- Good grief where have I been? -

Here's the thing. There is a glitch with my blogger account as I have it and my google checkout account on the same computer and they are run off of two different email addresses, so I haven't been able to post easily until now because I still had to keep tabs on google. Fortunately we have hired my brother Jared (currently building last replication boxes in our carbon workshop) who now handles that, so I am free for the critical work of blogging again.

An incredible amount has happened since I was last up here.

Sram and Ultegra Hudz have finally hit the market - though the gold for those two are lagging a bit. We hope to have the coloring re-sorted in the next coupe weeks. With the Sram and Ultegra molds going into service we have also moved all of our Hudz fabrication to Colorado. They are made just south of us in a little town called Denver (try the Sushi Den if you're ever there).

In other Hudz news our DA7800 compatible Hudz showed up on the ride to Paris in this year's Tour de France. Both Yellow Jersey winner Carlos Sastre and White Jersey winner Andy Schleck sported the enhanced hoods and matching bar tape on they Champs Elysees. Next stop, the Olympics...

Yes, Hudz will be on the bikes of some Olympic athletes this year also. We have sent them for the three Canadian women (all Webcor racers) and Christine Thorburn from the US (also from Webcor) in custom colors - the Canadians will have red and white swirled Hudz, and the US have one red and white and one blue and white hood. Another 10 or so deligations were sent Hudz for their riders, so we'll see where all they show up.

In tech news DA 7900 and now the new DAi2 or whatever the electric group is called have been unveiled. I was so excited about the 7900 group that we have bought sets for all of our Interbike show bikes. DA all the way this year. Last year we went with predominantly Campy bikes with one DA and one Sram bike, so this is a big switch for us. The reports that I have gotten from the guys in Europe using it have been that it is excellent, it keeps all the good things about the last group and improves on things that you didn't even know needed it. As for the new levers, well, the feedback is positive but it looks like there will still be room for Hudz to do their thing and improve the grab-a-bility there as well.

BB30 looks like it is gaining all the time, but the inability for custom builders to easily ream a bb shell after fabrication is making it a lot harder for us to get on this train. Seems like there are rumors about something later this year, but if that doesn't materialize, you'll probably have to keep shopping from China to get BB30 compatible frames.

Shoes are moving forward again. Check back for some prototypes before show season. We've worked out the design on all the things that Maggy B. wanted in them and I think the final product should be stellar - albeit a touch outside the realm of some people's comfort level.

The last big project of the year will be to get DA7900 and Campy 11 Hudz ready (well there's one more, but that's still secret, the new shapes were logical enough that most of you already figured that out). We are scrounging around for Campy and DA parts before they hit the market, but so far it's been impossible to come by. We'll keep at it and hope to be able to deliver Hudz for the new levers around the time that they are commercially available. With the additional time beyond our schedule that it took to get Ultegra and Sram Hudz on the market though, the end of the year will do for me.

More stuff coming soon...

- The TB ward -

No, I don't have TB, but I feel like I might as well.

As cyclists, we are quite familiar with loving something that causes us pain. In this case, it's my 29" Petri dish - my son Riis. He is the greatest little thing around, I really love the little dude. But, when he goes to the nursery at our health club he invariably comes home with some sort of gack within a week. Being a loving and generous little dude, he then shares it with the rest of the family. What that means for me is that I have been "not sick" for about 4 weeks since November. That sucks.

As is my luck, I have it in the lungs once again. The joy of a scraping cough that makes it feel like someone is removing layers of your lungs with the broad edge of a razor blade is something that I will not miss as we head into summer and hopefully a bug-free season.

We'll see how quickly I can recover from this and get back to training. As far as I know Crumpy has lost most if not all the weight that he is going to (I expect him to weigh in at about 160-165) and I have dropped possibly a couple pounds. Looks like I'm setting up for a busy summer...

- A little help from my friends -

The background: I weighed 140 pounds when I started this company. I was a fairly competitive cyclist (and though I don't like to admit it, triathlete also). I lived briefly (15 mos.) in the South where the average diet is comprised equally of fried things and beer. After 6 years of averaging 90 hour work weeks, I no longer weigh 140 pounds.

The more recent background: Maggy Backstedt is an instigator. Nick Crumpton is very grumpy and likes to take out his aggression on others, preferably his friends. At Interbike last year Nick was ragging on me non-stop about getting so far out of shape (growing business, 2 cross country moves, and a baby - let's see you do it Crumpy-pants). I pointed out that Nick was the same height as me, and weighed the same as I did, so he should shut his BBQ hole. Maggy took it and ran and somehow got a great dinner at interbike this year out of it - whoever is lighter at IB08 gets to choose the restaurant and the loser buys dinner with a bottle of wine, and that includes feeding a 6'3" 200 pound Swede. It's going to be expensive. I'm figuring something like $1,000.

