Equipment - Bike Timeline, Part 5 - Post Actual Size

This part of the bike timeline has to do with my boomerang, first leaving Cannondale, then rediscovering the brand.

I had a good friend with a Specialized M2, and I decided to get a matching bike.

1995: Specialized M2 S-Works, same parts as the red bike. Peak wheel count at this time = about 30 pairs of wheels. Rider weight approximately 142-145 lbs. Max speed on this bike - over 64 mph, my highest ever on any bike.

I returned to 170s on this bike. Take-off cranks, actually, cranks that a customer told us he didn't want. He sponsored our team for a couple years, and, trust me, he didn't need the old cranks.

The original Campy Vento wheels, higher spoke count versions of the original Shamals. They weighed a ton but were strong, fast, reliable, and stiff. Well, until you hit a sunken manhole cover at 45 mph while drafting an 18-wheeler.

Note the Scott Rakes optimistically installed on the bike. Setup with mountain bike pedals (winter time, and I wore insulated mountain bike shoes), a single shop bottle, and a white saddle I still have and use. You can see the N-Gear Jump Stop as well, peeking out from behind the small ring. I've tried to install one on every bike I've had since I discovered them.

I figure I took this picture in the winter, or before some big road race. By the time summer rolled around I'd usually have given up on the Rakes, I'd put on a second cage, and some trusty old aero wheels ended up on my bike. The white saddle, the heavy wheels, they all scream "steady speed efforts".

Winter, in other words.

Or not:

The M2 in angry mood. Picture by GMF. Zipp 340 front, the ever trusty TriSpoke rear.

14 cm stem, crit bars, and Ergo levers. This would be an 8 speed bike. I can't believe he caught me in the middle of the field, at a perfect moment. By now I was running SPD-Rs (the non-Look Shimano pedal) and Sidis. My weight would have been in the mid 140s.

With Mike K at Ninigret Park, RI.

This was earlier in the day from the picture above. Some optimism still shows in our faces. The actual race didn't work out so well.

This was our era of "professional Cat 3 racer" lives. We'd train after the shop closed for the night (Mike worked there too), ride, then spend an hour or two overhauling our bikes.

Repeat each evening.

Crazy.

A tough moment in a tough race. Keith Berger is on my wheel. The Punisher, at the front, is punishing me for beating him at the Tour de Pump.

Unbelievably that's the first turn at Bethel. The dirt lot behind is now a parking lot for a big building housing Navone Studios. One of the Sleepy Hollow riders from this story sits behind Keith.

The M2's claim to fame? I left the original spec headset in place (sold off the rest of the bike to finance the frame/fork purchase). I figured the round bearing headset would be good for a few months and then it'd be toast. I started planning on my cool Chris King headset purchase. Only one problem.

I never needed to replace it.

In fact, it's still good.

Anyone need a threaded 1" headset? Good condition.

Yeah, I still have the frame and fork. I finally cracked the right chainstay and had to retire the frame.

2000?: Giant ONCE TCR, size Med, Campy 9s Daytona (before it changed name) build kit. The kit had Chorus cranks among other things. Claim to fame: built on my washer and dryer. I also weighed 203+ at some point while I raced this bike.

The Giant had the first threadless headset system for me. I hated that system for a long time - it was hard coming off of the Specialized headset, one that never needed anything. The threadless wasn't so hands-free.

The laundry folding table.

I built the bike on the washer and dryer.

I'm not sure why I took pictures of the build but I did.

Almost done.

Closer up of "almost done".

After the build. No tape because I'd ride the bike on the trainer before I wrapped the bars.

Interestingly enough, that's the saddle I have on the Tsunami, right now. In 2010.

An early, heavy race. Years later, when I saw this picture, I actually wondered who was wearing the green kit. The missus wondered how I got into the kit, it was so tight on me. My friend Greg.

I weighed about 200 lbs and lasted maybe 4 minutes in the first race that year. I won a field sprint later in the Series. It's amazing what a little racing will do for the legs.

I rode Spinergy wheels for a long time, promoting the brand because I wanted to do so. My friend worked for them and I have a passing acquaintance with the actual inventor (I've mentioned him earlier in this bike timeline series - he helped design the original Cannondale race frame). If only they'd have refined them a bit, with no UCI meddling (like the 16 spoke minimum rule), I think the wheels could have been great. They had a lot of potential, but, ultimately they were only "medium".

A current wheel guru said that he wished he had that tensioned spoke patent. Those are some significant words coming from the guru in question.

Within a year or so I'd ditched the red stem in favor of one by Ritchey WCS. I haven't used a non-Ritchey stem since (except on the tandem).

