Fruita Trip and the New Bike

About a week and a half ago I went with Kate and a bunch of folks from Ubikes to Fruita, CO for 3 days of mountain biking. The terrain and trails in Fruita were spectacular and world class but totally different from the style of riding that I've done in the past. The trip was wonderful for so many reasons other than experiencing the trails in Fruita. The first was because of the bike I was on. We received some Cannondale demos from the Cannondale rep including the new Jekyll and the Scalpel Ultimate. I was riding the latter which was tricked out with SRAM XX and weighed about as much as my cyclocross bike (around 18.5-19 pounds) which is totally insane! They keep the weight so low firstly with the carbon Lefty fork. That is an instant savings of about about. Beyond that they keep weight down by going for the expensive/weight saving equipment wherever possible and removing the pivots from the rear triangle and allowing the frame to flex to create rear suspension. The bike was unbelievably punchy and climbed superbly. It didn't have quite enough travel for what I was trying to do with it but it was not created to excel at taking big drops. Another reason that the trip was so sick was because of the fact that it was a company trip. Kate and I are both so happy to have come to Colorado and are amazed with Ubikes and the way in which they care for their employees.

I also finally got my road bike for the summer and it is sweet! I went for the Specialized Tarmac Comp over the Expert that I had last year in order to save a few bucks. My friend, Zach, convinced me that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the SL2 and the SL3 frames and he was absolutely right. I also swapped out the 105 that came on the bike and put on my Ultegra that came on the Expert and then was on my Ridley for the CX season. I'm definitely going to be testing the longevity of the Ultegra gruppo as I'm planning on putting it on my CX bike this fall as well and then hopefully finding an inexpensive TT frame to put it on for next year. The big improvement in my equipment this year though is definitely the weelset. They were custom-built by a mechanic at Ubikes named Chris and they are 38mm carbon tubulars with Dura-Ace hubs, DT-Swiss Revolution spokes, and I'm gluing them up with Challenge Strada tires. the tire is super interesting as well as it is a 24c with a max of 200 PSI. I'll let you know what I think of them once I get them glued and race them.

All-in-all everything is awesome. I've been spending a lot of money recently trying to get my equipment together, which is not sweet, but I'm really looking forward to this road season and am very excited about my team, the races on my schedule, and where I think I'll be able to take my fitness this year.