The Bike

The Bike:

Now that the brunt of the training has passed I thought I would post a little blurb on my bike and the configuration I’ve chosen for IMAZ.

I’ve spend the last few years getting this bike just the way I want it. The bike was originally purchased for IMFL in ’04 but that race just never happened. Life sometimes gets in the way of the best laid plans. This will be IM number three for the bike, that is assuming I finish! (knock on wood). Over the years the bike has been almost entirely rebuilt with the only original equipment being the headset, brakes/levers, and shifters.

The bike is a 2004 Quintana Roo Caliente, Tangerine with flames, I think it’s one of the best looking paint schemes to come out. The only other person I know in New Mexico that has the same bike is my friend and fellow Outlaw “the Pocket Assassin”.

So, I thought I would list the components on the bike and give some details about why I chose the particular component.

The bike frame:
49 cm Quintana Roo Caliente, 50 cm top tube length. You’ll notice on the picture that the set tube extends way past the top tube. This is a horrible design for adjustability, effectively this makes the frame a 52 cm frame, which isn’t a good thing I really liked this frame because it has a combination of carbon stays, carbon fork and carbon steerer tube. It has barrel adjusters for on the fly tuning, and it came in my size with 650 wheels. Finding a small bike is pretty challenging, especially 4 years ago, and I really lucked out finding a bike that I liked.

From the bottom up:

Tires: Michelin 650 Pro2 race Clinchers – Great tires, light, rolls well, lots of grip and pretty puncture resistant. I’m also running two ounces of Stans in each wheel to fend off those nasty goatheads. The Stans add weight but in the scheme of things I don’t really think it matters much.

Wheel set: 2006 Zip 404, 650 Clinchers. Light, stiff, aero, versatile, Overall great wheel set, Oh and I got them for $400, with only about 200 miles on them.

Chain: SRAM PC 9speed Hollow-pin – Light, easy to maintain, and shifts great.

Crank Set/Bottom Bracket: Dura-Ace 10 sp Double, Length 167.5 mm, 39x53 This is a strange size but my short legs seem to like the 167.5 crank arm length. The first time I used this crankset I felt awesome! The former crankset was heavy and had an odd gearing of 41x52, but combined with the 650 wheelset I had reasonable climbing power but would always spin out on the decent. The new gear ratio gives me a few more gears on the assent and a little bit more speed on the decent. Overall a great choice, but the Q-factor seems to be a bit smaller that the old crank set which limits my crossover gears, Oh well, life is tough when you ride a small bike.

Pedals: Speed Play X2, Light easy to get in and out of, lots of float.

Rear Derailleur: Dura-Ace, short cage, Smooth shifting, light.

Rear Cassette, Dura-Ace 11-23, I’m leaning toward this gear selection because IMAZ only has a few small hills (Other than the b-line) My other choice is the gear that I’ve been riding for the training rides it’s an SRAM, 12-26. The SRAM is a great Cassette and an overall good gearing, light and much cheaper than the DA.

Skewers: Zipp Titanium shafts – 85 grams for the pair, light, strong and they match the Zipp wheels!

Graphics: “Bones”, From Speedy sign, it cost’s all of 5 bucks, and, I think, is pretty cool.
Front Derailleur, Ultegra, Stock – Couldn’t justify upgrading this.

Waterbottle cage: Arundel Carbon, what can I say, carbon is cool.

Brakes: Ultegra, Stock. These are good brakes, why change them out?

Headset: Stock, I’ve never had and issue with it.

Seat Post: Easton EC90 Carbon. I needed a straight seat post because of the extended seat tube. The Easton is light, straight and was on sale! Yeah, thats right, there's only about half and inch of post showing!

Seat: Wow, This has been an ongoing quest but I think I’ve finally found the right seat! It’s a Blackwell Flow, It’s much narrower than I’m used to riding but things seem to be supported quite well, no numbing issues, no back pain and no chafing. If you notice the sides of the saddle come down past the rails which make the nose a bit wide, but that’s not a deal breaker. For me, this has been the best Tri saddle I have ever ridden.

Hydration: X-lab carbon wing. This back of the seat hydration pack is much lighter than it’s predecessor and it sits back off the tail end of the seat a bit more. With my old wing I was constantly breaking bottle cages. The new one is light strong and has many more ways to attach gear. On the bottle side of the wing I’m using a specialized rib cage, which keeps me from ejecting bottles.

Cycle computer: Catyeye Dual wireless. This really cleans up the bike while giving me everything I could ask for in a computer. Nice easy to read display, cadence and it works flawlessly.

Spacers: Carbon no-name – Yeah, Carbon is good.

Stem: F99, 80 mm, Very Light, stiff and reasonably inexpensive.

BaseBar: Syntace Stratos, Small 39cm. For some reason this bike came with a 41cm basebar – who knows why?

AeroBars: Profile carbon Stryke. These bars are about the most adjustable bar I have every come across. You can tweak them endlessly. Light good vibration dampening. I changed out the stock Profile arm pads with the Syntace pads which actually have padding.

Shifters: Dura Ace, Not many other options.

Brake levers: Provile Quick Stop 2 - Good solid levers – no reason to change out.

There you have it, 4 years of component evolution.