Things I'm excited about at the moment

Bikes.  I'm excited about bikes.  I haven't posted anything here in a while because I hurt my ankle and had to take most of January and almost all of February off the bike.  I've started riding again, but it had been slow goings.  Work has picked up for me, so I haven't had the free time I'm used to either, so it's been tough.  I've been thinking about bikes a lot and here are a few Bikes I've been thinking about...




S-Works SL4 Roubaix
I don't personally like the Roubaix.  I've been on every SL2 and SL3 Roubaix except for the S-Works bikes and I haven't liked any of them.  But for some reason I've been thinking about the new SL4 bike.  In theory the S-Works SL4 Roubaix should be the perfect bike.  Stiff yet comfortable, racy, light and smooth enough that after 50mi I'd just be like "what's another ten miles more?"  I keep thinking that with New SRAm Red, a set of ENVE SES 3.4s and 25cc tires that it would be fantastic. But the reality of never having been on the S-Works model keeps me from thinking too seriously about it.  This bike may fall into the "never meet your heroes" category for me.

Trek Domane 6.9
Again, I don't usually like anything that Trek makes.  Not because it isn't any good, but because I've never been wow'd by one.  The new Madone and the Domane are both really good and I found myself enjoying the limited rides I've had on both.  The Domane really appeals to me because it's really stiff where you want it to be and I like the low bottom bracket a lot.  The one in my head is a 6.9 with mechanical Dura-Ace 9000 and a set of Bontrager Aeolus 3 wheels with 25cc tires.  Since both the Domane and Roubaix are designed for races like Paris-Roubaix, 25cc tires only make sense.  I'm a pretty light rider and I don't only ride on cobbles or broken roads so the extra volume of a 25cc would be preferable over 28s for me, especially with how comfortable the two frames already are, in case you were wondering.

Cervelo Rca
Just announced, the Rca is the follow up to the R5ca that was released last year.  The bike has a lot of changes over the R5ca, most notably being Kamm Tail shaped tubes for the head, seat, and half of the downtube.  It also adds a built in magnet at the bottom bracket for crank based power meters (brilliant), the seat stays have been turned 90*s for better aero shape, they use bulk heads at some joints, a new epoxy in some places, redesigned dropouts, internal cable routing that will work with mechanical, electronic or hydraulics, a new coating on the fork steerer to prevent crushing it, and somehow, despite the aero shaped tubing and magnet, the whole thing is just a touch lighter.

That's all in the press release, but all anyone ever talks about when discussing it is the price.  $10,000.00 for the frame and fork.  Fully built with other top notch goodies the bike can come in somewhere between $17-22,000.00.  That's a lot of coin.

I get it.  A lot of people don't, and that's fine, but I get it.  Every flagship anything is a loss for the company making it.  Honda made the NSX from 1990-2005 and lost money on every single one of them at almost $100,000.00 each.  Nissan sells the GT-R (for the moment) at around $90,000.00 and they lose money on every single one.  Cervelo is only making 325 Rca frames and guess what?  They will lose money on every single one.  The Rca is a statement. "look what we can do."  Car companies have been making statement cars for decades, but as far as I can tell, Cervelo is the only company that is making a statement bike.

I like statements.  I especially like them when The statement is "balance."  The Rca is light, sure, but it was also designed to be comfortable and to give you a bit more speed with slightly aero tubing.  It has safety features that I've yet to hear a rumor of other companies even thinking about.  They reinforced certain sections of the bike with a 3M product that costs 7 times what Cervelo's normal top end carbon costs.  That shit is awesome.  You can sit there and tell me that there are hundreds of bikes out there that deliver 90% of the performance for 1/3 the price and I wont argue with you at all, but I will tell you that you just don't get it.

Anyway, rant over.  If I had the money, I'd buy the shit out of an Rca just as a "thank you" to Cervelo for making it.  I'd throw a tubular set of 3.4s on it as well as 3T's team cockpit, new SRAM Red group and a Specialized Romin Pro saddle in black and I would ride it every day I could.  Because who wouldn't like a 13lb every day bike?

Shaved FSA bar update
The bar got two coats of matte clear paint applied to the top section between the bends and it came in at 210g total.  I've been riding the bike the past three weeks and visually I couldn't be happier.  In the removal process I found damage at the clamp to the bar and I'm going to need to buy a new one.  I'm kind of bummed because the bar looks so nice and I just put a lot of work into it, but safety first.  I really shouldn't be riding it at all, but I don't have another bar laying around.

The bars I'm thinking about to replace it are Zipp's SL bar, which I can get at a price I really like, but I don't like the graphics and more importantly I don't like the shape of the bar.  The reach is too long.  The other option is 3T's Team Stealth Bar.  It's all matchy matchy with my stem, but it's $110.00 more expensive than the Zipp bar.  I know I like the shape of the bar so it may be worth the extra money to just buy what I know I'll be happiest with, regardless of price.  If FSA made a carbon bar that didn't have shitty red all over it I would buy that, but that just doesn't seem to be the case.