It's all about the bike
Oh boy oh boy oh boy. It's like Christmas morning here at Saunders Towers. Tony Haile (the project manager of my last expedition & skiing partner for the next one) spent last week in New York and brought back a pair of gleaming Cervelo P2K road bikes from Brooklyn-based R&A Cycles - one for me, one for him. The next expedition is in roughly 14 months' time and we'll be pounding out a few thousand training miles between now and then – anything we can do to make training more enjoyable and effective is A Good Thing, and what better (for a pair of narcissists like us) than tasty new triathlon bikes to pose train on?
I built them both up this afternoon (on the living room floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering girlfriend) and took mine out for a brief shakedown spin around Richmond Park. First impressions?
- It's like riding the bicycle equivalent of a Porsche 911 Turbo. Anyone that knows anything about bikes wants to race you, especially away from traffic lights. When you're getting used to a bike that's built around full-on, steep-angle triathlon geometry, as well as trying to figure out new pedals, this can lead to acute embarrassment.
- Once you've clipped your feet into the pedals and summoned up the courage to adopt the elbows-together, nose-on-the-front-wheel aero position, it's fast.
[NB. Extreme bike nerdery follows - if this sort of thing isn't your bag, please turn away now.]
Things I like:
- The frame itself – the attention to detail (weld quality, rear-wheel cutout, horizontal dropouts, cable routing, etc) is gobsmacking.
- The Ultegra groupset (apart from the brakes – see below) – Japanese efficiency through and through.
- The Selle San Marco Aspide TriathGel saddle. Makes leaning on bits that shouldn't be leant on surprisingly comfortable.
- The Cateye CD300DW cordless computer. Finally, I can see how fast I'm going.
Things I don't like:
- The brakes. Cervelo's own-brand and not terribly impressive. On a bike this fast, brakes are Useful.
- The saddle clamp (pernickety, I know, but it took me ages to flip the saddle around into the 'forward' position).
- The Cateye CD300DW cordless computer. Finally, I can see how slow I'm going.
I'm looking forward to racking up a few more miles on my new steed and I'll let you know how our relationship blossoms. I'm also looking forward to goading Tony into shaving his legs. After all, with a bike that says you're a hard core 'roadie', you'd be laughed at if you didn't shave your legs. Hehehe.
— Filed under Cycling