Wednesday, June 28, 2006

New Arrival

My new cyclocross bike arrived this afternoon. I was pretty excited about the whole thing. It should be fun to do the races this Fall on a proper bike. I got a Redline Conquest Pro built up with mostly Shimano 105 components.

Ooh... a wheel...



The whole bike...


I got the bike adjusted more-or-less correctly and took it out for a quick spin before dark. I still have a couple issues to address. I'm getting a little brake rub on the front wheel, and I had trouble getting the brakes adjusted correctly on the rear, I think that the dish might be off. I'll check all of that out this weekend when I have a little time.

The bike didn't feel very "snappy" tonight, at least not compared to my road bike. Of course, my brake rub issue might have had something to do with that. I also had knobby 'cross tires on the bike rather than something smoother. I didn't think my Dad's new Cannondale R800 felt very snappy when I rode it a couple weeks ago either, but I just figured it had to do with our setups being different. The only major difference I'm aware of is that my road bike is steel whereas the other two bikes are aluminum. I'm also going to check out the geometries a little more closely and see if there's something else different. (OK, so my road bike is also the heaviest and oldest of the three, but I don't think being heavy and old equates to snappy-ness.)

I'm heading down to Oklahoma tomorrow for work; I'll get back Friday afternoon. I'm not sure if this trip is coming at a good time or not. It should be pretty low-key, but it's still a business trip. I've had a sore throat all day today, so I'm a little worried that I'm getting sick. The Marathon XC race is on Saturday and I really want to be feeling good for it. We'll see what happens I guess.

Sarah took some random pictures of Suzie while I was unpacking. They turned out well (Suzie usually won't face the camera), so I'm posting a few.



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