Yes the groupo arrived late no thanks to our UPS driver. That guy doesn't do anything the same twice! One day he's at the shop at 12:30 the next it may be 4:00 and what's even more funny he never sets the orders down in the same place in the shop EVER! One thing I always notice about the dude.....he looks lost all the time. Yea I'm pickin' a little on our newest UPS driver but we were spoiled from our last one, he was ALWAYS at the shop no later than 11:15 EVERY day. Our customers expect it now, they have become accustomed to getting their parts at lunch when they order them.
Since I was unable to get home and assemble the BMC with the new 11 speed I had to saddle up the con crosso, yea the Salsa. Compact 50/34 with a 28/12 and 9 speeds was all I had to ride the TNR Thursday. I will admit that thing rides BETTER than ANY aluminum bike I have ever ridden on the road, scandium is sweet! Running in the pack when the accelerations would come had me almost tapped out on my tallest gear. I managed to hang on until we got to Buffalo then I tried to go uphill with them but those heavy Xero wheels just would not go up no matter how hard I turned those compact cranks. Maybe it was partly me as well! Ha ha of course it was me and my outta shape butt!!
I gota get on it though, my bud AC is on a freakin' mission! He's going to end up out-crankin' most of everyone in the NTMBA wait and see, he's got so strong compared to how he used to ride last year, Kudo's my man! The boy is even gettin' skinny too!
Since I was unable to get home and assemble the BMC with the new 11 speed I had to saddle up the con crosso, yea the Salsa. Compact 50/34 with a 28/12 and 9 speeds was all I had to ride the TNR Thursday. I will admit that thing rides BETTER than ANY aluminum bike I have ever ridden on the road, scandium is sweet! Running in the pack when the accelerations would come had me almost tapped out on my tallest gear. I managed to hang on until we got to Buffalo then I tried to go uphill with them but those heavy Xero wheels just would not go up no matter how hard I turned those compact cranks. Maybe it was partly me as well! Ha ha of course it was me and my outta shape butt!!
I gota get on it though, my bud AC is on a freakin' mission! He's going to end up out-crankin' most of everyone in the NTMBA wait and see, he's got so strong compared to how he used to ride last year, Kudo's my man! The boy is even gettin' skinny too!
After the ride I had a late night physical to get my CDL physical card (Thanks Dawn, wink wink) and I was surprised on how good all the tests turned out. 100 over 68 was my blood pressure pretty good for an old guy huh? That was THE BEST physical I have ever had!! Yes all that Campy stuff still sitting here at the house and still I had not touched it or even coddled any of the chi chi's. I just sat them on the couch 'til this morning.
So I get up and first: fine tune the Salsa. The gears were a tad on the noisy side yesterday so I had to get that outta the way first.
next: try to do something about all that squeaking on the Yeti 575 that I was hearing Wed night at short track. I took the cranks out and moved a spacer to the other side as to give me a better "big gear" chain alignment for this 2X9 set-up I'm experimenting with. I rode the whole short track Wed (except for last two laps- I stopped) in the 42.....unheard of by me I say! But oh yes I did! I was wheelin' a 42X32 not even a 34. That was taken care of as well this morning, a 12-34 was installed pronto. I don't like all this learning what new gears to be in crap. I normally can ride my bikes by feel instead of all this new gearing and ratios I'm playing with. Look at it, I'm not an FSA fan but a smidge over 100 grams lighter than my XTR's and just as stiff starts to make me grin.
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TAAAAAA DAAAAAAAAAAAA! Well here it is, all the pretty new chi chi's installed and sitting by the door ready to go. My groupo isn't really an Athena group. It's sort of a "Rechorena" group. The BB cups are Record, the chain and cassette are Chorus then the rest is Athena. Actually the shifters are the Chorus with a aluminum spine in the lever blade and are only 28 grams (less than an ounce) heavier than the Chorus and over $150 cheaper!
Ummmm looks soooo good! The levers and bodies feel like you are holding a gun.
count'em - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11 gears ready to roll out in the A.M. !!!!
what a mess and waste of paper and packaging, Italians...
All this paper in a chain box! I will let you all know how this rides although I already know it's going to be like a nice 100 year old aged wine for sure. My plan is to take out with the group and ride for about 90 minutes then ride back to the shop and swap out cranks for the carbon ones that were supposed to be on my bike unlike the aluminum ones that are installed now. I was also planning on maybe hitting Roan but tha Rhododendron Festival is going on this weekend so that shoots that idea in the head....too much traffic up there. I will find something to climb tomorrow for sure, the group is heading up Beech Mountain, I don't have the time.
LAter G........................
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