Publius & Co.

First ride of the season.

Fellow Munuvian Heather has pointed out it's cycling season. It seems hers is off to a bit of a rough start (she lost one of her gloves). However, I must gloat mine was off to a wonderful start.

Gloat! Gloat, I say!

Now that that's done, I can get on to some details.

First: My bike is a 2002 Jamis Ventura. It's a steel road bike, with lower-end Shimano Tiagra parts that are just begging to be upgraded (Tiagra is second from the bottom on Shimano's 1-to-5 scale--It goes Sora, Tiagra, 105, Ultegra, and Postal races on Dura-Ace). It was reviewed in Bicycling magazine a few years ago (in...uhh...2002) and it got a nice review as a good, solid, dependable bike provided you really don't want to race, except for the wheels. It said the wheels were "flexy" and I can testify it's true: the 16-spoke, single-cross front, and 20-spoke, double-cross rear Xero Lite XR-3 wheels won't support a rider much more than 150 pounds. Every time I leaned into a turn (and not all that sharp a turn, neither) I'd hear this neeeeng neeeeng neeeeng sound that sounded like the spokes were screaming in agony.

So the wheels became the second thing I upgraded (The first was that crappy saddle that left me slightly numb where guys don't like to be numb. I changed that to a Performance Bike Store house brand saddle with titanium rails. Hey, it was on sale.).

I owed the guys at College Park Bicycles a small favor, so I thought I'd order some better wheels from them. You see, a few years ago, I was at College Park Bikes and I happened to mention I had missed the Bike Magazine annual photography issue that year. The guy behind the counter had a copy sitting around, and he gave it to me, explaining I could just buy something from them sometime and they'd call it even.

New wheels should pay back that debt, I thought. I was thinking I'd get a pair of Mavic Cosmos wheels--a good, solid wheel. Relatively lightweight, lots of spokes, and Mavic has a great reputation for a French company.

The gf and I make a yearly pilgrimmage to CPB. Me, I go so I can look at bikes. The gf goes because CPB is right around the corner from the Marathon Deli, one of her favorite eating places when she was a student at U-MD. This year, tho, instead of looking, I'd be ordering and buying.

At CPB, one of the floor guys came up to me and asked if I was looking for anything in particular, and I explained to him I need some new hoops. He went to the guy behind the counter (don't think it was the same guy I met a few years back) and explained what I needed, and the guy behind the counter asked if I'd mind some used wheels, if they were in good shape

I told him, yeah, that would be fine, if they were in good shape. My logic was they were cheaper, and that would go even more to paying off my debt, since I'd be taking something off his hands that he probably wouldn't be able to get rid of otherwise.

He came back with new-looking Rolf Vector Comps, with tubes & tires still on the wheel, along with a cogset. "The guy who traded these in didn't like the color--they didn't match his bike," he explained. I looked at the red-anodized rims, thought of my electric blue bike. "How about $280 for the pair? That includes the tires (Continental Grand Prix 3000's) and Ultegra cogs. That's a hundred bucks worth of tires right there," he continued. I looked at 'em again, and I realized they were probably new, unused wheels. The gocs were grease-free, and there was no rubber wear on the braking surface.

I took 'em. The price couldn't be beat, I was helping the guy out, and they at least match my helmet. And I knew they wouldn't be as flexy as the Xero's I currently had, despite the low spoke count. The new wheels are great, though the Conti's are 25 mm wide (my old tires were 23 mm) and the cogset is slightly slower in low gears (12-23 as opposed to 12-21).

Besides, Postal used Rolf Vector Pro's a few years ago. Now they use Mavics, if I'm not mistaken...

The next upgrade was my seatpost. eBay got me a used Thomson seatpost--my old one with a setback left me just a little too far behind the pedals. The Thomson has no setback, and I've really dialed in my position on the bike.

So--the first ride of the season was on Rock Creek Park, from Lake Needwood to Dewey Park, a little over 13 miles. It felt good--afterward, driving home and smelling the sunblock, feeling the buzz in my legs, and with a feeling of...openess in my chest, I remembered how I used to feel back in my AIDS Ride days, when an up-and-back on Rock Creek Park (about fifty miles) or a metric century (62 miles) on the C&O Canal towpath was a normal Saturday morning ride for me (on a Cannondale hybrid--nowhere near as fast as the Ventura). I want to go for a ride right now, except it's raining, and I hate riding in the rain.

That, and I confess my butt is a bit sore. It takes a few rides to get your butt used to sitting on a saddle for hours on end.

Posted by Victor at Marzo 27, 2004 10:25 AM