The Giant had a 55.5 top tube with a 73 degree head tube. It was the first bike I ever raced that had a 73 degree head angle - the other frames were crippled with anywhere from a 70.5 to 72 head angle. The 73 made me feel like I could slalom around little gravel stones while sprinting full bore.

I cracked the chainstay on the first one. I got another and fell hard when I unclipped sprinting out of a corner of a crit. I'd loosened my SPD-Rs so I could unclip without hammering on my shoe with my fist, but I'd loosened them too much. I gouged the top tube so relegated the frame to indoor use.

Hammering with my fist didn't seem too bad after that.

Claim to fame for that crash? The first one the missus kinda sorta witnessed. She didn't witness the crash. She did wonder where I was in the field when the field went by the start/finish line. She didn't see me because hen it went by her I was crawling off the road, onto some broken glass of all things, a few hundred meters away.

I got up, got to the pits, got a sympathetic grin from the original Bethel Spring Series official (he was the pit official), and got back in the race. A bent chain link meant I couldn't stand in any gear, and my road rash started getting uncomfortable. I sat up, my gears skipping, my chain about to fail.

I rode back to the missus, bleeding from various spots around my body.

That's when the missus realized how hard I'd gone down.

I visited the ambulance and got a bit bandaged up. I'd forgotten how much road rash stung - the last time I'd gotten road rash was back in the early-mid 90s.

As I lost weight I started yearning for a lower bar position. The tall head tube on the size Medium Giant worked for my heavy self, but even 10 pounds less and I felt like I was on a mountain bike. I bought a Ritchey adjustable stem and pointed the stem down all the way. It didn't seem right, to need to do that.

So I searched and searched for a frame that would let me connect the dots (cranks-saddle-bars) without too much weirdness.

I retired the frame after taking a lot of measurements one winter and finally finding a frame that would work. I can't find the pictures, but I Sharpied the frame with all sorts of cryptic markings. Using advanced plane geometry (for me anyway) I realized that I could replicate my saddle-bar relationship on a size S Giant. So size S it was. The yellow Giant would be retired.

Hanging in the basement.

2005: Giant TCR Carbon, Small, Campy 10s Record/Chorus. Minimum weight of rider 175, max 198? lbs. Reynolds DV46 tubulars for race day, some clinchers for training.

I upgraded the drivetrain to 10s towards the end of one of the Bethel Spring Series. I'd been struggling in the races, but on the first day on the 10s I won the field sprint. I joked that if I upgraded the whole bike I'd win my next race.

I used Eurus exclusively for a while - the only 10s wheels I had.

I used carbon 175 cranks for a while, eventually replacing them with Campy Record cranks for their lower Q factor (i.e. the crank was narrower overall, making the pedals closer to the centerline of the bike.)

I got the tubular DV46s in preparation for the 2005 Bethel Spring Series. Combined with a long training camp in California, with a prior one in Florida, I was flying in the Series. I finally won it on the last day.

2006: Giant TCR Aluminum, Small, Campy 10s R/C (back up for carbon TCR above). I rarely rode this, disassembled it to steal parts (just the stem, post, and bars) for the Cannondale and then the Tsunami.

My 2006 California training camp. Note the squared off road bars - this meant I wasn't working on my sprint at all. My host Rich is with me. I borrowed the missus's wheels for the trip.

I loved the feel of the size Small Giant, and when I spec'ed out the Tsunami, I used the Giant's seat tube as the basis for my seat tube requests. It's 4 cm shorter than the carbon Giant, measuring 40 cm to the top of the top tube, 44 cm to the top of the seat tube.

I had to change the fork - the original Giant fork wasn't good over 45-50 mph. Seemed a bit flexible.

The two Giants at Bethel. The aluminum one is the lighter colored one with the white saddle. Note the Reynolds Ouzo fork on the aluminum bike.

Let's transition back to the carbon Giant because, although I bought the aluminum one later, I rode the carbon one the most. And, towards the end of its career, I made a significant change to the bike.

Power.

Carbon. From this post. The Coke bottle is upside down, a trick I learned from a visiting Rabobank rider (visiting the area, not me).

The Giant had the first ever powermeter I owned - a PowerTap. Once I had power I never looked back. I started looking for a crank based power system after I realized that I would need to buy four or five PT hubs to rebuild my wheels, and that one or two of them would be impossible to build with a PT hub (the 21 spoke Eurus, the "no-spoke" TriSpoke, and my 20 spoke Reynolds).

