#7: New Racing Bicycle (kinda sorta)

The ECCC recently decided to ban aero equipment for non-A riders this season. A professional fitting reveals that my TT bike should be about one size smaller. The Fuji Aloha CF2 frame has great road geometry, and poor TT geometry. Hm. This sounds like a death sentence for a bicycle! Or, an opportunity!

You see, in my stash of parts that I have lying around, I have handlebars, bar tape, aero wheels, an extra stem, a spare cassette, a spare chain, and an extra set of pedals. All I needed was a new crankset (FSA SL-K, $200) and some new shifters (Shimano Dura-Ace ST-7801, $200) to make myself a superb race bike!

Back when Ivan Dominguez raced Fuji bikes, he chose to ride a converted Aloha frame. Why? Well, it's stiffer than any other Fuji frame! It's also way more aero. Fuji realized this, and both replaced the Aloha CF series with the DS-1 TT bike, and used the same frame in their SST bike!

So, for not all that much (especially considering the resale value of all of the components I removed from the bike), I was able to build an absolutely top-flight race bike, weighing in at under 17 lbs with fairly ordinary components in a 56cm size.

Specifically, the bike has: Ritchey WCS aluminum bars, Dura-Ace ST-7801 shifters, a Thomson stem, a Specialized Toupe Gel saddle, stainless steel Speedplay Zero pedals, Zipp 404 clincher wheels, FSA SL-K cranks, a Dura-Ace rear derailleur, and Cane Creek SCR-5 brakes.

I'm looking forward to doing some serious damage in the ECCC ranks with this machine.