Another very small time trial bike!

Prepping the frame for build is common place in these builds. Care is always taken with each component to ensure a perfect work or rolling art!

Yes, those are purple chain ring bolts there holding that Aero QRing onto the 165 Ultegra SL crank arm spinning on a Rotor SABB ceramic bottom bracket.

HED Classic aero bars, Nokon cables, Sram Force brakes.

Just a nice clean shot of where she will be spending her time...in the aero bars.

Just a nice shot race ready. Let the fun begin!

Special care is always taken with each bike to make sure each custom frame that comes in for each client is done perfectly...unlike bikes found at your big box stores. This is always the obvious case when you have a customer who is just too tall or too short to fit anything out there any kind of way. I often find myself taking care of the women out there who have battled their bikes and their love to ride with a hatred for their bike and how bad it hurts to ride. Custom frames to the rescue...
This Guru Merus actually weighs less with the 1380 gram Velocity training wheels on it than the Zipps. Though at speed the Zipps have that aero advantage. What does it weigh with the race wheels??? 15lbs 10oz

GulfCoast Half Ironman and buying time!

The new Rotor Agilis cranks, Aero QRings, SABB ceramic BB. I like the new red spider.

Silver Tiso ceramic pulley wheels spin so much better than stock wheels, Campy, Shimano and Sram should be ashamed of themselves....
Below, we also put on some new Elite Custom white/red bottle cages.
btw, Zipp 999 will be the race wheel of choice on Saturday...not the ones below.

Gulf Coast Half Ironman is over in Florida and well, its prettier than racing in Galveston I guess. (snickering) Plenty of Texas athletes make the trip over every year to do this race. This weekend happens to be Mother's Day weekend so I am not sure how some guys are pulling it off, though I do know that Trent Stephens and Fred Johnson are leaving Friday morning, EARLY, to get there, race, and then as soon as transition is open to get bikes out, they are packing up to haul butt back to Houston to celebrate Mother's Day with their uber understanding wives who just had the kids most of the weekend by themselves. But I am sure it will all be worth it. HA!
Trent came in finally for some upgrades I have been dying to get him to do. He is a Campy man and has been as long as I have known him. Now that I have been having my way with his Crono race bike the only things left that are Campy is the rear D, cassette, and cranks. Until yesterday...now its just the rear D and cassette. I believe the Rotor SABB ceramic bottom bracket spins way smoother than nearly any other bottom bracket out there, let alone a stock Campy BB. To change this requires a Shimano style crank. Since no true Campy man would ever own anything from that Japanese rod and reel manufacturer...the obvious choice for a crank was the Rotor Agilis crank who also makes the SABB bb and the QRings that we all ride and love. A perfect combo from a company based in Spain...which borders Italy where Campy is based...so its as good as one can get with out being Campy. ;-) Next to come will be a Quarg power meter to replace the spider in that crank.
While we were at this craze of lightening up the bike with lighter cranks, using an aero chain ring set, and freeing up some watts with the ceramic bb, we also installed a set of Tiso ceramic pulley wheels in the rear D. Tiso is made in Italy which really just means that its nice...but you are gonna pay for the privilege. With it all installed and set up and shifting dialed in I could notice right away his drive train had way less drag in it. Lets see what translates to the race this Saturday....
Oh by the way, this bike has TRP 960SL brakes, Sram Red front D, Sram TT900 bar end shifters, and now the Rotor cranks. This bike is now more of a mutt bike than anything else. But don't we all love mutts just a little bit more than pure breeds?
Have fun and check back for the updates on Greg, Fred, and Trent's race weekend.