I found an awesome deal on an SRM. It was about $1k more than the cost of the power system, but it came with a free SystemSix frame, Fulcrum 1 wheels, and a Record build kit.

Yeah, it was a System Six team replica SRM Record bike. I called the missus to feel out how she felt about me buying the thing.

Her response?

She wondered why I hadn't already done a "Buy It Now".

2007: Cannondale SystemSix, 52 cm frame, SRM/Record 10s. Post, stem, bars from the aluminum Giant above. DV46 clincher wheels to replace the stock Fulcrum 1s.

Bike as set up shortly after it went together, with the Reynolds clinchers.

Initially I set up the bike with one of my trusty Ritchey stems, crit bars, trusty Thomson post, and a yearned-for Reynolds DV46 clincher wheelset (to perfectly match my DV46 tubulars).

Then, after a year on the stock 170s, I moved back to 175s. Immediately felt better for certain races. Immediately felt worse for others. I think starting the season on 175s is best for me, moving to 170s for the faster, warmer part of the year.

That's about where I've been for the last couple years.

And now?

The Tsunami.

(You'll have to wait a bit for that post since I haven't done a post-test ride post on it.)

How To - DV46 Spoke Lengths and Rebuild

The White Industries equipped 16H front and 20H rear Reynolds wheels uses spokes.

Of course.

I broke one of them a month or two ago, and with buying a house, moving, and even working, rebuilding the clincher rear has taken a bit of time. I finally got around to it, after overcoming a hurdle.

I found it a bit difficult to find exactly which size spokes the wheels use, and with the hidden spoke nipples, it was hard to see where they ended (and the broken spoke wasn't of much help). Reynold's site doesn't have specs for older wheels, especially those with hubs other than the ones currently used.

But they do have a support number.

So I called Reynolds, got a friendly and competent customer service person, and he looked up the spoke length for the White Industries equipped 16/20 spoke DV46 wheels.

The inner rim, where the spoke nipples sit, are the same for both the clincher and the tubular. The outer cap differentiates the two models. Since I have matching tubular and clincher DV46s, I decided that I better rebuild everything - the clinchers now, the tubulars after the clinchers.

Fine, I'll skip the front tubular I rebuilt two years ago, since that already has newer spokes. I used non-aero spokes, the better to make the wheel less flickery in sprints - for some reason I can't track a straight line when sprinting on aero-spoke equiped wheels. It must be me since no one else seems to have (or notice) this problem.

Anyway, for reference sake here are the spoke lengths:

Rear:
264 mm non drive
274 mm drive

Front:
266 mm front

I'll be re-using the original spoke nipples. I hadn't even taken one out to see what it looks like, but this last spoke popped way up top so the spoke nipple is rattling around in the rim.

The Reynolds spoke wrench (consumer version).

It is double ended, one longer than the other. I used the shorter end as the handle since it's easier to twirl. The wrench gives you tons of leverage so you don't need the long end except to free up old frozen nipples.

Here is the culprit. It broke on the threads. Brass nipple because it was a drive side spoke. Note the spokes are round for drive side, aero for non drive side. As mentioned before, I'll be using all round spokes, DT 14G Revolution spokes.

Preparing the new spokes.

Since it's a rear, I'm using two different color Spoke Prep, one for each side (they have different length spokes). In the Reynolds case the spokes are really different in length, but in normal wheel builds they differ by about 2 mm. This is hard to see right away and to avoid confusion and mis-laced wheels, it's better to play it save and use two colors. For front wheels you just use one color.

Nothing like some nice Spoke Prep. Dip and then rub it around.

Two different sides, ready to go. In my case I did Right Red (or beige). This makes Blue Left. The Blue side is visibly shorter, even in this not-too-close-up picture.

I started by removing one old spoke, then replacing it with one new one.

Spokes can be bent a bit. I'm doing this with an old spoke but I did it with new ones too. Don't bend too much, but relacing a wheel, one spoke at a time, will require some spoke "tweaks" to thread certain spokes through the mesh of spokes on the other side of the hub.

Respoking is a pain, especially since I didn't want to rotate the rim around at all. Since I didn't know how the rim reacts to different spoke angle stresses, I left the wheel intact (but loose) as I relaced the wheel.

Progress is when all the Red (beige) spokes are gone.

With hidden spoke nipples it's a real pain to thread the nipples onto the spoke. First you have to make sure the nipple gets on the spoke (I dropped two into the rim). Then you tighten it down. Since the spoke wrench for a hidden nipple rim is so far from the spoke, I can't feel the spoke twisting. Therefore I need to hold the spoke with my other hand to feel its twist.

