Man this sucks. My bike is gaining weight!

1. Temporary weight gain...did a group ride yesterday and was rolling up to a 4 way stop. The rider behind me (old guy on an R3 w/ DA and Easton carbon wheels) was way too close so I eased off the brakes a tad to give him some room and then started coming to a stop again as a car had just came of the hill to the left at a pretty quick speed. I figured that since this was an organized group ride and I was in the lead that I should do the right thing and actually stop at the intersection. He apparently assumed we were just going to ride through it and then he tapped/overlapped my rear wheel. Both of us were still moving but I managed to turn w/ the tilt of the bike angle and stomp on the pedal. Lots of nasty sounds and then the nice cluncking and clanking of a bike hitting the ground. I then rode on across the intersection to have a look at my bike. I was way too ticked off to stay on the side where he was. Turns out the wheel is now out of true. We were only about two blocks from my house and I contemplated running to the house and switching out my rear wheel but I only have one cassette at the moment and that would just take too long. So I did the ride as it was. To make things worse about 2.5 miles from the end I was following some other nube and we were rolling along pretty quick. I was tucked in and doing my best to suck up as much draft as I could and the old guy was right behind me. The "nube" ran us right through a frick pot hole that he hopped over but said nothing to us about. BANG! Within 5 seconds my rear tire was flat! Now my rear wheel has two nice little dents in the rim! What a frickn day!
So the temporary weight gain is the install of my other set of wheels (which I am very thankful to have at the moment)

2. Gum Gum issues...that damn thing won't seem to tighten down my stem enough. Not sure what the deal is but I crank that thing down and I still end up with a slightly lose front end. I then went to a different style expander which weighs in at about 35g and it seemed to work until after the first ride and it too was loose. I tried it again and couldn't get it adjusted well enough. Now I am back to the expander that came with my bike that weighs in at some 50g! At least the top cap says Bianchi on it and the headset is tight with no nasty Boing sounds any longer.

3. PITA...litterally! Not sure what the deal was. I rode my stripped SLR saddle as I have been for the past month or so. The distance wasn't any longer than normal and I wore a pair of shorts that I have worn many times for this same distance and saddle. For whatever reason, my sit bones were sore at about mile 25 and are still sore today. Just feel bruised! Sorta ticked off because as mentioned, I have had no problems in the past going these distances. Not sure what the deal is there. Solution for now is that I slapped my Aspide (155g) back on the bike for my ride this weekend to help give a little more healing time.

4. Holy tubes! I don't normally patch my inner tubes but my daughters wanted to see how it was done. So I went thru the process with them and got a patch on there. Then told them to go ahead and pump it up when we were done so they could see that it works. Sure enough there were two sets of snake bites in the tube. I guess the good thing is that they got to do the second patch job. The downside is that I probably added some 10g to the tube weight with all the damn cement and patches! That tube will definitely be a back up and probably not going back in the tire bag. Gotta go shopping for some more tubes now.

Ok, done ranting.

Oh, the guy that crashed after hitting my wheel ended up snapping his left shift lever blade right in half! After getting home last night I realized that it must have caught on my seat stay judging by the new scratches I have on my frame on the inside of the tubing near the tire. Must have just got wedged in there or something on his way down. I will say that the cool thing here was that the damn lever still worked even though it snapped right under the top curve of the lever! You could brake and shift still. Cool testimate to the DA lever...even though I am a Campy guy.

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09 Pinella w/ Record 10spd
http://1spd.blogspot.com/

One of those days with hindsight you wouldn't go out!

Re. 2. The stems slipping. The expander is for bearing preload only. Use some carbon paste on the steerer and check the torque of your stem bolts.

Good point! I have both paste and digital torque wrench.

None the less, I couldn't get the Gum Gum to tighten enough. I mean I couldn't get enough preload on the bearings to stop it from rattling (you could feel it when braking on a downhill-I have a bumpy little drive way on my street that I test it on and until swapping to the stock Bianchi one, nothing was working.) It was like the gum gum would just slide up the inside of the tube rather than generating preload if you will.