Anyway - to the present - my friend Shane is helping me get back on form both for Cross season this year (more on the bikes in a couple weeks) and to smoke Crumpy. My goal is to be at about 140 to 150 for race weight, and that should put me well under what Nick can hit. In order to get where I want to be Shane is putting me on a bit of a specific diet to say the least. 1600-1800 calories a day and 130g of protien. It's crazy. I'm eating more nuts, beans and soy than you can imagine. Oh, I don't eat meat, so that makes the whole thing even more crazy. Fortunately I do eat fish - preferably raw, mmmmmm sushi - so that keeps me a bit sane. But having an afternoon snack of a protein bar with peanut butter on top is just plain weird.

Anyway, here's to my friends - Crumpy who is motivating me to kick his butt, and Shane for helping me get there...

- Littered with bikes -

There are three framesets and three full bikes sitting in my office. As one person said, it is "littered with bicycles." Off all the things that I could be surrounded with I think bicycles end up being about the best (and I'm talking about 'stuff' not friends and family, etc.).

At this time I have my fixie and my road bike, a Slipstream TT bike, a steel frame for a client that gets painted next week, a carbon track frame, and an old TSX steel Giordana that I refinished for a friend (damn, I forgot to get more chocolate out of him before he quit over at Chocolove - a neighboring company in the same complex).

There are, of course a number of other bikes in our office, I think 4 or 5 without checking. Then there are tubesets that have been pulled to be welded into framesets. I want to have a Ti number done - I have a carbon-Ti road bike, but no full-Ti road bike. I need to rectify that. It's going to have big, oversized tubes and a new AlphaQ GS40 fork. It will also have a raw Ti rear end so that I can attach a Burley without fouling the paint.

Actually, as soon as I get done with this post, I'm going to order a Chariot. They are a Canadian company that makes child carriers that are convertible so that you can ride, run, xc ski, etc with your tot. And for those that are wondering, I have a son that is about 17 months old. His name is Riis and I think he'll be ready to take over the company when he's about 8. The lad is frighteningly smart.

And finally, let's all welcome my brother Jared. He's not here yet, but should be here in a couple weeks. He is going to take over as our Operations Manager. I must say that I am stoked out of my mind to have him coming. He'll be leaving Champaign, IL on June 20th and heading out to Boulder. I'll say it now, the bicycle industry better watch out, because Jared is far and away the smartest person in my family, and that includes a top lawyer with BB&L in Chicago, and another brother that just finished two concurrent masters programs and is now completing his first year of a PhD at Emory (showoff).

More wild and cool things to come, so stay tuned.

p.s. send good juju to Mark, make him say 'yes' (more on this next week)...

- Long time... -

It's been quite a while since I've been able to get up here and post. Doesn't seem to have bothered anyone though...

There's been a lot happening. We're rolling closer and closer to having the Sram and Ultegra Hudz ready. At this point we are expecting delivery of about 300 of all the colors in the new styles on roughly May 20th. To hold everyone over until then we have Celeste and Orange available now in DA and Campy. And we should have the much requested 'Gum Rubber' hoods, we call them Bordeaux Gold. As with all of the other colors, these three new additions will benefit specific charities. For more information on Hudz click here.

In other - fairly big - news, the date of the Rocky Mountain Bicycle Show has been changed. Instead of shoehorning it in to May, it has been pushed back until November. The new dates are Nov. 1 & 2 for the public show, and Oct. 31 for the Media/VIP reception and setup. We are working on getting together with the Portland and East Coast shows with the hope that we can coordinate our efforts and make these all successful events for both builders and buyers. I see long weekends in DC and Portland in my future...

Finally, after careful deliberation we have decided to close Groupe de Tete. The project bicycle 'shop' was interesting but ultimately did not prove its importance to us after three years. We will continue with the full range of bespoke services for Temple Cycles, but will no longer offer them for outside bicycles. All of the other projects that have previously fallen under the Groupe de Tete label will be transfered to Applied Cycling Labs (the parent corporation) and offered as they previously have been with GdT (Hudz, shoes, etc.).

OK, this is really the last bit of news. We seem to be getting closer all the time to bb30 compatibility. We have shells, we have cutters on loan, we have the installation and alignment tools coming, and we have high quality cranks that will be available soon (sorry, but FSA doesn't quite cut it for us...). It looks like this is going to be the new standard with everyone from Zipp to Shimano coming on board with it (Shimano is still just a rumor, but I think - and hope - that they'll come on board with it). You don't even want to know what kind of gnarly steel road bike I'm working on for the first bb30 that we do... Bwah, Ha, Haaaa (sinister laugh)...