Holding the spoke to feel it twist. Or, if removing a spoke, to hold it in place.

Turning the spoke nipple from the top. I couldn't take the two pictures at once because I don't have a third hand.

Wheel is laced but not tensioned. Note that all the spokes on the grey plastic bin top are the old black ones.

Favorite part of building a wheel (or relacing) - the spoke bend. I did it early on to make the relacing a bit easier, but at the end I did it properly using a screwdriver.

Wheel tensioned.

The wheel after its (my) record breaking run of 244 watts for 20 minutes. Note empty Gatorade bottles.

Its maiden run was on the Monday night group ride out of Granby Bikes. The wheel felt immediately responsive, stiff, rigid, just a joy to ride. Sure, you say, you've been riding other wheels, another bike, of course your "nice" bike will feel fine.

Fine, I admit that I've ridden the Giant on training rides, mainly with the Granby group. But I've been racing the Cannondale a couple times also, and I've ventured out a few times on it shod with race wheels, tubulars (no spares or anything). Although the tubulars are nice, they're not as, well, immediately responsive as the clinchers. I may have (a lot) more tension in the rear wheel but I'll have to check. Any differences or similarities should stand out when I rebuild the tubular DV46 with the same type of spokes.

Regardless they're nice wheels to ride now, and with a 20 spoke rear, instead of 19, it's a heck of a lot better.

Training - Summer Night Ride

My first year of training a lot has resulted in a rediscovery of such forgotten things as burn out, fatigue, and general malaise.

Part of this is due to the fact that I've been doing way fewer races in the last 5 or 10 years compared to the glory years of the 90s and 80s. Instead of 45-55+ races, I've been doing perhaps 10 or 12. The lack of racing is a direct result of two things: fewer available crits and a shorter acceptable drive time. I used to drive an hour for 10 minutes of racing, so an hour crit in Baltimore was worth 5+ hours each way, but now my ratio is more like an hour for half an hour of racing. As a Cat 3 that rarely does races over an hour, this limits my travel radius to about 2 hours.

And, yes, road races would extend my range, but since I'd race the first 5 or 10 miles and train the rest, it's sort of like paying to have marshals at the corners of a training ride. Not something I'm willing to do anymore.

Another "malaise" factor is the solo training. I rarely race, rarely sit on a wheel, and rarely get to actually talk to someone when I train. I've taken to talking to our cats at home in somewhat normal voices and I figured that is a bad sign.

I've managed to get out a couple times with a very local ride. Unbelievably it's the first group ride I've done while I've been up here (it took 10 months to do the first one and an additional month to do the second one) if I don't count the random riders I've met while out on a solo ride.

To fix the lack of racing as well as the lack of social interaction, I've taken to doing a weekday night crit series. That's worth a post in itself so I'll talk about that some other time.

Another fix for the social interaction thing is to do a local group ride. There happens to be one right up the road, low pressure (my 205 watt ftp is at home here), and reasonably long - I think we end up spending about 2 hours out there. Combined with the 30+ minutes for the round trip there (I ride there - no driving involved) it makes for a nice ride. My ambitious self has thought about doing an hour or two beforehand, a la pro, but the most I've done is about 30 minutes.

The final thing I've done to break up the training routine is to ride a little bit after the group ride, i.e. after the ride has ended. This has a number of effects on my riding.

First, it's getting dark so it introduces that whole "riding at night" thing. It's cooler (literally), cool (figuratively), and simply a lot of fun. Night riding also allows me, for some reason, to maintain a much steadier tempo. It might be related to the fact that I don't have a good speed reference since the pavement makes it look like I'm going fast the whole time and I don't see much else. Night riding also helps me focus on pedaling, handling, and my overall attitude with my bike. I've alluded to this before but it helps to rediscover it.

Second, if I know I'll be riding at night, I have to carry all the lights and stuff so I'm prepared to do so. Since most of the group ride is in daylight, the extra gear helps to tone down my naturally jumpy riding (sprinting after trucks and such). This helps keep me from being too much of an obnoxious, elitist "racer" when riding with the group.

It also starts to make my bike look like a "winter bike" rather than a summer bike. Winter bikes have lots of gear and resemble a grand touring car whereas a summer bike resembles a bare-boned race car. A few months of either set up and I'm ready to return to the other one. Since it's virtually August that means I'm getting ready to revert to "winter bike" mode.

Finally, night riding means getting some cool gear out of their storage bags and hanging them on the bike. As a total bonus the bike looks frickin' awesome with all the light gear on it.

To wit:

What you see from the side at night.

