"Take a Good Look, Because Its the Last Time You'll Be Seeing These"

I got to take the Madone out for a quick spin today after work. I only road for about 15 miles because I don't really know any good road routes and I am planning to do a lot of riding the next couple of days. I really like the bike. It handles well and is a comfortable ride. It is also really stiff and can accelerate about like Ethan's Tarmac, which I like. I am not going to go on too much about the bike because I am kind of disappointed at the moment. Upon arriving home, I went to put the away and noticed a chip in the back of the seat tube. The finish is chipped completely off but I can not tell if there is any damage to the carbon that would compromise the integrity of the frame. I am planning to take it in tomorrow and have a mechanic look at it. I don't know much about carbon frames so it may be fine but it certainly doesn't inspire confidence. Needless to say, I am kind of bummed. Hopefully the only damage is cosmetic. I am not sure what would have caused the chip. It isn't really in a good spot to have a rock kicked up from the tire (unless I was going backwards, which I don't remember doing) and I wasn't riding any really rough roads. For those curious, I did two loops around the bike route that goes by Kent Road which shouldn't have caused any problems. I guess I will see what the deal is tomorrow. Anyway here are some pictures of the bike.

The bike.

Also made in God's Country.

How exotic.

The good stuff, I guess.

An attempt to photograph the damage.

I feel worse than this guy. At least he got a cookie.

The Return to Gears

The bike shop called tonight and said that my Fisher was finally fixed and ready so I went down after dinner and picked it up. The new frame is a Ziggurat instead of a Tassajara. I have never heard of this model and it doesn't show up on the '08 Fisher website. The only sign of it that I see on the website is from the 2006 lineup of bikes. I am not sure if this bike just isn't posted online yet or if it is only going to be sold outside of the US or something. The listing from '06 listed the bike as a race hardtail,which means that it is at the top of their hardtail lineup and a significant step up from the Tass. It looks like the bike retailed at $3300 a couple of years ago compared to $720 for Gennie last year, but most of that price difference is due to the nicer components on the Zig. The frame is made from ZR9000 which is a material that Trek has developed for their bikes. It is aluminum with a little bit of zirconium mixed in to allegedly add strength and reduce weight. Although it may be a little lighter than Gennie it still feels heavy compared to Mikey. Another cool feature of this bike is that it was made in the USA unlike the rest of my bikes. After getting the bike home I started to put on the last few parts that I took off to build up the Surly. The pedals were quick to put on but I tried to use the old disc brakes off of the Raleigh until I can get some new ones. The brakes are made by Tektro which is pretty much the crappy generic brake manufacturer. I never realized how nice the Avid brakes were to setup until I tried to put these on. The rotors were warped to the point that the wheel would hardly spin and the pads cannot be adjusted without tools. These things suck and I wasted most of my night trying to get them to work. They are ok for the time being but they have got to go before too long. After getting the brakes on and close to working I decided to take the bike for a spin around the parking lot to test it out. It has the exact same geometry that Gennie did so no surprises there but I can definately notice the difference in quality from this bike and the SS. Besides the sorry excuse for brakes that the bike currently has, the bike just didn't feel as solid as Mikey. The grips slide around, the cranks flex, the bottom bracket isn't very smooth, and it has a really squishy feel to it now compared to the rigid fork. None of these things mean that it is a bad bike and I have had these same problems in the past they just weren't that noticeable until I started riding a nicer bike. The bottom bracket will need some time to break in since it is brand new so that problem is only temporary. Hopefully I can find some time to put down the Surly one day and take this thing out to the trails so I can give it a real review.

Although it has taken an absurdly long time for this new frame I am really excited about the upgrade. Unfortunately, Cycling Spoken Here left me with a bad taste in my mouth again. I was hoping they would cut me a deal since it took them the entire summer to swap out the frame. I was also thinking that since the bottom bracket was working fine when I took it in that they would replace the broken one at no charge. This obviously wasn't my fault so I shouldn't be held responsible right? Not really. I was still charged for the labor to switch the parts to the new frame which is no big deal because the wait wasn't completely their fault. They also charged me for a new bottom bracket and labor to install it. I really wished they would have let me know that I was going to be buying this part before they ordered it because I probably would have used this as an opportunity to upgrade to one that will last a year before breaking. I am not sure what happened to the bottom bracket but somehow about half of the threads on one side were completely stripped off. I have no idea how this happened but somebody has to pay to fix it, and apparently that somebody is me. In the end I had to pay $110 for them to fix the defective bike that they sold me. And to top things off, the mechanic told me that they still had my old frame except for a little piece that they had to send back to Trek. I thought that I may be able to get it back and use as a decoration but before I could ask I was told that one of their employees had taken it out back earlier that evening and beaten it into the ground with a rock. What a quality shop.

On the brightside, I did get to see a newly assembled BMC Pro Machine that was probably one of the nicest bikes I have ever seen. I would guess that it was easily $10000. They also had some other BMC frames on the floor that were really sexy. If I could find one of these frames slightly used for a good price it would be my next bike, but thats not going to happen. They also had a nice looking Trek Madone 5.0 on the floor in my size. It had a full Ultegra drivetrain and has been marked down to $2000, which is a really good deal. If I had gotten a little better service from the shop I would have taken it for a test ride tonight. As it is, I don't think I will ever let a CSH mechanic touch one of my bikes again and I am really hesitant to buy anything from them ever again. If it wasn't for the discounted Madone and them being the only BMC dealer in the area I would go ahead and say that I will never shop their again, but I want to reserve the right to buy one of these. Anyway, here are some pictures of the new ride.

