January. Time for winter parkas, gloves and layers. 62 degrees? What the?! Yup in deed we are having a pretty unbelievable spell here in zee republic. I got hot on my Carter Lake run today and had to jettison the leg and arm warmers. Paradise.

I got the roadie completely re-dialed by Dwayne at BCS. For not riding it n nearly a full calendar year, it was awesome to be back on it. You forget the speeds you can maintain out on the open roads. I set it up absolutely identically to my 'cross position, slightly modifying the position Todd Carver set up for me. More forward and aggressive and it felt infinitely better. Todd got rid of the pain...and I think this subtle tweak will see me happier as well. The Belgian bike fit gurus would likely scoff (with their 140mm stems and laid back seats) but it felt like a whole new and better bike. I also jettisoned the Ritchey Streem flat top bars (bunk, IMHO) and went for the carbon version of what I am using on my 'cross bikes: The Ritchey WCS Classic. Such an incredible feel in those bars.
And so the long distance stuff begins. 3.5 hours today with a re-loop of the Carter backside climb and I felt fantastic. I need to seriously burn some of this weight off and re-develop some of that slow twitch again.

Is spring here?

Mad style points:

• Rare 26" Dugast and Custom Ritchey Carbon Rims: Check.
• White Radars, Helmet, Gloves and White Sex: Check

A mini-Frischi protege' indeed.

Mmm. 48 degrees. Yummy. It's Africa hot as far as I am concerned. Did a nice lunchtime roll and hooking up with my team mates FINALLY so we can spin together on our first ride of the season as a group. enough rollers, enough single speed and CX bikes on the sludgy roads and snowy trails (or now) . I am looking forward to spinning long hours on the roadie with good peeps.

My boys at Ritchey gave me the kind hook up to make the roads feel that much better on my Sycip. Jeremy and Jay Sycip built me this ride in 2001 believe it or not and I can't believe how well it's stiiod the test of time. 1000's and 1000's of miles on this.The new Ritchey stuff is like buttah. I am going with the new Streems to see what that is all about. I tend to ride on the tops of teh bars on the road so this is supposed to be more confortable.
The fork replaces a 6 year old LOOK and this is lighter and carbon from drop outs to steerer.
Seatpost bling will keep my heiney well positioned. I will do a complete write up of these after I have some time on the road. I use WCS everywhere so I expect the reviews will be stellar.

Looking forward to the LSD trip.

I had lots to do today. Heavy duty spin and then weights for 3 hours in the AM, kid play all afternoon then unpacking all the boxes from Verge and re-packing into individual bags for all the team-mates today. Thanks to our Devo team for assisting! They basically ran the show! One other thing was to visit BCS and pick up my new Rock Lobster for next season. (Don't ask me why i had it built up. It's sort of like having a bad case of blue balls I suspect. I needed to 'release' and see the thing built up).

It came out sweet. With Mavic Open Pro/Hugi's, a bunch of Ritchey WCS (although I'll have other wheels this coming season to race on) and the Alpha Q, this Easton Ultra Light is 18lbs. Not stupid light (my Scandium RL with the FSA's is 17.3 pounds) but light enough. I am 6'2 and about 180 when I race so I figure I can skip a couple-a Newcastles before I get stupid light equipment.

An interesting twist was related to the Alpha Q. I had this fork on my Scott Team CX this season and while on ,it had a significantly longer steerer. Problem: When you buy and install Alpha Q's, they are essentially on THAT bike for life. Why? You cut the carbon steerer, then permanently glue in this Aluminum shim which holds the star nut in place with the same shit they bond rotor blades of Apache's with. So, I'm thinking I am humped and have to buy a new fork. D-Wayne (THE MAN) at BCS called True Temper directly and got the green light to cut RIGHT through that shit! Good as gold. He cut through the carbon and on through the aluminum shim, pushed down the star nut and voila, correct steerer length for this bike.

I blinged out this bike with some carbon fiber love. Some FSA CX carbon cranks (175 x 110BCD) and a 42t FSA ring. Note the carbon chain guides. Hand made by Joe De Paemelaere of Primus Mootry here in town. Dope. Super stiff.

Lastly, Brandon waranteed a few Fizik Arione saddles for me. The guys at Fizik were cool and swapped out the seats I broke this CX season (2 of 'em). Apparently there was some flaw that cracked right at the flex points directly through the middle of the underside of the saddle....obviously exacerbated by 'cross regardless of how smooth your remounts are. I run 'em on my road bikes and love 'em so I wanted to try for 'cross. C'est la vie. I'm going with 'em again this season.

Finally, to my earlier point, the 07 uni's are in and they are sick. Verge nailed the design spot on.