The Express

After many, many revisions to the plan, I'm about lined up to finally buy a time trial and triathlon bike! This will be my first new bicycle since December of 2006, when I replaced #3 with #9, a Fuji Track Pro.

After several attempts, it looks like I'm just not going to be able to get a Specialized Transition this year. That's a crying shame, since it's a damn fine looking bike that has every single feature I want.

The good news is that I've finally made up my mind! I'll likely be going with the Fuji Aloha CF2. It doesn't feature some of the spiffy features of the Transition, such as super-short chain stays, a frame that hugs the rear wheel, internalized cable routing, or horizontal dropouts. However, it offers way more value for the price, and still offers a carbon frame, solid ride quality, and plenty of adjustability of position. Besides, I like the black and blue paint scheme. I'm sure the Fuji is a wonderful bicycle that I'll be proud to own. http://fujibikes.com/2008/bikes.asp?id=415.

I'll immediately upgrade the bicycle with Flash Point FP60 aero wheels. These wheels offer many of the advantages of, say, the Zipp 404s, at a fraction of the cost. I decided against tubulars and all-carbon rims because the very slight performance gain is not worth the signifcant hassle of getting a flat tire, or worse yet, cracking a rim on awful city streets. http://www.flash-pointracing.com/fp60. I'll also trick out the bicycle with a set of 42-55 chainrings I purchased off of a gentleman I found through Craigslist. Only $30! What a bargain!

The Aloha CF2 will receive the venerable #7 designation, which I've been saving for a really fast bicycle. I'm pretty excited about this little project. I just hope that it doesn't fall through, and that I have enough time and warm weather to really put this thing through its paces!

(By the way: I'm now up to date with blog posts. Please make sure to check the backlog, as there are many useful and interesting articles there! What good is an article if nobody reads it! I value your comments, really, I do, they make my day.)