SL3 Weight-weenie build details

More photos are coming sometime this week. It took about a month and a half from ordering the first part to receiving the last part, but the arrival of the frame was the blocker.

Part Name	Weight (g)	Size	Source	Notes
Upper headset bearing	22	1 1/8"	Specialized team order
Lower headset bearing	31	1 1/2"	Specialized team order
Headset top cap	8	1 1/8"	Specialized team order	Carbon
Seat collar	16	32.6	Specialized team order
S-Works Pave seatpost	204	27.2 x 350	Specialized team order	with Zertz insert
S-Works SL3 Module	1548	56 race	Specialized team order	with derailleur hanger, bottle bolts, cable adjusters, and S-Works 39/53 BB30 crankset
Thomson Elite X2 stem	147	110	Bayarearider	with all bolts and face plate
S-Works fork	337	43mm rake	Specialized team order	cut with filed tabs. 370g uncut.
Fork compression plug	25	1 1/8"	Specialized team order	proprietary Specialized design
Steerer top cap	8	1 1/8"	Specialized team order	Specialized logo
Steerer bolt	2		Specialized team order
Spacers	6	10mm, 5mm, 5mm	Specialized team order	Estimate - did not weigh. Matte carbon.
Spacers	6	10mm, 5mm, 5mm	eBay	Estimate - did not weigh. Gloss carbon.
Zipp 303 front	852	700c	Landry's	with skewer, Vittoria Corsa CX tire, valve extender
Zipp 303 rear	1117	700c	Landry's	with skewer, SRAM Red cassette, Vittoria Corsa CX tire
Vittoria Corsa CX tire (rear)		700x23	Palo Alto Bikes	Purchased retail.
SRAM Red rear cassette		26-Nov	Palo Alto Bikes	Purchased retail.
SRAM Red rear derailleur	144	one size	Bayarearider
Speedplay zero pedals	166	one size	Bayarearider	Titanium, black
Specialized Toupe gel	208	143	Sheepshead Cycle	from prior build
SRAM Red front derailleur	69	one size	Bayarearider
Shimano CN-7900	238	106?	eBay	from stock
Master link	2	10s	eBay	from stock
SRAM Red front brifter	144	2x	Slowtwitch
SRAM Red rear brifter	144	10x	Slowtwitch
Pro Vibe carbon bar	232	42cm round	Chain Reaction Cycles	http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=33770
Zero G front brake	90	OG-07	Slowtwitch	with pad holders but without pads
Zero G rear brake	82	OG-07	Slowtwitch	with pad holders but without pads
Zipp brake pads	25	Campy	Bayarearider	set of four
Yokozuna Reaction cabling	195	SRAM	Palo Alto Bikes	before/after weight
Profile Design bar wrap	47	one size	REI	uncut
Deda bar plugs	4	one size	??	stock
Hudz white cable donuts	1	one size	GrabTheHudz.com	weight for four, from pack of 30
TOTAL	6120
MEASURED	6120
delta	0

Specialized Tarmac SL3: 13.5 lbs

13.5 lbs in 56cm with Zipp 303s and SRAM Red. More later - goodnight!

No New Bike Until The Room Is Clean

The bike room is the pride of my apartment. It's an entire bedroom dedicated to bike repair. Unlike a garage, it's not cold, filthy, or detached from the rest of the living space. Instead, it had good lighting and is user friendly - when it's clean. For the past month or two, various projects resulted in the room being a complete and total mess. After about 15 man hours of work (Jane helped), I finally mounted the pegboard to the wall and sorted the tools. Not losing tools and having working space is a huge win. Have a look.



The real motivating reason for the clean was to help my old friend Arcady assemble his new bike. After reviewing his options, he ordered a Motobecane Fantom Cross Pro from bikesdirect.com. I think a cyclocross bike is a great do it all bike. It can handle commuting, touring, trail rides, and shopping trips nicely, as well as cyclocross and entry-level road racing. The bike has a titanium frame and new Ultegra 6700 components. It replaces a Bianchi Volpe that he has owned since around late 2001. I hope the new bike suits his needs. The build work was quick and painless with the new tool setup.



