The New Hotness

After an excruciatingly long time, I finally got it built up. I'm still debating on whether I should fire my mechanic. Man, that dude is slow. I got the bike Wed night around 9 and was quite tired so I postponed any activity until Thursday. I had lady-friend plans at 7 so it would have so wait until after. I jumped right in after I got home and threw in the towel around 1a. Everything was roughed in so I was OK with that. Detail work is best done when fresh.

The list of work to do was extensive; I basically started from scratch, but had to strip it to the frame to started. Fork, cockpit, cranks, seatpost/saddle, etc all had to go. In order to maximize resale on the stock XT cranks, I installed an old favorite 2x9 C'dale crankset. A bit non-PRO, but just wait til I get the real cranks. Trust me. At least the white fork/saddle/grip tape helps to offset that.


SRAM X.0/X.9 is installed for the go; I'm trying the X.0 Grip Shift on the front derailleur to see if I can get used to it. All previous attempts at running a Grip Shift always resulted in a dumped chain when manualing over logs and such, so this is a test. My mistress, Marta, provides the slow. The added bonus is they are anno red. A fiery redhead, indeed!
As per standard operating procedure, I'm leaving the steer tube as-is until I feel safe to cut it to the proper length. I'm also hopeful the front end is stiff enough with the spacer stack because it looks so much better to have the stem horizontal.
As built, it tares out at a svelte 21.2lb, which will easily fall when I replace the portly cranks and backup skewers. I've also got a set of Schwalbe Fast Freds that, at 380g per, are about a half pound lighter than the Fast Trak LK/SLK I'm running now. Hard to give up the solid feeling I have for those tires, but we shall see. So the end result may be a solid mid-20lb bike, Not too shabby considering it's a 19 inch frame (Thanks Isaac for having a 19" bike in your living room for me to try!)

So I'm excited to ride it, this being the first post-Cannondale Lefty era bike, and all. A full week at team camp in NC is coming up in two weeks so I will assuredly shake it down.

In other news, I decided the SRAM TT ring I was undecided on is cool. They look damned sweet when rolling over at around 100rpm.
What's not cool, tho, is the bunk-ass approach to leaders jerseys/skinsuits at the AToC. Straight black bottom with no team sponsor mention up top?? If you want to be the biggest stage race in the US, lean on Voler to man up. Seriously.

With that, I'm out.

-the ATM