- Crazy mountain springs -

Yesterday it was about 60 and sunny (15 for people who are smart enough to use metric... damn Imperial weights and measures). Then in the afternoon it turned a bit grey, and I kept expecting rain that never came.

This morning I woke up and it was 32 (0) and snowing.

This is about the seventh time that we have gone through this pattern since the start of March. Not much you can do about these crazy mountain springs. Almost makes those sissies in Belgium who were going on and on about the weather at RVV look soft... Of course I'm not out riding today so I should probably take back the sissy thing... Especially to you Meatball and Maggy...

- Trek and Lemond sue each other -

It appears that Trek and Lemond will part ways in typical American style: by suing each other. Lemond is not pleased with Trek's performance supporting his brand, and Trek is not happy with Lemond bashing LA for years, and other saying other things that they say are damaging to the Trek brand.

Maybe this is good?

Word is that the Klein brand is supposed to come back to prominence in the Trek Bicycle Company lineup now. Of course it probably won't be anything like the great Kleins from way back when, and they'll probably be carbon, but it's nice to think that they may be coming back around. It's probably also good for the engineers at Trek/Lemond because they will have to work with the marketing department to come up with something even catchier than the "Min/Max" theory... Crimeny...

Some people have been saying that this is good for Lemond. I'm not sure how. It seems that they have been languishing for years and other than the new introduction of the carbon bikes have not really done anything exciting in a while. For more than a decade Lemond bicycles have been built on the strength of Trek engineering (no judgments there). With out Trek, what is Lemond anymore?

- Process of refinement -

It seems that with most things that we do there is a process of refinement where we take something and massage it, mutate it, sometimes even mutilate it, to get it where we are happy enough to call it 'done.'

What brings this rumination you ask? We just changed the website again. This time instead of a dramatic overhaul, it was a little nip and trim. Out with the red, in with the blue. Overall the whole thing looks less intimidating, and more pleasing.

Plus, we just got a fork back for our EE Cummings steel bike. The current GS30 fork flares a good deal in the hips of the fork (top of the legs, right near the crotch as Bert Hull from AlphaQ says...). With the moderate size of tubes on most steel bikes (and even a lot of Titanium bikes) the look was just a bit off. So I went back to my reserve of older AlphaQ forks and found a Sub3 with the right rake. Two weeks later that puppy is mounted and looking good. The slimmer profile simply matches the proportions of the frame.

Of course everything is not a matter of subtle refinement. We nuked the 07 jersey design and came up with something completely different for 08. I love it. We'll see what other people think. Matching bibs in the darker blue with light bands at the bottom of the legs will be coming also. Just in time, my old stuff is getting pretty worn...

- Tiemeyer.. -

There are a number of reasons to love David Tiemeyer. Today mine is that he was the first person to sign up for the RMBS show. We emailed out registration forms late Tuesday, and had David's arrive first thing Thursday. So here's to you Dave, and thanks for the boundless enthusiasm and support.

We've been receiving phone calls and tips about builders that I didn't even know were around here. This is really going to be a great show...

- It's finally up... -

A couple weeks ago we settled on a new format for the GdT website. Today it went up. I am thrilled to finally have an update posted on line. It's been a beast, and we still have a lot of work to do to make it more user-friendly and more informative. But it certainly is a good start...

- It's official, RMBS is a go... -

Thanks to the work of a small event management company called Miles Ahead here in Boulder, the CU Cycling Team, and Groupe de Tete (the presenting sponsor) this year will be the First Annual Rocky Mountain Bicycle Show. With a couple dozen phone calls placed, it looks like we should have a great turnout from the industry, which should certainly draw the crowds along Colorado's bike-crazed Front Range.

The Show is May 17th and 18th (Saturday and Sunday) and the focus is on small Colorado-based companies. With the success of NAHBS and the Oregon Only show this year, it seems that the custom-builder market is only picking up more and more steam.

One difference of the RMBS (we just call it "rims") is that the focus will not be largely on lugged steel bikes. With the range and quality of high-tech builders in Colorado (particularly Titanium), the goal has been to ditch the "retro rules" dogma and make the show about great bicycles of all sorts. (Heck, I think there's even a recumbent builder coming....)

We certainly hope that the show is a success, and will keep everyone updated as this thing gets closer. In the mean time, check out their website at www.rockymountainbicycleshow.com

- Joy of being wrong -

Got a call from a friend coming into town for a week's vacation tomorrow. Looks like I'll have a riding parter to drag me around in pursuit of a cursory level of fitness. The only problem is that I didn't have a bike ready to ride since I took them all apart to 'update' them while I was recovering (and I didn't want to ride the Paketa again). So, I had to put a bike back together in a hurry. That's why I'm in at the office this late...

