kenj mentor group - back for another great season! CLOSED (Page 51)

Last day of work and then vacation in Florida next week!  Supposed to be warm too!

TGIF!!

Thanks Ice, I'm pretty aware of the component levels and such.  If anything came out of my whole triathlon journey it's my love for cool bikes!  I somehow ended up with 8 of them! lol.  I have a decent road bike right now.  It's a carbon/aluminum Fuji Pro Series Roubeuax custom built with Campy components and Campy wheels.  I've had it for 5 years now and was ready to upgrade to something a bit more special.  My frustration comes in, as far as bike prices go, because it wasn't too many years ago when you could get a TDF level bike for 6k sans wheels.  Now it seems like the mfg's are playing all sorts of games.  The TDF level bikes are 8-12k.  The step down is around 5-6k it seems.  I was looking to get a TDF level frame with Ultegra or Force components.  I'm not finding any of that in the 4K range anymore.  Most bike shops don't stock those bikes.  You can get a good deal on the lower level stuff for sure.  They have last years stuff in stock.  But I won't find those upper level frames with Ultegra/Force in last years model on sale.  Best I've found so far is the Specialized Venge Pro Force.  It's $5500, but it comes with some pretty sweet wheels!  I may be able to justify that, since I'll likely buy wheels for whatever I purchase anyway.  If I buy a Cervelo S5 with Ultegra I'm looking around $4k.  Then I need to spend another 2k on wheels.  At the end of the day I don't even have the TDF level frame because Cervelo doesn't sell the S5 VWD frame with ultegra.  It's a game! lol 

Still not entirely sure what I'm going to do.  If I can't get what I want I may not do anything this season.  I'm trying to keep in mind this is a backup bike.  My P4 is primary!  My coach is re-fitting me on my P4 and doing the fit for my new road bike tonight.  I'm going to spend that time talking to him about some of my equipment, what I should upgrade, and what road bike I should buy.  Hopefully, that will help me make the decision.

btw....

totally agree with you Ice on components.  My P4 has SRAM red.  Not the regular red, but the upgraded ceramic version.  Very high end, and very expensive!  I also have a P3 with 105/ultegra mix.  I've ridden other bikes with Durace and all sorts of components packages.  IMO there is no differnence other than weight once you get to the 105 level and above, or Rival level and above in SRAM.  That said, I'd like to get the top of the line frame if I can.

If the weather reports are right, it looks like it will be warm and mostly dry.  I hope so, ready to sweat a little!

I hope your tire issues go away!  That is frustrating to go through a streak like that!

Thanks!

Keep at it, you'll get the work in!!

I would be interested to hear his opinion on what he feels is a worthwhile upgrade. 

Another approach would be to buy the frame and do the build yourself separately.  Treks concept 1 is a tempting way to do that, then you could find the components you want from different sources.  Other bike shops will sell nice top of the line frames online for pretty good prices at the end of the season. 

I've got a feeling he's going to tell me to skip the upgrade all together.  I think my addiction to buying cool stuff is taking over here! LOL   I can't say that I still won't spend money on other things even if I overspend on a new road bike.  But, practically speaking, I don't even really need a road bike.  He may tell me to spend the money elsewhere, like better fitting aerobars, better aero wheels, a quarq, or more racing/training, etc....etc....  Or, stick to a $2500 bike and spend the rest on the other stuff if I really have to upgrade.

Oh heck, what do coach's know     If you don't have a power meter they are great.  I suspect if you have all that other stuff, you've got a power meter. I've used Power Tap for several years.  Only problem is you have to buy training wheels and race wheels with hubs.  Quarq lets you just move the crank from bike to bike.  I was fortunate.  After getting started with a wired PT and training wheel, I found a terrific buy on eBay for Aerolus 5.0 (two rear wheels, one with a hub and one front plus a complete wireless PT for $1800.  Like $5,000 worth of stuff.  I expected the police to show up and charge me with stealing. So that's on the time trial bike.  The road bike with the trainer wheel is on the Computrainer, which is another great investment.  Very efficient use of time, very precise workouts. 

I love Return to Center shifters.  I think they are safer.  Cheap relatively speaking.

Another upgrade for me was to go from a Garmin 310XT which had issues to a Garmin 910 XT which has functioned spot on since I got it a year ago.

I love bikes, too.  I've got a Giant TRCc1 with Ultegra, a LeMond titanium on the trainer with Dura Ace (i love it on the road, too, so quiet) and my Shiv time trial bike, a Trek Pilot with fenders and such for commuting and an old Trek 700 for screwing around in the woods or Cyclocross.  I sold my Stumpjumper (never any time) and my Orbea TT bike for the Shiv. My Orbea started with Rival and that was a good set up.  I've used Force, too, and they operated great.  

Morning!

Enjoying our time here in Florida, weather has been pretty good and MUCH better than home.  Still getting my training in and enjoying doing it outside. 

