carpediemracing 

Thanks for reading my post. She was a great person.

Chain, yes. I try and buy the higher margin stuff at shops as long as I can justify the difference in price. $10? Okay. $40 a tire? Kinda hard. Stuff shops carry like Specialized cages (my current favorite), Blackburn pumps (ditto), CycleOps trainer stuff (ditto), definitely from shop. Small parts? Definitely, and add a few bucks because no shop will ever charge you what they should have gotten for the time it took to find you that odd spacer washer thing. I get all my energy stuff from a shop (Enervit etc).

Bike? That's hard. I bought my last bike from a shop on eBay. It was $4000 less than MSRP. I won't go to a shop and say "I want $4k off". But if it was $300 or something, I'd go to the shop and see if they can't give me a deal on a helmet or shoes or something that I want that costs $300. I'd pay half (or whatever I think their wholesale is) and then I'd feel okay about it.

Honestly I have a few shops willing to do some crazy deals for me. I'll take advantage of that but I don't do it all the time and I do it judiciously - I try and make sure the shop gets something. Like if they offer to sell me a bike at wholesale (because I'll assemble it etc) then I see if they can't get it at employee price. Or a scratch and dent bike one shop got me, for 1/3 of wholesale, I made the owner tack on $400 to the price as his margin (the bike was $300, scratched and dented, I think, and it was some mid range full suspension mountain bike). I guess that's why the offers are still out there. My goal is not to hurt them but at the same time I like knowing they tried to help me out too. I'm a very easy customer since I know exactly what I want. Takes 5 minutes to order the bike, they'll get a few hundred $$ for those 5 minutes. And free shipping on something else etc etc.

As a former shop owner it's hard for me to try and take advantage of shops, but at the same time, I'm like anyone else - I don't want to feel *****. I know that one company found it sold 80% of a particular bike to employees. So they priced the bike for employees - they figured out how much they needed to make, figured out what that price would be for employees, and then figured out wholesale and retail from there. Ended up you could get a frame and the kit for less than employee. So a bike like that doesn't help the shop.

cdr

carpediemracing 

Sit back more? Lower tire pressure perhaps 5-10 psi? Shorter chainstays (my favorite solution). Wider tire if not 21 or 22 mm (tubular) or 23c (clincher). Pull up harder on the bars.

Does that help you, uh, friend?

cdr

carpediemracing 

Some of these are good interview questions. Like "Ask a pro 20 questions". lol.

Thanks again on my mom. She definitely was quite a lady.

cdr

carpediemracing 

I have to pack up now. Phew. This was like the last 90 minutes of a... 13 hour ride. I really, really appreciate all the comments and posts and all that, I really do.

I'll be back to normal sometime tomorrow afternoon, if I can get sleep on this redeye.

Thanks everyone for pulling through,
cdr

(that last bit refers to road cycling...)

*edit* it's more like 110 minutes, not 90 minutes...

BlessedHellride

You rock CDR!

waterrockets 

Yep, those are the finishes where I podium most often

Pace Bend coming up, and I made up about 15 places in the final sprint last year after a failed attack recovery. Not a steep finish, but had some grade to it. There was a big break off the front, so the sprint didn't matter much, actually.

Pace bend is next Sunday

Another reason people often hop is that they are pushing down too long on the pedal stroke. If they're doing that at the bottom of the stroke, the pedal can't go down any more, so their body goes up. This is effectively jumping off the bike every stroke.

carpediemracing 

Made it home. Thanks for all the support once again.

cdr

mrt10x

This may have been one of the best threads ever... dont know why i think that.. just do.