I'll have clearer pictures below but the bike had three sets of lights. A NiteRider front light (10v halogen, no longer made, I think it's called a TrailRat), a Down Low Glow pair of blue lights (dual light set), and a SuperFlash rear blinky. The blue halo from the DLGs are the best and I have people slowing just to check them out. I call them my "Fast and Furious" lights.

A front quarter shot, the headlight is starting to die. Fast and Furious bike. I feel like the car needs them now too.

Note: the two above pictures had a shutter exposure that is about 1/2 second and I'd just finished my ride so there is a heartbeat "bump" in there blurring things up. Sorry about that.

Even with the flash the DLGs are super bright. The headlight is not as bright but it projects more, i.e. before my uncharged battery started to give up the light would let me see road hazards before I stumbled into them.

From this angle you can see just how bright the DLGs are, how much attention they attract. It's a very, very good thing when riding in the dark. At dusk they don't do too much, just put a blue glow on your legs, bottles, and frame, but when it gets darker they put a blue halo around your bike. Since they mount under tubes the rider doesn't see it and therefore doesn't see blue lines everywhere they look. Or would they be yellow? I don't know, but you know what I mean, you don't have the DLG tube burned into your retinas.

I feel like a bike racer in Pro Cycling Manager with the "selected rider" halo on the ground around me.

Note the round "halo" on the pavement around your team's riders in Pro Cycling Manger.

Anyway, the set up is really cool. It does take some time to set up - yesterday I had this idea to "pre-ride" a bit, perhaps 1-1.5 hours, then go to the shop to meet up with the ride. Instead, with my small frame and correspondingly limited places to put all my lights, I spent that whole time (and more) getting things hooked up just so. As it was I had to time trial to the shop and barely made it there before the ride left. So much for my 1.5 hour "pre-ride".

If you want to fit all this stuff on a 52 cm Cannondale, read on.

What I have on the bike and a clearer picture on how it fits.

From the front:
1. NiteRider headlight, mounted upside down on the bar mount. The SRM head got in the way so this was a puzzle for me to work out. I tried to put the light on the helmet, trying one helmet, then another (both weren't really stable), then went back to the bars and decided to mount the light upside down on the wrong side of the bars. That worked and it helps that the light has no up or down, it's just "a light". Plus it was getting late and I needed to get going. As a bonus I have nothing sticking up above the bars so the bike retains its low front end look (critical part of a Winter Bike look - low front end with tons of gear everywhere else). I like that.

2. Valve adapter #1, taped to the bottom of the stem. My Blackburn floor pump is fine with the little of the valve it can grab but my Blackburn AirStik is not. I carry a valve adapter (or extender, I guess) so I can use the AirStik.

3. SRM head, because, you know, I want to see stats on my ride. This caused problems because the headlight would sit in the same spot but it all worked out. Yay!

4. Battery pack for NiteRider mounted on downtube. It's on there pretty tight and didn't move even on some very fast and bumpy descents. It's heavy, relatively speaking. It didn't fit under the top tube and although I've mounted it under my stem on other bikes, I didn't like the way it made the bike handle. The down tube worked out well, and the battery has some anti-skid things on them to keep it from moving.

5. DLG blue lights - one under the top tube, one under the downtube. The top tube one is supposed to go on the left chainstay (it elongates the blue halo) but my cranks and spokes hit it. This is what you get with a close clearance design. On my mountain bike it's fine, on the road bike I had to fiddle and put it under the top tube.

6. Two bottles. I forgot to fill one, sort of on purpose, because my bike was getting really heavy with all the stuff on it. My tall bottle only fits on the seat tube since it doesn't clear the NR battery. The short bottle sits fine on the down tube.

7. DLG thing, it's a black box about 1/3 the size of the DLG battery. It transforms the battery stuff into the blue stuff so that the blue stuff glows from the sticks. Okay, it's probably just some electrical converter, but I think of it as a "Blue Glow Compiler". It turns electricity into Blue Glow. The BGC works well but I had to find a place for it - it sits to the left of the seat tube bottle cage, and it's the reason for the excessive electrical tape on the seat tube. There is no strap for it, normally you'd stick a piece of velcro on the frame and use another on the BGC. Since I didn't want velcro on the frame I decided to just tape the BGC in place.

8. Valve adapter #2, taped to the right seat stay up top. Just in case, you know?

9. DLG battery pack. This is lighter than the NiteRider battery but still not a freeby. It weighs about as much as my saddle bag, maybe a bit less. I put it on the seat tube between the seat stays. It looked like it wanted to slip so I put some antiskid tape (i.e. electrical tape looped so it's double sided) so it wouldn't migrate downward with each bump. The ploy worked successfully and the battery didn't move at all.