How are the rest of you doing?  Big training this past weekend?

thanks again Ice, I really appreciate the input! For a slow amateur triathlete I'm actually pretty well equipped.  I do have a powetap laced into a set of Hed jet 9's.  I also have a 910xt and an edge 705.  My coach is pretty happy with the equipment I have for training purposes, and I have more data than I can possibly use! lol

Funny thing happened to me on my way to my bike fit Friday night.  It rained!  While I guess that's not all that unually, it was a reminder to me why I had a crappy old road bike around.  I brought the P4 and my road bike to the fit.  I was able to load the P4 safely out of the elements into the back of my SUV and put the road bike on the rack off the back trailer hitch.  But as my road bike got filled with wet salty road grime I remembered why I had it.  Then I thought, if I got a new fancy road bike, what would I ride on crappy days?  While, I guess the P3 would do, I've got some stuff going on with that where I may not want to take it out in the rain anymore either.

So, I called the bike shop on my P3.  Early winter, I went to change the bottom bracket and a couple threads came out with the BB.  So I took it to the shop to chase the threads.  They hadn't called me in a while so I got on them.  They don't think they can fix it.  Personally, I think one of their amateur guys f'd up the threads when they tried to re-chase it.  I can't proove it though so nothing I can really do.  They are going to have one of their senior guys try it one more time.  Hopefully, this decade!!!  Sooooo....Looks like I may have to resort to options that will ruin the paint on it.  That being the case, being me!, I planned out a whole custom powder job for it and will be completely rebuilding the bike and doing some upgrades along the way!   That's if they can't fix it for sure.

Back to the bike fit!  So I got to my coaches and right away leaned toward fitting my P4 as primary.  So He spent a couple hours going over every detail.  Thankfully, I didn't have to swap any stems or anything because I forgot my box o' parts at home.  My fit was drastically different from my last one.  I've since lost a considerable amount of weight, gained a lot of flexibility, and have become a lot more accustomed to riding a bike in aero.  My seat had to go up quite a bit to get the proper knee angle.  I also had to go back quite a bit.  That really opened my hips up a lot.  I was feeling a noticable difference in the ability to make power completely around the pedal circle.  With the seat going up and back I did need to put some spacers back under my stem to raise the bars.  I may actually change the bar out later to swap to a bar that will raise the arm pad height with spacers so I can slam the stem further down toward the head set.  Unfortunately, I put some lbs's back on after I got off my winter diet.  So I could actually go up a bit more on the bar height to breathe better, but I told my coach I'd rather leave it there with incentive to take the weight back off so I don't have to put more spacers on the stem.  Lastly, we threw my road bike on the jig to make the adjustments necessary to that.

I've had a couple trainer rides on the new fit now.  It is taking a little getting used to but it's coming along nicely.  Pedal strokes seem much smoother, I have way less wobble in my knee's, and I'm not as scrunched up on the bike. 

So as we talked about the new bike and my current equipment I decided not to get a new road bike right now.  I think if the right deal on something came up I still might do it.  But for now, I decided it's really not necessary.  I'm going to cocentrate my efforts into upgrades to my current equipment and training equipment for my pain cave.  Yesterday, I bought a new bottom bracket for my road bike, noticed a little clicking on it while we were doing the fit, and a new carbon fiber seat post for it.  I like carbon seat posts on the mtb's because it takes a lot of vibration out of the terrain.  I'm hoping it will do the same on the road bike, and I needed a longer seat post to get to the position I need to be anyway.  I'm also thinking about the bar upgrade for the P4 and maybe switching to a quarq powermeter so I can switch wheels.  I think the Jet 9's with the powertap will go to the P3 and I may get a full disc carbon clincher wheel for the P4 and a carbon clincher front.  If I do the bars, I'm also going to do a Magura hydrolic brake or a tririg center pull brake and R2C shifters.  I've already ordered an Xlab Delta for a single water bottle cage mount off the back seat, and a spare Cervelo P4 frame integrated water bottle that I'm going to cut up and modify into a small box to hold my flat kit.  That should make things nice and slippery in the wind!   That should scratch my itch to spend some money on new gear!   But I'm not sure it will fully compare to buying a new shiny bike! lol  So I'll re-evaluate some things from there.  I could always sell one of my MTB's and start a new race bike build there or re-visit a less expensive road bike purchase.  There are options!!

So, the workouts didn't go that great this weekend.  Still having some sinus trouble and had some discomfort adjusting to the new fit.  The couple workouts I had this weekend were cut a little short, but not too bad.  This week should be short and easy with testing so hopefully I can get back on track.  I did get to working on the basement this weekend as well.  So the walls are all drylok'd and I'm now ready to start framing!!

Sorry for the long post.  I guess there was a lot going on this weekend!

Glad to see everyone doing so well with training and overall fitness/health.  I'm getting in my runs (most of them) but not much in the bike/swim departments.

I'm feeling a little anxious about first race this Saturday.  Its only a sprint duathlon, but I'm usually a baby about biking under 40F, and right now it looks like it will be mid to upper 20s, burrr.  We'll see what putting on/taking off booties does to my T1 and T2 times i guess...

Hope you have a great vacation Ken!

Uggghhh...total fail this weekend.  I have been working night shifts since getting home from Moab and was completely unmotivated during the days.  Gonna go try and get a few hours sleep and get back on the wagon tomorrow.

Great job to everyone who got out there!

Jaime