heavy Atac pedals and a set of Maxis Locust tires which are great for mud but not great at being really fast in dry conditions. To top off the old look, black bar tape (lots of it) and cables. It was a bomb proof build up.

One thing the bike had been asking for was a full tear down and scrubbing. I wonder how dirt gets to certain areas some time. With a now shiny frame sitting in front of me I glanced around the basement. That moment old faithful caught my eye. My Giant OCR road bike that was turned into a trainer bike. Old faith full can't battle with the Chuck Norris TCR and has not seen outdoor action in a couple years. I noticed that there has been a lot of higher end gear sitting on that old beast. It was my first road bike and I loved the way it felt and as things wore out parts got upgraded. It took about 3 seconds of pause to reflect on all the fun I had on it, then like a crazed murderer I ripped the bike off the wall and began slashing and tearing it apart with little regard for it's feelings. 5 minutes later there was oil stains left on the floor, a pile of dismembered body parts and a body hanging from the bike stand. I looked at my hands with a little shame, ok that's enough time to move on.

The Blue was going to look good, I'm going to go really fast with all this new stuff. Ok maybe it will just be the Blue looking good. Puttered away for the next couple hours mounting this and running cables for that when the final product emerged.


The run down. Drivetrain now is a 105 10 speed shifters, Ultegra derailleur, 105 compact crank (the Ultegra on the other bike is internal BB) Areus carbon seat post,(seat itself is still under debate), Amoeba Scud wing bar, the light Time Atac pedals, dry condition wheels are Xero lite's with Schwalbe CX tires with a 12-25 cassette, mud is Mavic Aksiums with the Maxis Locust and a 12-27. Weigh in will be done soon enough but a full pound was dropped, just those pedals made a huge difference. Things were topped off with white bar tape and white cable housings. I know white in a sport that will turn things dirty very quickly.

A short ride was needed, when I say short I mean short. The shortest ride I've done ever. About 15 minutes, just long enough to fine tune some fit. Got a message from a friend on a way to maximize a 15 minute ride. 3min E1 spin (high cadence), 1 min zone 4@90 rpm, 1min soft pedal, 2 min zone 4-5 100rpm, 1 min soft pedal, 2 min LT 120 rpm, 1 min soft pedal, 4 min max power/cadence all out, stop no cool down. According to new recent study you will recover stronger leaving the lactate in the muscles. Scott has a really sick sense of humour. What was not included was what happens at minute 16, vomiting, seizures and almost certain death.

It's a few weeks before the first real test, there will be some fun test rides though in the near future.