As many of you know, my Marinoni Ciclo (Machak) was stolen on Easter Sunday. I am still hoping that he will be found or returned, and the police are making a huge effort to try to make that happen. I miss Machak terribly.

However, there are cycling events coming up, and I need a bicycle to ride them. Last weekend I rode a 300 Km brevet on "Frank" (Frankenbike), a GT mtn bike which Rowan converted to a road bicycle in a matter of days from stuff he had lying around. Frank worked amazingly well for that ride, and I plan to continue to to use him for shorter rides. He may be converted back to a mtn bike or may stay as a road bicycle ... I'm not sure yet.

Rowan with Frank and his Merlin last weekend ...



Rowan and I have been discussing bicycle plans. We would both like to get dedicated touring bicycles, hopefully by the end of the year. We had pretty much decided on that before Machak was stolen. And I have had a titatium bicycle on my wish list for years, so we have decided to build up a titanium bicycle for randonneuring and long-distance purposes now. We're also toying with the idea of picking up a pair of folding bicycles. We checked some out yesterday ... most interesting!

So yesterday we bought a titanium frame which has almost identical dimensions as Machak has. (I have a spreadsheet of all Machak's measurements, and the measurements of my Giant OCR3 back in Canada.) It weighs 1.326 kg (2.9 lbs), which amazes me. We also picked up the pedals I want (which weigh almost as much as the frame), and some clear bottle cages .. and Rowan is researching and hunting for the rest of the components.

Here's me unpacking and showing off my light little titanium frame:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/1430288...7623874386934/




Now I have it in my head that this frame would look really good with teal (greeny-blue) accents, like bar-tape, for example ... and maybe bottle cages, although the clear ones look all right. And if I went with teal bar tape, etc., I might also want to break away from my traditional yellow helmet and get a teal one. But where to find such things!?!?