10. SuperFlash blinky. The best ever blinky. No tools to change the batteries (AAA, I use rechargables), a screwdriver to tighten onto the post (standard and oversize with one clamp).

11. Saddle bag. It has a tube of course but it has more. I have a Ritchey tire lever that also has a screw driver, 5 mm allen, and something else. There's a multi tool that has an 8mm allen, chain tool, and the rest of the allen wrenches. I have a small chain tool (just in case, I have two chain tools). And some normal tire levers and some tube box cardboard for booting severely cut tires. On very long rides (over 80-100 miles) I'll stuff a second tube in there, and in very long rides where there is no cell coverage I'll carry a third tube.

12. I'm missing my pump from this picture which I carry in my jersey pocket for now, but it would normally get tied to the bottom of the saddle bag. Alternatively I'll strap it to the side of the seat tube cage. I didn't do either because I lost the mounting strap for it.

I got back from the ride when it was pretty dark (I grabbed our camera and took pics right when I got home) and it was a great ride. I have to charge the NR battery because it's pretty much dead but the DLG battery is good for a while. Too bad I'll have to wait a bit to do my next night ride.

Till then...

Equipment - DV46 Clinchers

Last winter, before I became a full time cyclist, I sold off a bunch of wheels to finance the purchase of some Reynolds DV46Cs - 46 mm carbon rimmed clincher wheels. They are a virtual twin to the DV46Ts I race on - just the clincher's "more white" decals alert users that I don't have the tubulars.

I got them for a bunch of reasons. The last one is that they are really cool looking. There's something about the image of a deep carbon wheel spinning in one direction, cranks (with the chain on the big ring) spinning the other direction. It screams speed, of fast, of exhilaration.

Imagine someone hammering on this bike, wheel spinning one way past the chainstay, cranks the other. Screams speed, fast, exhilaration, doesn't it?

And, thanks to the Cervelo and Zipp marketing gods, it also reminds me of CSC.

Anyway, the last reason is the least justifiable. It doesn't win budget conversations with the missus ("But honey, these wheels just scream speed, fast, exhilaration... they look so fast. Hello? You got that glazed look on your face again. Am I doing it again?").

I like my bike a lot.

More logical reasons trump cool, fast, exhilaration. I'll list some below.

1. I race on DV46Ts. The wheels feel so different (super light, super fast, different rim profile compared to any non-Reynolds wheelset I own) from any other wheel I had that I would spend a few miles getting used to the wheels. On race day I tend to warm up very little so some of those miles getting used to the wheels occur during the race. You know, while elbow to elbow with 80 or 100 of my closest (in a physical sense) bike racing friends.

This procedure is best described as "Not Ideal".

Riding similar wheels (the DV46C is about as close as you get) would let me get used to the wheels when training. Lo and behold it has. No more weird brake action from yours truly in the first few laps of a race, no more swerving a bit in turns, just the standard "just riding along" stuff.

2. I used to use the same standard brake pads for my aluminum training rims and the DV46Ts. I realize this isn't ideal but I don't feel like swapping pads before each race, changing how the bike feels etc. I didn't want to ruin my DV46Ts by scraping holes through the sidewalls so I decided that I should use the carbon specific pads. But I didn't want to swap the pads all the time so it was either get new race wheels or get new training wheels.

I got new training wheels.

With the DV46Cs I put carbon specific Swiss Stop pads on full time and am now used to the way they brake, feather, etc. There's no surprises when braking on race day like there was before.

3. Since the wheels have the same hubs (I made sure I was buying the same generation of wheel, with the non DT hubs - White Industries I think), there is no need for any fine adjustment when swapping between wheels. Not the case with some of my other wheels.

4. Since the wheels are both nice, the clinchers are a good wheel pit wheel set for the tubulars. Nothing wrong with racing the DV46Cs.

5. I have faith that the wheels will get me home when I go training on them. I popped a spoke in the DV46T front wheel about 10 miles into a 30+ mile circuit race (Prospect Park) and felt fine finishing the race with 50+ mph descents, tight fields, and a massive field sprint, all on a 15 spoke front wheel. I think I got 6th in the wild sprint (which reminds me, I still have a helmet cam clip to finish up - of that race), spoke twanging on the fork the whole time. If the tubular wheel made it through that, I figure I'll be able to get home if the same thing happens on my clinchers.

