tired legs

after standing on my feet at work for literally 45.5 hours last week, you wouldnt have expected me to have ridden the past couple days. and yet i did. and my legs certainly hate me. but riding the past couple days have been fabulous.

yesterday was a super easy day with this kid matt who is a soph at pitt. today was with a big group from the pitt cycling club. the group quickly went from a bakers dozen to 5. most went on an easier loop and i went with the training ride group. our group of 5 was then to 4 when one of the dudes bailed. the tempo was certainly harder than i expected. i was expecting a sort of tempo pace, with the idea being that i could take about 4 or 5 easy days of riding into my trip down to jmu for career fair and riding with my homies. anyways, two of the dudes were pretty quick. i was ok for the most part. lost contact on a couple hills, but for the majority of the half dozen or so significant climbs we did, i was just fine. definitely red-lining it, but hangin in there. it was, however, a pleasant surprise knowing that there are some strong dudes on the pitt cycling team. nice guys too.

i got to see my new frame, fork, and cranks on thursday, and i just about needed a new pair of shorts. the carbon lugs are huuuge. the carbon tubes have the sexiest waves. the fsa cranks are disgustingly sleek. and it all weighed less than nothing. i worked out the financing plan i are doing for the bike and figured out the size bars (40) and stem (100) i am going to use. still need to determine if i am going to use a kick-back seatpost or not. all depends on the knee position. but i am boring you, arent i?

i cannot wait to leave for jmu thursday afternoon. it is going to be a phenomenal extended weekend. 5 nights back at school with some old friends and one incredibly attractive lady. and we must not forget the 800 sweaty students looking for a job on monday night. who would want to miss that?? but before i go, i will need to pick up the mp3 player i won at the office and about 8 dick's cycling jerseys to give to the club. they will be super stoked.

hope your weekend is going swimmingly.

nuevo velo

carbon italian bike? carbon italian components? yes please! i am beyond stoked to get the new bike rollin in a couple very short weeks. after mistakenly buying a size 58cm steel frame, then getting duped again into buying a size 58cm aluminum frame w/ carbon seat stays (and one effed up headset), i am finally figuring out how everything works and getting my correctly sized 54-55cm bike. not only am i getting the proper fit, i am pulling out all of the stops and getting it tricked out, thanks to my bud niall.

here is the skinny: viner mitus frame and deda black magic fork, fsa k-force megaexo crank and bb, cane creek 33mm carbon clinchers, schwalbe tires, crank bros quattro ti pedals, modolo bars and stem, alien seatpost, fizik arione saddle, and if you didn't understand by the picture to the right, full 06 campy record for everything else. now i am no absurdly obsessed weight weenie, but i like to know how light my bike is just like any other normal dude. after doing the quick math and summing it all up (and i mean all of it), i am coming close to 14-15 lbs for this bad boy - totally built up. i figure for another half pound to full pound of error, but that still puts it at 16.5 max.

holy guano batman!! couple that with the potential opportunity to race the valley of the sun stage race in new mexico this feb, go back to my family's home town lucca (in tuscany) for a week to do a granfondo, and some incredibly rapid upgrading to cat 2 for the tour of shenandoah, and i have got a stacked winter of training ahead of me. i guess i had better put my legs where my mouth is and just start riding. on that note...

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