A little historical backdrop on the acquisition: A little over a month ago I was in a minor car accident. The short of this relevance is that I had all kinds of problems with the body shop that was taking care of the damages to my car. In fact, on a few occasions I was told by the body shop to "come on up before we close and it will be finished & ready to drive home." After a couple of rounds of this charade I found myself a bit disturbed and in need of a remedy for my woes - and like any addict I sulked my way to my favorite LBS conveniently housed about 4 blocks away from said shop.

Therein I was doing the normal - chatting with the usual suspects and drooling over this one particular frame that they had hanging as wall art. Musing on better times and better transportation, I said to one of the workers "this is the precise frame that I am going to buy in a few years..." (in my profession, there is a testing ground period of a few years and, given you perform, there is basically a lifetime contract thereafter; this frame was to be my gift-to-self given I secured such vocational assurance). The store manager then responded in kind, "well, actually, we have two in that size by mistake and with the humidity we haven't sold too many bikes in the past few weeks; how about I sell it to you at our cost?" The bait was set and yet I still was hesitant when I found my automatic verbal reflex inquiring, "so, how much would that be?" He responded, "let me check the invoices and I will call you tomorrow."

A night of mental ************, dwelling, & checking through my financial trajectory ensued. My thoughts to self were akin to, "This is about 4 years premature" and "remember, there is never the 'last best deal' on any bike - its all relative and any good price will likely come around again in the future." So I set a predicted amount in my head and was resolute that I could say "thanks but no thanks" upon receiving the call in the morn.

Needless to say, the price that he then quoted in the a.m. was significantly lower than anticipated. My verbal reflexes again were triggered and I heard the words, "well, what can we do about a build?"

The fallout was the following:

Frame: Cyrene - 59 cm
Front Fork: Real Design HP Pro
Front Derailleur: Ultegra 35.0mm
Rear Derailleur: Ultegra - short cage 12-25
Shifters: Dura Ace
Bottom Bracket: Ultegra
Cranks: Ultegra, 39-53T
Cogset: Ultegra 12 - 25
Chain: Ultegra
Brakes: Ultegra
Headset: Real Design
Handlebar: Bontrager Race VR
Handlebar Tape: Merlin
Stem: FSA OS 150
Saddle: Selle Italia SLK (Black)
Seatpost: Thomson Elite 350mm x 27.2mm
Wheelset: Mavic Ksyrium ES (Black/Red)
Tires: Continental GP4000, 700CX23 (x2)
Tubes: 700Cx18-25 Butyl Tube, Presta Valve (x 2)
Pedals: Ultegra
Waterbottle Cages: Bontrager Xlite Carbon