Guru Praemio

We all had that first bike. One that was simple and when we rode it was all about the ride. We did not know about cadence, what speed is actually fast, heart rate, or even watts. Till a couple years ago watts were only in a light bulb for me. Since we have become enlightened as to how little we know about bikes, training, getting a coach, racing harder, train more, every ride is then spent watching cadence, hr, wattage. Speed means nothing and distance is not important, you finish the ride and it was not natural, just a workout. Don't get me wrong, I love working out, I race and a coach is the way to go if you want to progress and have great races. But sometimes we need to remember why we started riding and find that original joy of riding our bike...that love affair for the road and the wind with just you and your legs turning over the pedals...

I love my Geneo, its an amazing machine and at times I think it has a motor on it. But its work...its my tool for training and racing. Which is fun for me, but sometimes you just need to be simple again.

So what do you do when you need a bit of an escape from something that you started doing to be your escape??? You go back to the simple part of riding a bike...like the first rides on your first bike. Of course I at this point I don't really want to ride what my first bike was so I had to select a new rig. I needed something that I can ride anywhere, anytime, over anything on any road with just airing up the tires. I chose the Praemio. A road bike made of 3.2 double butted titanium. I built it up this past week using Shimano DuraAce 7800 group, SABB ceramic bb, Tune seat post, Deda bars and stem, Clark braided cables, and absolutely NO COMPUTER of any kind. Now the fun part, riding it...

My new rig did not disappoint. I met up with some teammates at 6am Saturday morning and by 8am I was out with the West Oaks ride. First impression, it was ultra smooth, better power transfer than I thought it would have, and of course fun! Maybe a couple things to tweak position wise but what a ride! So here I am assessing the situation, looking at the mix of guys who showed up for the ride and feeling the wind. This is going to be a suffer fest. Maybe I should have stayed on the Geneo with has a dialed in position and weighs less and is a rocket. But I am on the fun bike and might as well have fun. After getting tons of looks and compliments it was on. To ensure the pain is going to be inflicted I found probably the strongest guy out there and immediately began talking trash to him about how bad I was gonna drop him. He laughed and shortly after he was at the front stringing it out. This was one of the 4 guys in the 123 race the weekend before in the front break...a power house. The bike was amazing and when I finally got separated from the front group (a couple groups behind) a couple miles from the turn around. I don't really thing it was the bike that made me get dropped, just being out gunned and caught out in a crosswind. So of course when I got the Fulsher gas station I found my friend who was killing everyone and gave him some lame excuse why I rolled in a little after his group did and how he was lucky I fell back to ride in with some teammates of mine. haha We rode back and again, it was a hammer fest, tailwind doesn't mean its easy. Tailwind with this group means you spin out your 53x11 trying to hang on and you wish you had a 54 or a 55. Or maybe you think Shimano needs to make a 10 cog for the rear. Either way you hope it stops soon. Finally we hit Briar Forest to head into Memorial Park which begins the slightly slower portion of the ride where we all talk about how little we all have been riding and who had been sick this week or who is rolling with a brake rubbing and all that. Kinda like when women go out and they talk about how fat they are so their friends can tell them they are crazy and they look great. Except guys don't dish compliments that easily and mostly we just mention how some one looked bad out there today or ask if their tire was low or were they stuck in their small ring. You know, nice encouraging things like that.

I rolled into the park with Trent and Andrew, the two guys who I started with at 6am. It was now 11:40 and we clocked 100.6 miles. (I asked Trent who had a computer) I had to rush over to the shop for a 12pm appointment. While I ate my McDonalds and chocolate shake as I rushed over to the shop, I thought of the ride and while I suffered most of the time, I had a great ride and I felt great! The ti bike was amazing, not having a computer was relaxing, and knowing I burned enough calories to suck down that shake was worth all the pain my lungs and legs were in. I love to ride and I love riding this bike.

Sunday I was out on it again. With a couple other friends for an easy 40miles. I loved it as much the second time as the first, maybe more. Easy miles in the horrible wind still took over 2hours but still it was fun, social,and with a great group of friends. Again, there is something great about being on a simple machine...

Ok, my Geneo gave me the stink eye when I walked in this morning so I might have to ride that out today to keep it happy.