News and Notes 7/17/2008

Wheelsets

I sold my American Classic Carbon 58 wheels this week. I will not be replacing them with another carbon wheelset. I figure at most I would need these wheels twice a year. I don't think I need them for anything less than an olympic distance triathlon. I figure that I will do at most one of those and then a sprint or two and then the 70.3 Ironman California next year. Wheels are freaking spendy for the kind that I would like to race on. So instead of owning something that even at a wholesale price would cost me at least $1,300, I will pay $140 for a week's use covering the time I race the 70.3 distance triathlon next year. I probably won't bother for an olympic.

Anyway the place is called Race Day Wheels. I have heard about them and the one person I know who used them had a good experience. I have a certain limit on amount of bike assets that I have at any giving time because, frankly, we are poor and I am spoiled enough already with 4 bikes. These wheels were just sucking up too many of the asset allotment for the amount of use I was getting out of them.

Instead the carbon wheels I am going to buy a set of Neuvation R28 SL5 to have on hand as a training/cross racing wheel. They weigh under 1500 grams and the deal I can get on them is even better than the prices they advertise on the web. A fellow at the shop has a set of the older R28 SL3 wheels and to his dismay when he got a set of Mavic R-Sys wheels a couple of months ago he couldn't tell the difference between the way they rode and the cheap neuvations. The R-Sys wheels were about 199 grams lighter and did look cooler, but he still decided to sell the R-Sys wheels already. The price we can get these things Neuvations is just silly. So for road/cyclocross wheelsets I will have the following: Mavic Ksyrium ES tubular wheels, DT 240s/DT rr1.1 wheels, Velocity hubs/Velocity aerohead wheels, and the Neuvations. All these wheelsets are sub 1500 grams but seem pretty durable to so far. I also have a Cane Creek Stados wheelset that will probably sit and collect dust for the time being. It weighs a ton (not really, about 1800 grams), but I should probably make it the rainy day commuter wheelset.


Commute/Creaky Crank

I am also proud that I commuted to work, both there and back via my bike everyday so far this week. And I did so despite my wife telling me I could have the car everyday. And I did it all on the Curtlo with the larger gearing. I have found that there is some creaking going on. I believe the Token bottom bracket is the culprit. I am using the older square taper technology on the Curtlo, by the way. I have a carbon Campy Record crankset on it with the crappy Token bb. I should have just bought the more spendy Campy one, but I was trying to save a little money at the time. The thing is only 300 miles old. Maybe 500 tops. It hasn't seen hardly any bad weather either. It only pops with larger efforts when I am climbing. I am going to check the chainring bolts first before I get too wound up. I did check the torque settings on the bb cups and the crankbolts and they are now all good. Still creaky though--just not as bad. The non-drive was about 1/3 lower than it should have been.

Curmudgeon Cycles

Curmudgeon is one of the leading candidates for the name of Neil's frames that he plans to build. He gave me a drawing today for my frame. Woohoo! There are still a few kinks to work out but things are ironed out enough that I can buy some lugs. I am thinking that the headtube lugs and seat tube lug may come from Richard Sachs. The bottom bracket lug will probably come from Pacenti, though I reserve the right to change my mind any number of times.

Here is a link to a pic of the lugs I am thinking of using. I will probably do a little customization to it regardless of which lugs I get.

Am I stoked to play around with the lugs and have a small part of creating something I will race on? You betcha! Stay tuned for occasional updates on the build process. I don't expect the frame to be done until early next year, maybe December at the earliest.