I still have plenty more bike work scheduled in the coming weeks. The used Nokon cables will get a second chance on the TT bike. I'm also experimenting with cranks on the TT bike, and tweaking my fit with a Look ErgoStem. (More on that later.) Plus, Jane's track bike will get new cranks in the near future to promote racing.

As luck would have it - and this is big news - my new Specialized SL3 module arrived on Friday! After finishing with Arcady's bike, I used a combination of Caltrain and Zipcar to collect it from my teammate's house. It is at least ten hours away from a raceable state, but I just could not resist posting a first photo here. The entire module consists of a frame, fork, headset, seatpost, and BB30 crankset with chainrings. Uncut and out of the box, the module weighs 2.24 kg.



I will take incredibly detailed photos along the build process and weigh everything to the gram. Stay tuned.

Busy Few Weeks

As usual, just because the blog has been quiet doesn't mean I've stopped riding. If anything, I'm riding more than before, balancing time more carefully, and thus, finding less time to blog.

So I have a Quarq Cinqo power meter on my Fuji Aloha CF2 road bike, mounted to a SRAM S900 crank. Apart from the weight (mostly from the crank itself), I have been very happy with the setup. It is ANT+Sport compatible and works flawlessly in bad weather.

I also appreciate SRAM's consistent use of the GXP bottom bracket standard. All SRAM road cranks, from Rival to Red, use a common BB. FSA uses at least three separate standards for their bottom brackets, meaning that it's impossible to swap, say, a Team Issue for an SL-K quickly. Why, pray tell, would I want to do this? Well, I happen to own one in a 175mm length, and another in 172.5mm. I would like to see what my ideal crank length is in time trials, experimentally.

As such, I ordered new SRAM Rival cranks, in 172.5 and 175 lengths. Now, I'll be able to swap crank lengths on my road and TT bikes, and use a power meter on both. Granted, I can't both use the Quarq and play with crank length, but for that, I have a PowerTap.



Another small project is inspired by Mavic and California state law. Lately, sunset in the Bay Area has been around 5:15pm, meaning I ride home in the dark. California law states that wheels must be reflectorized. I saw that my Mavic Ksyrium ES front wheel had reflective decals on the rims. So, I ordered some black retro-reflective tape, designed a stencil for the correct decal shape, and stuck on the reflectors. You can't see the black reflectors at all against the black rim, but they light up when photographed with a flash!



Another project was to experiment with Nokon cable housing. The plan was to use it on the next generation race bike, the still on order Specialized SL3. Since I ordered the wrong part (Shimano instead of Campy, for SRAM shifters), I figured that the spare set could go on the Aloha. I could test the cables and the installation process. I could also test the trick under-tape cable routing option for Shimano shifters. All I can say is, thumbs down. First, I had to drill out my frame cable stops to accommodate the liners. Then, installing the system amounted to stringing beads on a wire for about an hour. Once I had the system lubricated with Tri-Flow and installed, after about three hours, I just could not get good shifting out of it. My Dura Ace suddenly became Tiagra or Sora. I have to admit, it looked pretty cool.



Of course, the kicker was when the front shifter cable failed on a ride.



What, seriously? I followed the instructions precisely, including leaving exactly 3mm between the end of the liners and the end of the cable. My guess is that the sharp bend was causing the wire to rub against the inside of the metallic housing, causing fatigue. As a direct result of the failure, I opted not to use Nokons on the SL3. After reviewing the options, I put Gore Ride-On cables on the Aloha, which has been great so far. (I used it on the Roubaix for months until the frame died.) I will experiment with Yokozuna Reaction cables on the SL3.

Apart from all of this mechanical fun, my continuing experiment at self-coaching and learning continues. I am following Joe Friel's plan, almost to the letter, with 700 hours a year. This translates to about 12,000 miles. I have a spreadsheet on my computer which helps me compute hours and rides for the whole year. On a shorter time scale, I put the week's plan on the board. It helps keep me honest. One of the weeks is below.



