New Bike...

[LukeVelo]

Captain W,

About Da Kaiser's ride, PM and I can give you the full story but in respect to my source I'll give you a lite version. Let's just say I have a buddy who grew up in Belgium and has connections with the team.

The ride is genuine my buddy rides another team members (retired) and mine came with Da Kaiser's bike bag and his handwriting on the Swiss Air luggage tag. My buddy was going to give another riders who is Spanish (and not riding the TDF) and size Small to his GF but they broke up so might be interested in unloading. PM me if you are serious.

But back to the ride. I ride is they way it came, well, had to ditch that bulky Tubo Matic 4 saddle and his 140mm Deda Newton 31 stem. I now have a sleeker Specialized Toupe (it's nice on the family jewels) and riding a 95mm stem, but swapping to a 110mm shortly.

Other than that it's full DA, no SRM grr, I didn't get his wheels, it came with the DA 7800s, which I love. But I've had to switch brake pads because they were for his carbon wheels (LWs) now that would have been awesome.

It's funny though, I was just doing a century through Skyline Drive, VA and I saw a rider from a LBS. He said, "So that's the bike" I get this all the time, another LBS took pics when I brought it in and I still get people coming up to me on random group rides saying they saw it in an email.

It's def a conversation piece, and yes, I ride it. I don't think I will race it, but it's my main ride, for now. The euro model has the ISP and beefier stays and BB. That's why it tests better than the US version. VN did a test and the is was in the middle of the pack, but in one of the threads on here, a Euro Mag did a test and it came is second to the R3. So it's not just "cool" to have, it's a fantastic ride. And light, with the Toupe sadde and not other changes and with a frame size of ML, it came in at 16 lbs even. That's with two elite cages, and DA pedals. I'm could WW it down more LWs, but for right now, I'm just happy with it the way it is, for now.

The best thing it has done for me is get me to ride harder, you just can't be the pedal dipper with Da Jan's bike. So it's gotten motivated to attack and pull more on group rides. Also, less chance of going down when you are in front. Although I did have is slide under me once on a wet trail, some stupid rollerbladers went left when I yelled left. I slid for 10 meters on my ass, the left pedal, handlebar and my saddle where scraped from the slide, but any damage to the frame, nope, and what's with the ISP. I was amazed and relived and would have taken blood from those rollerbladers if anything did happen to the frame.

So you may have seen on other threads why I was so upset last Friday, Black Friday I call it.

[TunedCannondaleR700]

All you need is some black anondized DA cranks.

[LukeVelo]

I would prefer some black LWs