I hear you though. If I knew the ride was going to cost me a headache and some cash, I would have bailed for sure!

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09 Pinella w/ Record 10spd
http://1spd.blogspot.com/

The Gum Gum is not compatable with the ID of your steerer tube......if you look on Fairwheels website there is a size range for the ID where the Gum Gum will work. Outside the range = no preload.

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2012 Fuji Altamira SE - 6.42kg

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I read that (afterwards of course) but figured I would give it a shot. It definitely gets tight in there but apparently is not enough to provide preload.

I'm going to pull the stem off this evening and slap some carbon paste on it and try out my middle weight version again and see if that works.

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09 Pinella w/ Record 10spd
http://1spd.blogspot.com/

Bad day at least you have other nube's to blame for your damaged rim. When I damaged (ruined) mine I had my self to blame as I deided to ride over some decking. It did not end well for the rim.

Still we all feel for you.

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www.thecycleclinic.co.uk

use the one that works, preload it, tighten your stem to your steerer tube to spec, pull out the good expander, put pansy one back in, install top cap and viola....

gum gum: maybe the top cap is touching the fork, it happened to me once when i changed my spacers and I didn't quite use enough spacers. I also use the gum gum, the problem disappered when I used 1 mm extra spacer.

Aside from playing around with the Barfly mount, I really haven't done much tuning lately. Hell, the weather has been crappy so I haven't even been doing much riding. Too wet to hit the trails and either snowing or ice on the roads. Basically been forced back into the gym to simply workout instead.

None the less, I was given a some Ashima Reaction cables as a Christmas gift (both brake and der). I have held off from installing them however as I am thinking I want a different handle bar. I thought I did enough research prior to purchasing my current ITM flat top bar. I stripped the clear coat off it a while back and managed to drop a little weight off it but really it isn't the weight that is bothering me with it. It is the shape. It has a flat top which is what I wanted along with internal cable routing. But the flat top isn't exactly flat, It is actually thinner at the leading (front) edge and had an odd little angle in the bend at the rear where your palms would rest. As a result, I either have to rotate my hands forward which makes me have to wrap my thumbs around the bar or rotate them back and then I have a larger break in my wrists. In both cases, it is somewhat uncomfortable.

At this point I don't know if I am done with the flat bar top or not. I am now looking at the Zipp Vuka Sprint (which would at least match my stem). It has a compact shape, internal routing, and flat tops that look like they are shapped the way they should be (with a thicker front and thinner back). But the weight of them is about 210g (pretty much where I am right now). The other option is the 3t Ergosum bar. I know quite a few of you guys are running this bar. It appears to be a standard round shape and requires full bar tape but does have a compact shape. The bonus here is that it weighs in at about 175g or so. Which of course is a good thing.

I guess I'm just hung up on the flat top idea. My buddies Cinelli Ram feels great (but waaaaay too damn heavy and I don't like the stem angle) but too expensive for my liking. I would think that the Vuka would be pretty close from all the pictures I have seen. But I never really had a problem with a round bar and think I'm just being a wuss about it. So though I think I would like to give the Vuka a shot, I am now leaning towards going back to the round shape with fully wrapped bars and shaving a little weight a long the way.

I figure I will try to get the bar ordered today and then try to find some more bar tape when it arrives. Not sure if I am going to stick with the Lizard skin dimpled tape or go back to the Specialized tape. I really like the feel of the Spec tape as it sort of remindes me of suede and has a little more padding than the dimpled tape. But I like the sticky feel of the Lizard skin. I think the Lizard skin costs a few dollars more though. Hell, I guess I'll figure it out when I go to buy it (depends on who has it in stock when I go).

I did managed to squeek a ride in yesterday. The roads were a little wet and there were some snow flurries but I figured what the hell and went out. Then then started snowing harder, then turned to sleet, then little ice pellets, before returning to light flurries when I hit my driveway at the end of my ride. None the less, it really wasn't that bad out there and it was nice to just get out for a quick spin (15 miles). Sure as hell beat working out again!