This is my first year with this system, so, again, it is an experiment. I am continuing to tweak and improve my practices with regards to nutrition and training with power. Thusfar, my algorithm for fueling on long base rides is:

Food: 1 Larabar 60 minutes into the ride, and every 45 minutes thereafter.
Fluid: 4 oz Cytomax every 15 minutes (one bottle lasts 90 minutes).

I'm not hungry or dehydrated on my training rides, nor do I need to use the restroom. This will likely change as intensity or temperature increase, but for now, staying fueled and happy on long rides is easier than ever.

Specialized Delays

The glorious SL3 (and it's less-glorious credit card bill) still are not here. Hmm.

3-4 weeks is a little long to ship a production frame, isn't it? Not so, apparently. The Great Specialized Bicycle Making Company, the Apple of the bicycle industry in so many ways, has no qualms about being a tease. I recall how the 2008 Specialized Transition took about six months to hit store shelves; that was supposed to be the great TT bike purchase of 2008. I'll be lucky if I can get my hands on a Shiv for the 2011 race season.

Yes, I admit that it's "hard" to get subcontractors to make a quality product reproducibly and ship it around the world, and it's equally "hard" to evaluate demand. Then again, I'm not aware of any particular delay with the SL3. I saw one in a store and know a friend who has one. If this were Boston I could care less, but here in Foggy California, the race season is already underway!

So, why the wait? I want to get on this thing and start riding it! All of the parts are here!

New Race Bike (on order)

One of the perks of being an LGBRC member is the double-decker bus in the Los Gatos holiday parade. Another is the team-sponsor bike: the Specialized Tarmac SL3. I'm looking forward to a very light, fast build in the near future. With luck, I could have it built by the 25th.

(Stock photo from specialized.com)

Frame: S-Works Tarmac SL3 (module), 56 cm
Fork: S-Works Tarmac SL3
Headset: Aheadset integrated
Stem: Thomson Elite X2, 110 mm, 10 degree
Handlebars: Pro Vibe Full Carbon OS Round, 42 cm
Bar Tape: Fizik Microtex, black
Brakes: Ciamillo Zero-G
Brake pads: Zipp carbon compound
Brake/Shift levers: SRAM Red
Brake cables/housing: Nokon, black
Shift cables/housing: Nokon, black
Front derailleur: SRAM Red, titanium, braze-on
Rear derailleur: SRAM Red
Cassette: SRAM Red, 11-26
Chain: Dura Ace CN-7900
Crankset: S-Works BB30 crankset, 172.5mm
Chainrings: Specialized S-Works, 39/53
Bottom bracket: Ceramic bearings in frame
Pedals: Speedplay Zero, titanium
Wheels: Zipp 303 (2008)
Tires: Vittoria Corsa EVO CX, tubular
Saddle: Specialized Toupe gel, 143mm
Seatpost: S-Works FACT carbon, with Zertz insert, 27.2mm (x 350 mm?)
Seat binder: Specialized S-Works, aluminum, 32.6mm
Bottle cages: Arundel Dave-O

If those scale-carrying UCI commissars give me grief on race day, adding a PowerTap ought to help it meet race weight of 6.800 kg, or 14 lbs 15.86 oz.

Not Dead; Pro at 24

The lack of updates recently is due to my being busy at work. Between training and work, just about ever minute of my day is allocated to something. A few exciting things have happened in the past 6 weeks, which will trickle on here as I find time.

A VeloNews article about Matthew Busche caught my attention this morning. At 24 years old and with a lighting fast upgrade from Cat 2, VeloNews heralds Mr. Busche as a rising star with unlimited potential. That's wonderful, honestly, and I wish him all the best. This just makes me wonder about my own potential as a cyclist. At a high level, physical prowess is a limiter, but not the only one. Professional and personal life, time, money, and support become factors more quickly than I would like. Is being a professional cyclist, at anything but the very highest level of the sport, worth the pay cut, time away from an SO, and risk of injury or stagnation in a career? I'm not getting soft now, but simply applying a typical cost/benefit analysis.