My stats and riding habits, for comparison sake:

1. I weigh about 170-175 now, topped out at 190+, min will probably be 165 (that was my minimum in the last 10 years or so). I ride a SystemSix pretty much exclusively at this point so not some super flexy frame. I usually carry a small seat bag (very densely packed - weighs about 2-3 pounds), 1-2 bottles, and a mini pump. I don't really load the bike up too much. Anymore stuff I put in my pockets - in other words, when I hit bumps, that stuff normally unweights along with me.

2. I bunny hop everything that significantly threaten my wheels, unweight when riding over normal bumps, and tend not to run into deep potholes and stuff. The last time I pinch flatted a clincher was when I double flatted at 45 mph drafting a truck, maybe in 2004. The rims were unbent. It might have been my panicked hop but I doubt it - the tires blew. It's probably just some luck. I'm pretty sure the last rim I bent bent was in the mid 90s.

What I'm trying to say is that I tend to be easy on rims.

3. I ride 23c tires (Krylions, excellent tire for everything a Cat 3 would do), am religious about checking pressure, and typically run them at 105/110 to 115/120 psi (front/rear). I don't neglect my tires and I don't run stupid narrow tires.

4. I train both indoors and outdoors on the DV46Cs. My rides are anywhere from 30-45 minutes up to 6-7 hours long. Typical rides are 1-3 hours long.

I do have some DV46C dislikes:

1. At 50+ mph on descents with gusty wind (i.e. either gusty wind or a passing truck a few feet off my elbow) the front DV46C gets a bit unstable. I'd prefer a box section front wheel for situations like that and I'll be building one up (aluminum) for those times I may want something more stable.

When I say "unstable" I don't mean "crashingly unstable". I mean I feel the need to get out of my "hands next to stem" tuck and get into a "hands on drops" tuck. I also lean over a bit less - my underside of my chin isn't about to be burned by the tire (it's happened before). With a box section front wheel I feel comfy at 55-60+ mph, chin hovering over tire, hands by stem.

2. I don't like the bladed spokes. The wheel swerves a bit when sprinting. I switched the tubular to round spokes (2.0 DT Revolutions) and it made a huge difference. I am waiting to pop a spoke on the clinchers and then I'll do the same.

I bought the DV46Ts new, the DV46Cs used. Used, Campy freehub wheels like mine are typically sold at $850-900/pair on eBay in good shape, with tires, cassette. Figure $150-200 less for tubulars. I admit I paid on the high side for the clinchers but they included spiffy tires, tubes, a titanium cassette, and some wheel bags.
I'm pretty sure the wheels weigh about the same, but with a training cassette on the clinchers (all steel 11-25, versus a half titanium 11-23), clincher tires/tubes (about 200 grams or 1/2 pound heavier), I figured there should be a slight difference in weight. I confirmed this by weighing the bike with the tubulars fitted first and then the clinchers fitted next. The latter give up about three quarters of a pound penalty, so not very much. With the clinchers the bike weighs in at about 16.5 pounds, about 15.75 pounds with the tubulars. Not illegally light but nothing to complain about.

The tubulars are in front. Note the two different colors in the cassette - the bigger cogs are titanium. Also note the brighter decals on the clinchers -more white and silver make the decals much brighter.

Both sets of wheels. The clinchers are on the bike. The front tubular has silver round spokes. The rest of the wheels have the stock black spokes (round on driveside rear, otherwise bladed).

Incidentally my previous bike, with the identical DV46Ts (including cassette, skewers, and tires) on, weighed 17.5 pounds. It feels noticeably heavier than the SystemSix.
Because I now know it takes a few minutes to swap pads, I'm not as concerned about mixing up my wheels with aluminum rimmed ones as I was before. Changing between aluminum and carbon rims doesn't faze me now. I simply don't have a race wheel set up at this time. Plenty of training wheels but no nice, light, 28H tubulars ready to go.

A final note. It might be my imagination, or it might be that I'm just used to aero wheels, but these wheels, they don't seem that aero. They seem more like the old Zipp 340s I had - light, super quick acceleration, but they top out quicker than more aerodynamic wheels. I don't know, I don't have any data on this.

Plus it's still cold out, and that makes it worse. I ride with a jacket on top of everything else every time I go out. It feels a bit constrictive and not as fast, so I don't like doing max speed efforts at this time. So my top speed efforts are a bit misleading. And finally, right now, without any speed measuring devices on the bike, I can't measure anything anyway.

So much the better, that's what I think.

I'm just waiting for the warm days to hit. And then it'll be time to go out and play.

Equipment - Deep Carbon Rims

One of the things I've been obsessing about are the wheels I use when I both train and race. I've always thought of the wheels as a mental "race or train" equipment change. Almost everyone had a set of "special" wheels when I raced. At first they were simply lighter wheels, maybe with a lower spoke count. But as the very expensive aero wheels came into vogue, many racers have significantly more aero wheels set aside for racing.

