Racer Ex 

One day I will try a Brooks saddle....

LAJ

Very cool, @chasm54. Classy ride.

YogaKat

Beautiful bike @chasm54

I hope all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

chasm54

Ah, funny you should mention that. This is one of their new line, a Brooks Cambium. It's the same structure as their tradtional leather
saddles but instead of leather it's made of vulcanised rubber, bonded to a layer of fabric on the surface. No breaking in period, no maintenance, gives a firm but slightly flexible ride. There's a C17 touring version and a narrower C15 racing saddle - though like all Brooks, there's a weight penalty, you probably wouldn't race it. First impressions of the touring version very good, but I'll report back.

For the ladies, they do a C17s and a C15s with or without a cutout. Might be worth looking at for anyone having saddle problems. As always, though, they ain't cheap. Brooks exploits its "heritage" by positioning itself at the premium end of the market.

In other news, I've been amusing myself in the 41 lately. The calibre of poster there has clearly increased. Do you know there are guys in there who can spin a 53/11 "with ease"? I know, I should know better...

YogaKat

What is the 41?

I have also wondered what 'the 33' actually means. I tried to google it but didn't have any luck.

LAJ

~https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-bike-racing/


The first number after the "bikeforums.net" is 33, and the Road Forum is 41.

YogaKat

Aha! I don't think I ever would have figured that out. Thanks LAJ.

sarals 

@Heathpack, it's fun being a Schmoe! I'm glad you're feeling better. Have fun in Sin City!
@chasm54 - gorgeous! Congratulations! It's nicely outfitted, and this is not a knock, but it reminds me a bit of my B/F's Klein, only way updated, of course. Enjoy it! And I know you will.
@YogaKat - I asked the same question, not all that long ago. Everyone was referring to the 33 before it was officially called The 33. I hadn't a clue. So, no reason to be chagrined!

As I expected, yesterdays dinner TSS was high, but not quite epic. I showed patience and restraint, not attacking often. At the end I threw down a big attack and ate bread pudding. It put me over the top and I won. TSS 210

revchuck 

Numerous sets of vertical fork lifts followed by a 1x30' nap interval.

LAJ

Endurance pace Monday and Tuesday, with some hard efforts on Wednesday because I knew the weather was coming. Resting easy and enjoying dinner was my reward, simply because they actually all lit up.

YogaKat

@sarals, I guess I'm not alone then.

Wednesday night I worked well into the night/early morning although my session was a real turkey. I slept in Thursday morning and began with TTs of side dishes and intervals of basting. I too did numerous sets of vertical fork lifts. This was followed up with an endurance power nap. I ended the day with a recovery meal of apple pie.

@LAJ Well done! Beautifully put together.

Heathpack 

@LAJ, beautiful! The snow adds a little bit of magic to that pic.

Meeting with FLO Cycling later today. The replacement disc arrived Wed and now we can see that there is clearly an issue with the drive side faring on the original disc. They want to see the issue, so we brought the bike & both discs. We'll swing by later so they can take a look. How often do you get to meet the engineer who designed your wheels? Should be interesting.

The doglet is having a fine time. She has exhausted herself with too much mooching, though.

LAJ

Thank you kindly, @YogaKat and @Heathpack.

Doglets deserve a fine time. These holidays are no doubt confusing to them, though I'm sure the abundance of food is a welcome addition.

Way cool on the Flo thing, as I had no clue they were in Vegas.

Heathpack 

Doglet thinks she had died & gone to heaven. She is throwing down the one trick she knows and scoring a treat every time.

FLO is actually just two brothers who designed the wheels, engineers and triathletes. There is no store, office, etc. We are going by Jon's house.

LAJ

Being a one trick pony is fine, as long as the Doglet's game is good. This seems to be the case.

Heathpack 

The FLO guys are twins and they look exactly alike & live across the street from each other. They looked at the disc and said, "well will you look at that, we've sold 1500 disc wheels so far, have not encountered this exact issue." The faring on the drive side is just not quite the right shape, it bows out slightly at the hub, enough to cause the clearance issue on the 11-speed bike. You can push the faring towards the hub and fix the clearance problem, but inevitably it bows back out again and the clearance problem would return. Hard to imagine how this happened, since all these carbon pieces are presumably formed in identical molds. Our guess is maybe an issue with the curing process. We were able to jury-rig a fix by cutting a foam spacer that sits between the cassette and the faring and that actually worked fine, although the foam compresses over time and it will have to be re-done periodically.

No way did FLO want me to have a jury-rigged wheel though, which is why they sent the replacement disc, which is perfect with no clearance issues whatsoever. They were super-easy to work with, just good guys. The deal was they'd send the second disc. If it was an issue with the bike being compatible with their wheel, they'd take both back & refund my money. If the problem was with the original disc, just send that back as an exchange. Then it just so happened we were going to Vegas for the holiday, which is why we decided to meet with them.