The new bike.

Ziggurat?

The fist and last name in mountain biking.

Made In God's Country.

Good old Genesis Geometry.

From the front.

The headbadge.

No need to address that huge design flaw. It will probably work itself out.

The broken bottom bracket. The picture isn't that great but the silver strip to the right shouldn't be there.

Mikeys New Home

With Ethan moving out a couple of weeks ago Mikey was able to move out of the living room and into his very own bedroom/bike shop. Ethan's old bedroom is now the home to Mikey, Ann, my repair stand, and a whole lot of worthless bike parts. It is a little light on decorations for the moment but there are a few old parts laying around to keep it from looking too bare. I may look into getting some cool bike posters or something to hang on the walls but for now it looks ok. I started using my workstand as a collector for all of the bike stickers that I have collected. A lot of parts will come with a sticker of the brand logo and over time these little stickers will start to pile up. I have a couple that I had sitting around so I decided to throw them on the stand as decorations since that bike is way to pretty to mess up with some manufacturers logo. Right now the room has plenty of space for the two bikes but things may get a little cramped when Gennies replacement gets here (more on that later). I have been thinking about getting one of these and keeping the bikes in a row instead of just leaning them against the walls. This will help to keep the walls clean and save some space. It will also make the room feel like more a real shop with the bikes displayed like this but it will probably take another bike for this to really take shape (I guess I have to buy a new '08 road bike now). Here are some pictures of the new digs.

The view from the entrance.

The stars of the show.

A wind chime that I made from an old freewheel.

Hopefully I will be able to add another bike to the stable in the next couple of days when my new Fisher is ready to go. After taking two months to get a new frame, the bike shop called me a couple of days ago and left a voicemail saying that the frame was in but that during the part swap the bottom bracket messed up. I have no idea what happened to it but I am guessing that one of their mechanics screwed something up and stripped the threads or something like that. The guy on the phone didn't say if it was something that they broke or was already broken and they just found. Considering the wait for the frame, I would expect a quality shop to at least cut me a deal on the labor costs, especially if they screwed something up in the process. I don't expect anything like this from Cycling Spoken Here but it would be nice and might restore a little of my faith in them. I want to like the shop and really do like a couple of the employees but it seems that a lot of my trips there end with me feeling like I am trying to be screwed over. If I have to wait two months for a new frame (not completely their fault), then wait another week for a part that they broke (not sure that this is even the case) and still get charged ~$85 then I will probably never considering going there again to buy something. They do have some rides that I may join in on occasionally but they will not get any of my business. Hopefully they are pretty generous with the bike when I finally do get the bike back so I can feel a little better about shopping there. I guess I will have to wait and see what the story is when the new BB comes in.

Anticipation

Sitting and waiting on my frame and parts to arrive is starting to wear on me. I am so anxious to get back on the bike that I find myself checking the UPS tracker several times a day even though I know that the stuff won't be here until Monday. On the good side, I know that everything is going to come in the next couple of days and that I should be riding by the end of the week at least. My Speedgoat order is scheduled to arrive on Monday afternoon so I am planning on treating it with Framesaver on Monday afternoon and letting it sit over night. Hopefully I can find some time on Tuesday afternoon to go by one of the shops and have the headset cups pressed in. It is tempting to do this myself with a cheap homemade press like this one but this headset isn't cheap and I don't want to screw it up. If I can get that done Tuesday then I should have time to assemble the rest of the bike on Wednesday afternoon. It is possible that I can get it built in time for a quick trip to the trail on Wednesday evening but even if I don't I should be back in the woods by Thursday afternoon. I went by the shop today and got Gennie for the afternoon so I could steal some parts. Now that I have those, all that I need are the handlebars and the stuff from the Speedgoat order. I can't wait to have this thing up and rolling. It has been almost six weeks since I have been on a mountain bike ride which is way to long to be off the bike. The guys at Cycling Spoken Here this morning said that Trek had lost my paperwork and that they had to resubmit the claim so who knows how long that is going to take. Fortunately, I don't have to wait on them any longer.

Once this project is complete, I guess I will have to start waiting on the '08 road bikes to come out. They had a new Madone at the shop this morning that was a really sexy bike. I haven't really been that interested in Trek but that bike definitely caught my interest. Then I saw the $3500 price tag. So it looks like a Specialized, Orbea, or maybe a Felt. Or it could be something totally different. Specialized and Orbea are my favorites right now. Specialized makes a good bike and they are definitely popular, but I am not a big fan of the giant corporation or having a bike just like everybody elses. Also, it looks like Specialized prices are going up in 2008. Then new Roubaix Comp is up to $2400 from $2200 last year. It looks like the only difference in the bikes is the paint color. I guess I will wait and see what they do with the Tarmacs. It is hard to beat the support of the smaller companies like Orbea where you can call them with a question have someone actually answer the phone and talk to you. Not that Orbea is that small but they are compared to Specialized. I am trying to support the small guys with this SS project and it is nice to not get lost in the crowd (see Treks warranty process). On the other hand, Orbea bikes are not as common and it is going to be hard to find one to test ride. The spesh is a relatively known commodity having ridden both Tarmacs and Roubaixs, although neither in my size. Hopefully one of the two will come out with a really sweet bike that blows the other out of the water so my decision will be easy.