I wonder: who was the last MIT cycling alum to become a domestic-level or higher pro? A cursory search found nothing, so I need to investigate further.

Mount Diablo in 51:22.8

This weekend, I ventured to Mount Diablo with some coworkers. We participated in the Mount Diablo Challenge, a timed non-competitive climb of 3350 feet over 10.96 miles. I posted full ride data from the climb.

The usual disclaimer applies: I'm out of shape, haven't been riding much, and don't have the genetic graces to have the wiry climber build. Watching me climb is like watching an A380 take off: you can't give it grief for being slow, since it's amazing that it gets off the ground at all.

With that said, my time on the course - 51 minutes 22.8 seconds - was a new personal best by default, and good for 23rd place overall, 5th in the 19-29 age bracket. The course record floats around 44 minutes, and a ProTour climber could probably do it in about 40. (I raced with bib #10. I switched places with Rich Stevens.) I had my brand-new Zipp 303s on my Fuji Aloha with Quarq power meter, yielding a 16.8 pound bike. My goal for next year is below 50 minutes.

At the top of the hill, I met none other than Frank Day, proprietor of PowerCranks. We had a good chat about my results with the cranks.

Apartment Photos

Friends and family have asked to see what the new apartment looks like. I've posted a photo album with some images of the place. Enjoy!

Bicycle of Theseus

I described the Ship of Theseus problem in a blog post not too long ago, and this made me start thinking of how this would apply to the bicycle. Clearly, a bicycle is comprised of many parts. Each surface of every part can be carefully tuned for light weight, durability, aerodynamic qualities, and so on. If I walk into a shop today and buy a new road bike, then change the wheels and brakes, is it still the same bike? This is a simple thought experiment, but its result helps me keep track of my bicycles.

My solution is to choose one immutable part of the bicycle to encompass the whole thing, and that's the bottom bracket shell of the frame. I find that this definition nicely handles the edge cases:

• intuitively, a frame defines the bicycle's fit, handling, and performance characteristics, so it makes sense to define the atomicity of "bicycle" by a frame, or at least part of its frame.
• it is relatively simple, and sometimes necessary, to change the fork, wheels, and other components on the bicycle.
  
• the bottom bracket shell is the point about which the cyclist applies almost all motive power to the bicycle frame.
• it is possible to repair or replace a dented or broken frame section, or paint the frame, while leaving the bottom bracket shell intact.
• replacement of an entire frame, due to upgrade or repair, constitutes a new bicycle.
  
• the bottom bracket area traditionally contains the bicycle's serial number.
  

When I talk about clearing space in the bicycle room, I say that the goal is to reduce the "bottom bracket count". When I describe the mileage on a bicycle, I'm really describing the distance that the bottom bracket has traveled (though I do include indoor "miles").

Lunch Ride

Ride data at http://connect.garmin.com/activity/14802363 .

Today, I joined Boris (a co-worker at Model N) on the Lunch Ride. It's an excuse for all of the local fast riders to go for a spin every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. The ride is quite fast, just under race pace. I was the youngest and least experienced rider out today, and that's saying something.

The level of experience here is really something. The stronger riders in today's ride seemed to be Cat 1 and Cat 2 racers. In terms of speed and experience, there is a big jump from collegiate racing to Pro/1/2 racing. I'm imagining races full of clones of Josh Lipka and Nick Frey. I'm looking forward to climbing yet another steep learning curve.

I spoke with some members of the SugarCRM/Los Gatos elite team. It's one of the teams in the area that I'm interested in joining; I'm still in an information gathering phase. This is probably a good time to discuss some of the things I'm looking for in an elite team, in no particular order.