After they had a chance to look at the wheel & determine it was indeed defective, we told them we'd buy it for $100 if they were going to junk it. Fine by them, they just needed serial numbers off it to trace the manufacturing chain of events. So now I have a spare jury-rigged but functional disc wheel. One more thing to add to the pile of stuff to bring to a TT.

Bottom line is I like the wheels and I have to say that of all the various bike-related business I have dealt with in my short cycling career, FLO had got to have been the easiest & most normal. It probably helps that they have no staff, if you call with a problem you talk to one of the two people who designed your wheels and oversee the manufacturing. They know everything about the wheels and can visualize immediately what you are describing. Little by little they are ramping up their manufacturing and right now they actually have stock. If anyone wants some (heavy-ish) aero wheels.

YogaKat

@Heathpack what a cool experience with FLO. I'm glad to hear that it all worked out well. And Doglet is adorable!


I thought I would share a picture of our backyard this morning. My hummingbird feeders are under there somewhere. No ride today.

valygrl

yikes! cold and slippery.

LAJ

Ice storms are terrible. Hope it all turns out OK, @YogaKat

YogaKat

So far we are the lucky ones that still have power, but I have plenty of firewood and batteries if that changes. This one came earlier than usual this year.

Rowan

That was quick! I thought you would have to wait a while before taking delivery. If there is one thing the English do well, it's designing nicely balanced traditionally styled steel-framed touring bikes.

Rowan

There really isn't a try with a leather one. Either you ride it, persist and get it broke in along with your butt, or you will decide quickly that a Brooks is not for you and you won't ever try it again.

Also, if your intention is to race, you can do that on just about any saddle and even if it hurts, it won't be for long. But when it comes to distance, a Brooks can make a lot of difference to how I feel at the end.

I think we have 10 in the household now. I have a Ti Swallow that is on my CF bike and doesn't look out of place because it has shallow-depth skirts on it. I think it's lightest saddle they make, and among the most expensive. But I've done 200 and 300km randonnees on it and while it's not as wide as my other B17s, it's still been comfortable for me. The trade-off is that with the narrow skirts, it does tend to stretch a bit more easily and I've had to adjust the bolt/nut several times.

I have a two Ti B17s, on my Bike Friday, essentially to reduce packed weight for touring, and on my Ti road bike. For some reason, there is a love-hate relationship with the one on the Ti Saga/Hasa because it has taken a while to break in; the Bike Friday one less so.

All the others are B17s with steel frames. They are durable, comfortable and suited to the styles of bikes (touring and utility x 2 and fixed gear and MTB).

I haven't tried the Cambium, and probably won't in the near future. I am not overly fussy with the weather and my leather saddles -- a shower cap does its job when it rains like it did today. I am not currently commuting by bike, but if I was, I might consider a Cambium.

Having said that, one of my favourite *looking* saddles is a Selle San Marco with Ti rails and CF frame with thin leather cover and foam cover. It has wings that move with my sit bones, and really is quite comfortable for a fast relatively short ride.

Cleave

I purchased some FLO 30 rims last year for my training wheels built on my 32 hole PowerTap G3 hub. I showed their old website to my wheel building guy and he thought they looked good. In fact we both thought they were an incredible deal for an aero carbon rim -- except it turns out they weren't carbon. Neither of us caught the fact that they were aluminum. At the time, their website wasn't quite so clear on the rim material. My fault and since they were so cheap regardless of material, I had him build up the wheels.

A year later, I like the wheels even though they weigh a ton (500 gram rims).

One of the things that has been taking time away from cycling is the planning phase for our new, custom, green, dream home. (Is that descriptive enough? ) This will be the house in which we live for the rest of our lives. Here is a snippet of the 1st floor, floor plan:



@YogaKat commented elsewhere about a bike shed behind her house. That inspired me to post this. The bike room for our new home is inside and should be able to hold 10 bicycles. I am looking at the Steadyrack system (https://steadyrack.com/) to store at least 5 bikes along the left-hand wall. Anyone have any experience with these racks? Just for reference, the bike room is bigger than the 2nd (guest) bedroom. I know my priorities.

Heathpack 

The FLO wheels are just a huge bang for your buck. I wound up with two 60mm deep wheels plus a disc for a total of $1600. Yes they are heavy but they are well built and I like the feel of them on the TT bike. They hold speed well, I assume because of their weight. But once you get them spooled up, its much easier to regulate power, you wind up much more even. Obviously the customer service is awesome as well.

Good newby wheels, if you're just getting into TTs and don't have connections to buy used stuff and don't want to spend tons on equipment for a cycling discipline that you're not sure you'll like.

YogaKat

@Cleave That looks nice!

One day I will build my shed. If I build it they will come, right?