Oh, I ordered and received my new Far and Near 11t lock ring the other day so that will drop a couple of grams (9g) over the stock Campy one.

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09 Pinella w/ Record 10spd
http://1spd.blogspot.com/

I sorry that is a bad ride, though I lie your attitude that instead of complaining too much you're worried about the weight, that's cool.

I hope the scratches are only superficial.

Sorry to hear about the ride!

The Gum Gum is not so great. I couldn't get it to do the same brand new out of the box even with a thin spacer on top of the stem. I couldn't justify the added weight of the beefy Enve expander that came with my fork for something I never have to mess with on the go so I essentially used the Enve part to set the preload, tighten stem, and than I swapped the gum gum in and firmed it up as snug as I could get it so that there was at least something in there as a last resort.

The Vuka Sprint bars are definitely heavier than 210g (at least in my 42). Comfortable and look awesome though. I'm starting to wonder if they'll be stiff enough when I go all "hulk smash" when racing picks up...

gum gum is quite a shit thing. it was supposed to fit my fork, but i just returned it. it sucks big time.

slr saddles suck too, at least for me. go fizik.

Gum Gum: I have since pulled it off the bike. I need to order a new top cap before trying this thing out again. I am currently using some off the wall, (have no idea who makes it) expander. It weighs in at about 33g! But it is 21g lighther than the Bianchi one that came with my bike. I realize the Gum Gum is a "shit thing", at least that is how I feel about it at the moment. None the less, I will probably pick up a new top cap then pre load w/ the expander that works, snug down the stem bolts and swap it out as noted above. I will say that the current set up works great and matches very well though.

Top Cap: I have a Soul Kozak one that I like but it flares out at the top of the bolt heads and causes the little balck grommet to deform. I tried my old Campy Record top cap and it sort of did the same thing due to its little washer on the bottom. The only other top cap I have is a Red King one from my mtb and well...its heavy and is red and we can't have either on this bike

Saddles: To each his own I guess. I was a Fizik guy for a while. I really liked the Aliante but for whatever reason, I started getting a hot spot right between the ol' spinkter and the sac. I did many adjustments and tried out many different seats before landing back on an SLR. So far so good really. But I will say that the Aerione fits me really well also. I just didn't have the $200+ to buy the CX carbon version that I wanted and my current SLR only cost me $53. If I can scrounge up the money and not spend it on other upgrades first I'll probably go after the Aerione in the future. I will admit that I don't particularly care for the look of the long shape of the saddle. I don't ride on the nose so I don't really need all that but the rest of it fits me pretty well.

Vuka's: Yep, all the other numbers I have seen out there are more than 210g which is one of the reasons I decided to just go with the 3T Ergosum instead. I have ridden a round bar for as long as I can remember and I'm sure I will be fine. The compact shape is more important to me and the 3T has it so I might as well go that route and shed some grams in the process.

Yep, I was complaining about the ride. Honestly, I can deal with the weather. It was more of an issue that the weather seemed to just ramp up the minute I got out on the bike. I got back home and it cleared up again. It seems to do this pretty frequently for me but as soon as my wife heads out for a jog, it's frickn beautiful out. That was probably the most annoying part. I actually had a good ride though and despite the temp it really wasn't that bad. Having the right clothing for the ride makes all the difference this time of year.

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09 Pinella w/ Record 10spd
http://1spd.blogspot.com/

Handlebar ordered last night. Probably won't see it for about 3 weeks I'm guessing. Plenty of time to figure out what bar tape I want to run. Thinking about the Deda perforated tape. I am guessing that it is the same as their foam logo tape but with holes in it. I have used the logo tape before and it worked well enough so the perforated one is in the running at this point.

Choices so far:

Specialized tape (feels/looks sorta like suede)
Lizard Skin dimpled tape (like the tacky feeling) but may weigh more
Deda perforated

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09 Pinella w/ Record 10spd
http://1spd.blogspot.com/