That's Penguin's way of stoking my ego after I got blown out by the chase group. If I was his father (I'm old enough) I could GROUND him for that....

Big fun is always had by all @ the Nyack ride. All are welcome. Good racers, bad racers, wannabe racers, Freds... OK, the Freds may get yelled at once or twice, but if they keep coming back they'll learn how to ride : ). It would be fun to see a few more BF members. And if they're like KP it would only make the ride faster.

God help me.

We'll see. I felt like I had a plastic bag stuffed into my mouth last time, and my legs felt pretty dead. Fortunately for me, my lungs are feeling much better now that I've been riding steadily again, and my legs are starting to wake up thanks to intervals and FT work.

I'll try to slip some elephant traquilizer in your water bottle during the rollout on Sunday. That might help tame the ride down a bit.

Hi,

My current race rig (which will become my training bike later this year):

http://www.pbase.com/cleavel/image/6...2/original.jpg

Good lord, your training bike?

I am clearly in the softcore world of bike porn. :o

I don't think my bike is OCP enough for this thread. lol

Nice looking bike.

But spacers above the stem? One of my teammates/mech at my LBS told me thats kind of unsafe; I assume it ups the risk of cracking the steerer tube.

That, and you should have ~2mm of space between the top of the stem and the steerer to ensure you're compressing it properly.

Schweet. A titanium Colnago with non-ergo drop bars and a brooks(?) saddle. Must ride nice.

goodness, that's got to be the hottest training bike in the history of everything.

ask your friend on sakonet about him. he's a trip.

its a custom frame from by this company called mint that used to be called zanotti. its s3 steel tubing.

I have seen a lot of ne0-pros (from small continental teams) do this, mainly for the ability to sell the bike after the season is done (most people don't have the flexibilty of pros and cutting the steerer tube would limit who you could sell the bike too after the season was over).

Is it safe?, no idea.

Good friends of the family live in Nyack, on Peirmont Ave within a couple minute walk of all the shops on Broadway......maybe one of these days I'll have to show up. I'll need a map though to find my way back when I get shelled.

Here are mine.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...CrownJewel.jpg
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...uecomplete.jpg

Hello All,

My understanding of spacers above the stem is that as long as you can set the plug part of the compression plug into the area of the stem then you are OK. That way when you clamp on the steerer tube with the stem the plug takes some of the clamping force. I could be wrong though.

Why do keep a spacer above the stem? I keep thinking that I'll wake up on the 50th birthday (later this year) and I won't have enough flexibility to lean down that far. ;)

Hi,

Thanks for the "kind" words. :)

Since I became a tax-paying contributor to our society my bike rotation works like this:

New bike is my race bike

Old race bike becomes training bike

Training bike gets sold or sits in the garage collecting dust and cries of, "when are you going to sell that thing?" from my wife. :rolleyes:

Later this year the Look will rotate to the training position.:D

I have also read that clamping the stem on the very end of the steerer is what causes cracking.

I've seen pro bikes with more spacers than this above the stem, but I don't want to take the time to look for them. Basso's bike:

Cleave I had virtually the same setup, one of my top three favorite rides

http://usera.imagecave.com/bikemike/481-copy.jpg

Keep in mind thats an early season pic; they are probably still dialing it in. OTOH, with my bike because of the compression plus I HAVE to have a 1cm spacer on top or the stem extends above the steerer. Apparently thats okay but it still seems odds to me.

My trusty steed. We'll both lose our racing virginity on Sunday morning.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...icycles006.jpg

My post was in response to the issue of safety brought up here:

"But spacers above the stem? One of my teammates/mech at my LBS told me thats kind of unsafe; I assume it ups the risk of cracking the steerer tube."

Spacers above the stem don't have any impact on safety. No weight is leveraged up there. Some stems specify that the steerer should be cut no more than 3mm below the top of the stem, but I've never seen a spec from a manufacturer saying no spacers above the stem. Leveraging the stem with spacers more than 25mm above the headset is the only safety issue I've ever seen raised. Early, mid, or late season, i'm not sure how the time of year could make a difference.

Training/backup race bike. Just off the trainer, so dismiss the hometainer tire on the back.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...e/DSC_1026.jpg

Race bike
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...e/DSC_1030.jpg

I thought this thread badly needed someone to inject a dose of realism -- ugly amateur porn, if you will. :p

I give you 25 pounds of unknown provenance lugged steel. 105 parts old enough to have the allen bolt in the front of the shifters, a Litespeed fork, the world's oldest Speedplay pedals, no-name front wheel, and dirty bar tape from when I dropped my chain on the bridge last night. Oh, it does have a new compact crankset and a Powertap Pro for pearls on the pig.

This should reassure a few people that you don't have to have a fancy bike to race. Notice I said nothing about winning.. :D

http://www.secondhandsix.com/temp/bi..._steel_001.JPG