Diamond Blackfan Cyclocross Challenge

First cross race of the season and my first DNF ever in said event. What a way to start the season off! I had planned on doubling up and racing the CAT 4 race at 10AM and then racing the Master’s 35+ race at Noon. I had volunteered to help Tige set the course up, so I ended up working right until the start time for the CAT 4 race. No big deal, because I had plenty of time to get ready for the Master’s 35+ event. I decided to ride the Ritchey today, with the Matrix Carbon wheels and Tufo Cubus tubulars. The Tufo’s performed flawlessly and hooked up on everything, never once washing out. They are great tires! I definitely won the loudest bike of the day award. Man my brakes were howlers! Everbody on the course knew when I was tapping the brakes. I don’t know if it was the tow in on the Zipp carbon pads or just the crappy braking surface on the cheap Taiwan carbon rims, but something was way off. Anyhow, I was sitting about mid pack on the 3rd lap and starting to gain some positions back, when disaster struck, I clipped my toe on one of the barriers and my chain dropped on my re-mount. So that really killed my momentum. Then I started to notice that my front brake pad was rubbing the sidewall of the tire and when I would get out of the saddle, the tire would rub the fork. Turns out that the skewer handle on my wheel had broken off and my wheel was loose. I did not put my spare wheels in the wheel pit, so my race was done. From here on out, I will have a bike in the wheel pit and not set my brakes up the night before a race, without testing them first. Lesson learned!!
Overall, Cow Town had a good showing. John Wagner won the Men’s CAT 4 race and Chris Locke took 2nd in the Single Speed race. Damian Almanza and Tige Lamb both had top ten finishes in their races. Tige did a great job designing the course and I think I heard someone say that the race had the largest one day turnout ever for a local KC race. Very nice!

My new Lynskey Cyclocross frame arrived on Friday. It is sweet! Got it built up this weekend and it came in at a whopping 16.4 pounds! I got some TI axles for my Egg Beater 2TI pedals, so that helped shed a little extra weight off the bike. I have already replaced every steel bolt on the bike with a Titanium one from Hyper Bolts. I really don’t have any more upgrades I can do to it, so I guess this one is done. Special thanks to my generous sponsors; Ritchey and Crank Brothers for supplying me great parts for my rig and to Lynskey for building me a frame that exceeded my expectations. Here is the parts spec:

Frame: Lynskey Pro Cross (Size Medium)
Fork: Ritchey WCS
Headset: Chris King
Stem: Ritchey WCS 4-Axis
Handlebar: Ritchey WCS Classic
Shifters: Campagnolo Record 10 speed
Front Derailleur: Campagnolo Record 10 speed
Rear Derailleur: Campagnolo Record 10 speed
Crank: Campagnolo Record Ultra-Torque 10 speed Compact
Pedals: Crank Brothers Egg Beater 3TI

Cassette: Campagnolo Record 10 speed 12-25

Chain: KMC X10
Brakes: Paul Neo Retro w/ Kool Stop Cross Pad Holders
Seatpost: Easton EC90 Zero
Saddle: Fizik Aliante TI
Wheels: Zipp 404 Cyclocross
Tires: TUFO Flexus Primus 700x34 Tubular

I will post a review of the bike after the first race.

Cross Season and a New Bike to Start It Out Right!

It has been a while since I posted and I apologize for that. My favorite race season of the year is just around the corner and man am I stoked this year. Cyclocross!!!! Check out the www.kansascitycross.com if you are not familiar with cyclocross. I really don’t know what to expect out of my body this year. Taking close to a year off the bike was not the best idea I ever had and it has been and still is a hard road back. Training has been going well, but I really don’t expect any podium finishes this year. I am sure everybody I used to race against has moved up a category or 2 and I will be fending for myself this year. I have heard tale that the fields are a lot bigger than they used to be, so that should make it more interesting. I guess my goal for this season is to get my skill set honed and hopefully Cat up to a 3 by the end of the season.

I should have my new cross rig built up by next weekend. The folks at Lynskey have been nothing but the best to work with. They have done everything in their power to make sure my buying experience was perfect. If you are not familiar with Lynskey, they are the people that started Litespeed. They sold Litespeed a few years back and decided to get back into the Titanium frame building business again. Anyhow, they are building me a cross frame to replace the used Seven Muse I bought off eBay a few years back. The Seven just never fit me quite right, as it was really 1 size too big. I am building the Lynskey up with Campagnolo Record 10 speed. I swapped out every bolt I could with a Titanium one and spec'd it with all the lightest and stongest parts I could. As the old saying goes, "Light, Strong, Cheap - Pick Two." I want this to be THE cyclocross bike!

I guess the big news is that I have made a commitment to ride cross tubulars this year, so I had to get a couple of sets of tubular wheels to mount them to. I sold some wheels and other spare parts to pay for them, but ended up making enough to get a set of Zipp 404 Cyclocross wheels and a set of Williams 58 Carbon tubulars. No question who Zipp is and they make quality stuff, but Williams is a fairly new brand that uses non-dimpled Zipp 404 rims and Ceramic Hybrid bearings in their hubs. I mounted 700 x 34 Tufo Flexus Primus tubulars to the Zipps, as they are going to be my main race wheels. The Williams are going to be mounted up with 700 x 32 Tufo Cubus tires and will be my mud/snow/ice/rough/crap course wheels. I am a little nervous about running carbon wheels only during the season, but there are a lot of people who are running them on their cross bikes now-a-days, so I am going to give it a shot.

The bike should build up at sub 17 pounds, which is pretty light for a cross bike. I will post pics, specs and the final weight when I get it built. It should be one sweet ride………………