Compact Crank Is Go!

I KNOW I said NO more posts about gear I'm lusting or am getting, but I can't help it. I'm a bike junkie. I'm in a 12 Step Bike Junkie program, but it's such bull shit!! I told my sponsor to go have sex with himself and leave me alone. I gotz bike shit to talk about...

I'm doing it. I'm going with a compact crank for the Campeon. Compact frame, compact crank, and I'm going on a cigarettes & coffee diet to try to make MYSELF more compact. At 36 I'm not sure any growth stunting is possible, but it's worth a try. God knows my mind is stunted, but not sure if i can help the bod.

I'm going with the Shimano R700 50/34 compact crank. Yeah, I know it sounds friggin' generic doesn't it? BUT, don't be fooled! This bad boy is only 20 grams heavier than an Ultegra crank. I've had farts that weighed 20 grams (in fact I JUST had one). 20 grams is 0.0044 lbs. That is pretty much NOTHING!!! I mean maybe you can't hope your friends or competition are spying how your bike is full Ultegra or Dura Ace, but I'll take that extra "oomf" to get up that hill over some designer component name on my crank any day!

The rings are designed to work with standard Shimano front derailleurs, and to help prevent any chain drop. But hell I get that sometimes now WITH a 53/39. In fact yesterday it happened just before a sharp hair pin right turn and climb. I had to stop and put it back on before starting the climb. Whilst putting it on, a pair of dudes in a beat up Chevy Caviler drive by and the passenger rolls down the window and whistles at me. I can see why. In my bikes shorts, my ass looks FFFFFFFFFFFFFFine! Granted I didn't want it "tapped" by some dude, but regardless it looked pretty hot. :)

My motivation for this is move is the shortish, but nut dropping, high grade hills that are prevalent in Western PA. I checked my HR zone times from yesterday's 3:30/55 mile ride and 47% of that time was spent at over 150 BPM. That's nearly half of the ride in HR Zones 3/4/5. That would be cool and all if I was out hammering, but yesterday was base mileage stuff. Truthfully many of the climbs saw my HR in the upper 170s and low 180s. Eeesh!!

This sorta stuff makes me stronger NOW, BUT during the season it would be IMPOSSIBLE to do a recovery or fitness maintenance ride and NOT find myself getting into the stroke out zones. Next thing you know, you tax the body, over train, get sick, suck even more at races, or miss races. All NOT good. I hope this is a step in the right direction of staying healthier and keeping fit without putting my bod in danger of over training. OR it's a fantastic excuse for getting older and fatter. Nahhhhhhhhh!!!!

I hope to get the Campeon this week, maybe my new Ergon grips, and get my lighting sorted out with Justin. I think I have it narrowed down to a Princeton Tec Switchback 3 or 2 for the helmet and an Apex as a back up/secondary light on the bars.

While on the subject of light I need to say this- If you scour the message boards and various bike sites, you'll find there are some SERIOUS "light nerds". They get all caught up in "brightness and lumens". F*ck I couldn't even tell you what a lumen IS. Just that when there are more of them shit looks brighter. The reason I've lusted PT lights for the past year is this- Their LED color to ME is better than HID lights. MAYBE not as bright, but if the color f*cks with the way the terrain looks and how my eyes and bike handling reacts to it, then it does NOT matter how bright it is, I STILL can't see. I crash, get pissed, and say the "F" word a lot.

To me, burn time is MEGA important. Can I get away with ONE battery or MAYBE one back up battery?? Battery charge time is also a plus. A PT SB3 battery takes 2 hours to charge and has a burn time of over 6 hours. That means I'd ALWAYS have a battery available during a Solo with no chance of having to wait around for a light to charge. Weight is not that important to me. Yeah, light weight is cool, but I'll sacrifice a pound to be able to keep moving forward through the night.

Yeah, I've seen lights tested that are lighter and brighter, but NONE that have combination of brightness, burn time, and charge time that PT lights do. This is especially important to someone like myself who goes to many races with either no or very little support crew. The more I can do on my own the better. OK, enough about shit that I don't even own yet, but have a credit card waiting to pounce on! HA!

That's all I gotz today. I didn't ride. I should have. But didn't. You have permission to throw today in my face in June when I'm bitching about sucking a big hairy one at a race. I won't mind.

Low key this week. Spinning will be in zones 1/2 and there will be no strength training. Some core stuff, but that's it.

Time to relax, cruise the Net, have a bevy, and eat some grub.

Later.