• Mentorship. Racing bicycles at a high level requires many years of experience. An elite team can have, between its members, well over a century of race knowledge. I've just begun to notice trends in races - the pace in a points race slows after a bell lap, most of the breaks get caught in road races. Though discovery is fun and useful, learning through shared experience is way more time efficient.
• Structure. I'm pretty good about setting aside time to ride, falling into a routine, and achieving training goals. Still, having a well matched group is beneficial in setting a training and racing plan.
• Transportation. A subtle but key point. I don't own a motor vehicle, nor do I want one. I'd like reliable carpool buddies to races. I think it's a crying shame that we need to burn so much gas to race our bicycles, but like flat tires, it's part of the sport.
• A Compatible Approach. I couldn't think of a good single word to describe this. As a cyclist, I'm very detail oriented, and heavily favor the use of technology in obtaining real-time and after-the-fact data. I've learned so much from cyclists who are also detail-oriented and willing to patiently share what they've learned, instead of sharing generalizations and vagaries.
  
• Friends. Enjoying the company of teammates on and off the bike is key to performance. Race weekends can feature 6 hours of racing, 12 hours of driving, and 10 hours of down time. I race best when I'm happy and just out to have fun. When I asked Mike Garrett why he rode with Kahala/La Grange for so many years, the answer was simple: "they're a good bunch of guys."
  

With all of collegiate cycling behind me, it's time to start thinking about the next level.

Track Nationals Results

Full track nationals results are now online at the USAC Web site.

More Photos from Track Nationals

I just received some links from some teammates.

Nick Loomis sent some photos from the weekend and a video of the men's team pursuit. Matt Blackburn sent in his own photos from the weekend.

I'll post more as it comes in.

Track Nationals: Day Three

I woke up this morning and checked the weather. Rain at 5pm! Uh oh! As a result, today's schedule was heavily altered. The men's tema pursuit qualifier became the finals, the women's match sprints all happened in the morning, and the points race, the headline event, was bumped forward to 4pm. A highly unusual move for a highly unusual situation.

The 3km team pursuit was not our finest. We had a mechanical at the start, and were unable to stay together. Our first two laps were reasonably fast, and I think that if we were to do it again, we would be faster. Our time did not give us a podium position, but did fetch us some team omnium points.

Laura Ralson made it into the match sprints. She won one of her heats in the reps, but was relegated after coming out of the sprinter's lane for the second time. D'oh! It was a really impressive performance nevertheless.

Mike Garrett and I were in two separate points race qualifiers. The points race awards points to the first four across the line every six laps. The top 15 (out of about 25) in each qualifier made it to the grand final. Mike more than qualified - he lapped the field twice! I managed to get a single point, qualifying for the real race. How cool is that?

The 30km, 90-lap points race final was fast and furious. My goal of scoring a single point was unattainable. I was able to work for Mike, helping to block and to establish his break. Mike and four others lapped the field, with Mike placing fifth in the points race.

Our distributed strong results put MIT in a strong position for the Division II Team Omnium standings. We earned some 900-plus points, with the second place team earning some 500 or so points. (Full results will be on usacycling.org shortly.) Our points lead means that the members of the 2009 MIT track nationals team are...

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!

I got a stars and stripes jersey and a gold medal. We all did our part, and it was a fantastic weekend. I'm so glad that I made the trip.

I can also obey USA Cycling rule 1N5(e), regarding national champion regalia. I can't wear my jersey when racing anything other than collegiate track, but I can wear Stars and Stripes trims on my race jerseys, forever!

Track Nationals: Day Two

"It's only forty-five pedal strokes!" This was my realization today, regarding the number of pedal strokes needed to get around the 333m velodrome once. I'm glad I figured this out in time for our collegiate team pursuit (two women, four men). We got a silver medal! Take a look!



The second day of track nationals was a good day for MIT. Guo-Liang Chew (Chewie) placed 16th in the 200m flying sprint competition, good enough to enter the match sprint competition. My time, of 12.625 seconds, was enough for 19th place. This did not get me into the match sprint competition, but did earn us some team points.

Our collegiate sprint was a success. We demonstrated beautiful teamwork and placed second in the qualifying round. This got us into the final, gold medal heat. We held on to second and won silver medals for our effort. The women (Laura Ralson, Yuri Matsumoto, Martha Buckley) placed fifth in the women's team pursuit, another good strong result.

MIT has a good lead in the Division 2 Team Omnium competition. If all goes well, we will hold on to our lead in tomorrow's men's team pursuit and points race. Stay tuned!