I installed a 3" stem riser to alleviate some of my hand numbness...It helps some but i will tell you i have severe Rheumatoid Arthritis, Diabetes and old wrist fractures from a Hockey injury... My hands are in bad shape... i do manage to do 25 mile rides for now...I am on vacation next week and will try for a 50 mile ride...

I use to take the back roads through the DB NAt. forest from Somerset or (ironside) i think to Pineville, it's a beautiful area...

Tubes aren't bad. Some people double wrap them with tape as well. You could leave your older bar tape on and then go over it again with a thicker bar tape.

Glad to hear you're finding methods to avoid previous injuries and go ride!

Gotta ride, i enjoy it too much to quit...

For the Black Bike lover in you................


Looks like Cannondale has got some hot bikes for 2014 coming out. read the review here:https://www.bikeradar.com/road/galler...rst-look-38148
Cheers

I just want to see it with some classic bends wrapped in white bar tape. Maybe a white saddle as well.

just picked this up today.
excuse the cell pic.

Nice!

What wheels are those?

https://av.ozarkdreams.com/?post_type=product&p=47

Do you have experience with these wheels as well?

Very interested. I sent a PM to johnny.

Very nice.

Well, I've dove head first into the Cult of CAAD last May and love it so far. Isn't that what everyone says when they start a new addiction?


Riding Barker Pass above Lake Tahoe

No, but I thought they looked cool and started digging and found their website. I'm looking for another pair of carbon clinchers at the moment, not sure what direction I want to go though.

I've made a few upgrades since I last posted a snapshot of my CAAD 10. They are:
- Replaced raw, black & white 2013 frame with all raw 2012 frame. (I t-boned a car. Rest of the bike was fine, me too).
- Replaced saddle with Specialized Romin Evo Comp
- Replaced Shimano PD-R540 with Time Expresso 4 pedals
- And today I replaced the BB30 bottom bracket and crankset with C-Bear bottom bracket and the standard FSA Gossamer crankset with a compact Shiimano 105. I was compelled because of a creaky bottom bracket that refused remedy (4 attempts). An alternative LBS is swearing by the C-Bear solution. The salesman sold me when he showed me the same BB upgrade on his ride.

The ride home felt great, i like the compact gearing, the 105 chainring performs better and the bike felt more responsive, but that could be a $436 placebo effect and traveling 5 miles over Manhattan Bridge to get back to Brooklyn isn't a real test.

The shot was taken a couple of blocks from home on Pier 6.

I've read up on them a little. Intriguing, no doubt. With where I live, I don't need a super active brake track, but investing the extra money in a pair of say November Rails or Boyd 44s would allow me to take a set out to Colorado next year and ride worry-free.

Saving $300+ is also intriguing though. I could almost build up another set of wheels for training with aluminium rims for long descents.

Glad to hear you're fine Whizzer! I hope the new BB works out as well. I noticed a creaking on my dad's mountain bike. Not super excited about replacing it. Hopefully it is just a product of a dirty bike.

I'd like me a set of those with a powertap. Not convinced, however, that their new carbon is worry-free and I can't see going tubular as a rec rider.

Have you talked to Boyd? As you know from being a member on here he is an easy guy to talk to. When I got my wheels from him we traded emails for a couple days. Once I got the wheels his wife Nicole sent an additional email. The customer service is exceptional.

No, I don't really have the money right now and as I mentioned I'm not sure it's really what I want anyway. Of course, if money was no object I buy a set in a heartbeat.

I would confidently say they are worry free as long as you use common sense. I can take my car down any mountain road around here, but if I ride the brakes in the car for miles on end I'll burn up the rotors. That being said, in all the carbon clinchers we have sold this year all throughout the world we have had one failure due to heat build up. It was from a 200+ pound rider who descended a 2.5 mile 10% average grade mountain. Normal times for this descent are around high 3 minutes to mid 4 minutes, it took him over 9 minutes to go down. He averaged 16.7mph (on a 10% downhill!). There was a prolonged period of time where he was going 12mph. Finally after 9 minutes of this the rear wheel finally started to bow outward a bit. He had thought it was just out of true when he sent it to us. The front wheel was perfectly fine which means he was really dragging that rear brake (which is even worse for heat build up).
So, we can't say they are "indestructible" (which we never tried to) and still encourage people to know proper braking technique. But I am confident the rims withstand just as good as any other carbon rim out there, even comparing to the companies who state they have never had a failure (despite there being two separate claims of them failing on Slowtwitch in the past week).

Thanks for that info. Sounds like one would really have to ride the brakes to cause an issue. I'm 200lbs but don't ride the brakes that much.

Well that takes the fun out of it - probably the slowest descent ever.

I understand and agree. For my riding style, I really don't have a good reason to for carbon wheels. I like to go out and hammer myself for an hour solo, so sure the carbon clinchers would help me snatch up some more Strava KoMs, but so would quitting running and focusing on cycling. Tubulars would be sweet, but just way overkill for my riding needs. It seems you can find tubular 2012 Zipp 303s on sale everywhere, just not sure it's worth it!

Coachboyd, thanks for the post. The re-designed rims are certainly of interest. No major ascents or descents around here, but I do get brake happy occasionally - I am working on it. I'd certainly like to have a lighter set of wheels, and an aero advantage would be swell, but just not necessary at this point in time for me.

I actually talk more people out of carbon and into an alloy set than vice versa. A lot of people (even me) like carbon because it's cool and fun. But for practical, a good alloy wheel can't be beat. Our alloy set is by far our best seller, mainly because we push it as the wheelset that there's never a bad time to use it.

I respect that. If I was purchasing a new set of wheels with a triathlon or TT on my calendar, I'd consider the 44 for the best all-around use, but I don't have any Triathlons or TTs on my calendar as of yet. Last years first triathlon didn't warrant any aero equipment either. Although I would like to see my bike with aero wheels, I believe an alloy wheel will be what I go with eventually.