A little bling for my friend.

Ive been putting off the spring rebuild of the Cannondale Six 13 till its as close to race time and as far away form salty roads as possible. The funny part is last winter when I got the bike (January of 2007)) I rode it every ride, trainer, outdoors, rain, snow on the ground, raods wet with salt water. Cleaned it all the time too and religiously cleaned that chain.

In fact its first ride is known by a group of about 10 of us as the Epic Burton ride. The only one with any sense was John Rachfal who when it started to drizzle maybe 40 minutes into the ride said "um guys, I think its time to turn around." Did we listen, HECK no, we went on and then slogged away not only into the rain, but I swear the temps dropped into the low 40s and the wind kicked up. Most all of us did not have any shells to put on much less proper layers for the sudden drop in temperature. Well after 3.5 hours of hell and 53 miles we made it home. Frozen fingers, hypothermia and new bike shifting woes and all. Maybe John didnt have any sense either since he stayed for the ordeal too.

So here I am in 2008 and Ive got a nice mountain bike and cyclo cross bike to ride when the temps go down. And even though my bikes riding on the same cables, housings and chain as 14 months ago I wont ride it unless its all peachy clean on the roads.

But onto today. Ive been siting on the SRAM 1090r chain I bought ages ago at Bike Authority, Dura-ace calipers bought used from a local racer and a new Rival rear derailleur to replace my (defective?) one that has been on it. Ive heard a lot of good things about Thom's wrenching skills and the wheels hes fixed and built for me are darn sweet so I went up to Spin, shared some pastries and cookies and some good conversation and got my ride all blinged out for 2008. You see we were going to ride together with all my parts n my back pack, do the work, then I was going to ride to work. Voila 4 hours....but the roads were salty and wet and I would have had my new chain on the bike, not to mention I would have been soaked and standing around shivering. I rode mt TT bike on the trainer.

I'm not here to compare anyones wrenching skills, but Thom's attention to detail and knowledge is quite apparent. He is as good a mechanic as a lot of people have told me he is (and lots of east siders go to him).

And last, its funny to think about the off the bargain rack shorts, parts, everything used race bikes I used to race in the 80's and 90's. I had and still have the one bling part, a Dura-ace front derailleur!! But here I am a lot older and I am still riding hand me down parts whenever possible. But money doesn't buy happiness they say and thats true. Heres a great read on the subject from local racer John Davis. But I got to say, these Dura-Ace brakes are the bling, bling. I hope I dont toss myself over the handlebars the first panic stop!!