I talked briefly to Fish today. Fish and Dave (formerly DTP) are training for an Ironman in St. George, Utah. I am so glad that I am not forced to train right now. Basically, right now I ride if I want to, and if I don't...I don't. This is the first time in about 3 years that I have not had to train for something. I don't have much of anything on the horizon, and that suits me just fine.
And the bonus part is that I am not even gaining much weight. I was sitting at 192 this morning, a little over 4 pounds off my cyclocross season low. Meh. That feels good enough right now. I have more things to stress over than training for something or losing weight.
This is not to say that I haven't been riding. I didn't ride much the beginning of January, because of illness or schedule, but wound up doing about 140 miles the last half of January. I have been doing commuting and I went on a couple of rides with friends/teammates.
Last week I was invited by Brianero to go on a lunch time ride. I took my new Lapierre out with road tires instead of cyclocross rubber to just get the cables stretched. Riiight. Really what the deal was is that I really like riding it. The position on the bike feels great. I haven't spent much time off road on it yet, so no final review is close yet. Nevertheless, on the road it feels exceptional with regard to fit.
His teammate Craig was also on the ride. We rode around Lake Oswego and managed to find most of the steepest roads to climb. Why? They said something about wanting to know about the elevation gain on some of the roads. So away we went. For a ride that lasted about one hour and 15 minutes it was full of suffering. Within about 5 or 6 miles during the 15 mile ride we climbed about 1600 vertical feet. Much of that in stretches that had a grades between 13% to 20%. Ouch.
I thought we were finally done at one point as we were descending and near the bottom the jerks pulled a U-turn on me and headed right back up again. I was toasted by the time we got back up to the top.
On the way back there is one decent that is pretty much a straight shot down. I wanted to see how fast I could go. I hit 53.7 mph and that felt pretty good.
I hope that these rides can find a way to occur on a regular basis. They hurt, but that must mean that they are good for me. It is also good to note that I didn't get dropped too far back. All is well really at this point of the year.
FSA K Force crankset bites the dust
I broke my 4th crankset within the past 4 years. All of them have been carbon. 2 of them FSA. One was an older Ritchey WCS carbon with an ISIS bottom bracket interface. One was an Easton EC90 that had a manufacturing defect. On both of the FSA's, I broke the aluminum spline near where the pedal threads. On this break, I also cracked the carbon as well.
Frankly, not many things make me feel as manly or tough as breaking a crank. It makes me feel like I am Arnold Schwarzenegger or something. I just have too much POWER....or perhaps I am just too much of a fat ass. Regardless, it is cool to break crankarms.
FSA seems like it will be nice enough to warranty it. The new replacement for the K Force that they no longer make is a SLK Light crankset. I hope the third time if the charm. I may not even keep it though. FSA only has a 2 year warranty, while I believe that Easton has a limited lifetime warranty. Since I seem to only be able to make a carbon crankset last about 2 years it seems like going with a crankset with a better warranty might be a good idea. The Easton warranty is limited to the original purchaser--a good reason not to use Ebay in this instance.
Anyway, The Mule will be getting my trusty Campy Record carbon-armed square taper crankset regardless of FSA warrantying the broken one. The Campy arms seem to be bomb-proof after a year and a half of hard use. I know, I know, it hasn't hit the 2 year mark yet, but I think it will be fine. I am also going to put the Forte groupo on the Mule in short order. It will be interesting to see how the Forte group works. I am not expecting perfection, I just expect it to work. Either that or group is all going back to Circle P in short order.
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