The problem with saving the aero wheels for just races is that you end up with a bike that handles significantly different on race day. Aero wheels present a much taller profile to crosswinds, creating a rudder-like effect.

In the rear that's no problem - the rear "rudder" stabilizes a bike and makes it much easier to hold in line. I've done some road races with very fast descents with a deep profile rear wheel and a normal box section front wheel. My highest recorded speed (calculated through rpms and gear) occurred with such a setup when I sprinted at the top of the big hill in the Fitchburg road race stage and tucked, disregarding the marshals' warnings to slow down. When I slowed and started pedaling, I spun up to 160 rpms before I realized I should coast a bit more. At that time I was going about 64 mph. The aero rear wheel made the bike feel incredibly secure and I never had a moment of fear or doubt in that descent.

On the other hand an aero front wheel wants to flop around. It makes the bike handle so differently that it forces a rider to actually steer the bike as opposed to simply leaning it a bit. Since the front wheel is more significant aerodynamically than the rear, a racer will want to use an aero front wheel if they own one. I'd skip the aero front wheel for any super crazy descents in gusty conditions but around here, and in California, I can't think of any crazy descents like that.

My favorite wheels are currently the Reynolds DV46Ts, 46 mm tall carbon tubular rimmed wheels. They are very light, reasonably aero, and laterally quite stiff.

However they are all carbon, including the brake surfaces, and ideally I'd be using carbon specific brake pads when using the wheels.

Of course the problem is when I train because I normally train on aluminum rimmed wheels. Those regular brake pads get loaded up with bits of aluminum and dirt, fine on an aluminum rim but not that great for a carbon rim - the bits of stuff embedded in the pad wears out the rim sidewalls. So I need carbon specific pads when using the DV46s. This means I have to change pads out each time I race.

This isn't ideal.

I went through a lot of thinking and experimenting with power things (the PowerTap and then the SRM) and wheels. I decided that if I were to train with power, I'd want to be able to race with power too. I couldn't afford to set up too many wheels with PowerTap hubs though, and some wheels like the TriSpokes simply aren't PT compatible. Combined with a desire to significantly stiffen up the frame, this led to the purchase of one SystemSix SRM equiped bike (it has the BB30 bottom bracket shell and Cannondale's rightly earned reputation for making very efficient frames).

This didn't solve my aluminum training rims versus carbon training rims though. So I sold off a few sets of aluminum rimmed wheels, including the beautiful Fulcrum Ones that came on the bike, and bought a set of kindly used Reynolds DV46Cs. The "C" stands for clincher.

Since both the DV46Ts and DV46Cs are made by the same company, and they share generationally similar hubs (they've since moved to DT hubs from the Chris King ones), the wheels should swap spots with no problems. With similar profile rims the clinchers should handle just like the tubulars as far as wind and general behavior is concerned. And of course they both require brake pads specifically designed for carbon rimmed wheels. I'll be able to keep the carbon specific pads on all the time and not worry about changing them out each time I race.

I'll be using the wheels probably tomorrow for the first time, or maybe this weekend, indoors for now. Maybe in a week or two I'll be on the road with them. I know I need to ride them a few times before I go to California so I have three weeks to experiment with them.

As an aside I took the opportunity to weigh the wheels using my new Christmas gift scale accurate to 0.1 grams (this accompanied the bike scale so I have both). The wheels included a rim strip alternative, little rubber plugs that close up each spoke access hole. I didn't remove them but the wheels (no skewers) weighed almost exactly 660 g for the front and 865 g for the rear. Nice and light (albeit not the lightest) and it still has a deep rim profile.

Even though the wheels came with virtually new Continental tires, I also bought a bunch of Michelin Krylion tires, 700x23. I replaced the Contis because, frankly, I'm not impressed with them. And I really like the Michelins, at least the durable ones. I'm tired of flatting on training rides and I'd really like to move to a slightly nicer tire compared to the super reliable but very heavy Schwable Blizzards (wire bead tires). I rode with my friend and former teammate during my San Diego training camp who had Krylion-like Michelins and on a day that I got two flats (a sort of record) he got none. I flatted on a different day and of course he did not. So Krylions it was.

I'll be mounting these tires up, installing some appropriate cassette (11-25), and using them both on the road and on the trainer to get used to them. And, when I fly off to San Diego for my 2008 training camp, I'll be packing a set of carbon clincher wheels.

Then we'll see how my training goes!