Anyway, to make a long story shorter, I put a Force group that has been laying around the shop on my bike (the thumbnail photo bike), and darn if the Force kit doesn't look even better than the DA group that I was saying just a bit ago 'was the perfect groupset' for the shape of the nose of my Magma saddle. Turns out the Sram stuff has the right protuberance, and the Mag shift lever from the force Double Tap levers goes spot on with the Mg fairing at the front of the Magma saddle.

Seems I was wrong about the DA stuff (moved to the Paketa that is now sitting wheel-less in my office). When it makes a better bike, I am happy to have been wrong...

BTW - very impressed with the Force group on setup. The front derailleur takes longer to setup so that you don't need to trim it, but once you dial it in as long as you don't use the last cog opposite from the chainring, there seems to be no rub. The real test will be tomorrow to see how long it takes to get used to...

- More bother than it was worth -

Back from my ride. It wasn't long on account of the furry creatures that have taken residence in my lungs. That, and I didn't want to ride the bike very long. We're going to put Brandon's wheels on it and he'll ride it for a bit and tell me what he thinks. The bike, however, is definitely not for me, and I have to imagine that most of our clients would be disinclined to purchase one as well.

That is not to say that it is a bad bike. Quite to the contrary. It is very good at what it does, which is withstanding flex. It would be a great bike for a big racer who has a lot of power (1300+ watts peak) and little need for a bike to feel supple or graceful beneath them. I can actually see this being a great frame for a specific purpose.

I would rate the stiffness similar to my track bike. The weight is about 100g less though. Still, the track bike feels infinitely more lively under you because of the characteristics of Titanium vs. Magnesium. The Mg frame was supposed to be very smooth. With my frame of reference, I would say that it is smoother than most aluminum and poorly designed carbon - similar to scandium - it does not even come close to Ti or Steel. Probably the reason that we choose to build with those materials...

The other issue (that may stand out in the pictures) is that this bike is not my size. It was supposed to be built with a 52 c-c seat tube and 55 c-c top tube assuming a level top tube. Putting it next to Brandon's 56-square frame, the bars are in the same spot as his, and he has spacers under his stem... Not what I would call close.

Next we'll have to see what Brandon thinks, and then if it's two thumbs down, maybe we'll toss it on eBay... Not with the LWs though, those have to go back my bike...

- Evervyone loves Prototype Thursdays... -

Today is Prototype Thursday. That means today I'll be taking this beast on a maiden voyage. I know that the Lightweights don't belong on this bike, but they are the only Shimano-splined wheels that I have right now (edge 38s with DT hubs with be converted as soon as the Shimano freehub shows up), so that is what I have to use.

The Equipe frame is something we are considering doing. Definitely not a certainty by any stretch. The idea is to take our GdT capabilities and design experience and offer a less expensive frameset by having Paketa weld up Magnesium frames to our geometry, and then CHT/T treat them so that the heat-effected zone is removed, the grain is aligned, and the material is much stronger.

Of course we make prototypes because every theory doesn't necessarily work on the road. So I'll give it a spin over lunch and see how it rides.

As an aside, I hit the trifecta last week adding the stomach flu to my bronchitis and pneumonia. So this is my first ride in almost two weeks. Damn it will be good to get out on the road...

- Maybe that's why I was pasted -

Saturday and Sunday last weekend I had a couple of good rides, Saturday was nice for mileage, and Sunday was with some friends that I don't see very often at all. I thought I faired pretty well considering the dire lack of miles that I have it at this time of the year, but I was still rather disappointed with the way that i died on Saturday after about 2.5 hours. All the power went out, and I was just sitting on a wheel and doing my best not to hallucinate or get dropped.

On Monday evening I got a pretty good suggestion why Saturday's ride ended so badly for me - bronchitis and pneumonia. Turns out I have the lung capacity of a 4 year old right now. In an air volume test I was blowing 285 to 300ml as opposed to about 850+ that I can normally put out. That seems like it would effect my endurance a bit...

So here's to strong drugs and steroid inhalers. Hopefully I'll be back in a week or so...

- Thanks for the great ride -

On Saturday morning I headed out the door with my steel bike and a plan to hit the gravel roads. I took the bike paths over to the east side of town and then headed north where the path splits near our office. Just as I was passing the Boulder Creek junction of the Foothills path, someone pulled onto the path about 30 meters in front of me.

I caught up with the woman at a stoplight, and quickly noticed that she was on one of the smallest frames I had seen - a 47cm Trek with 650 wheels. I said hi and asked about the bike. She liked it a lot - largely because it fit her well, which I am sure isn't easy top find for a woman that small. Swell, that's all that really matters I said, by the way, I'm Lance. Ellen, she said.

So we head out 36 toward Lyons and continue chatting. She was doing base miles and had to keep the watts under 125, so that meant that I shouldn't get dropped while trying to regain a semblance of fitness. As we pass Left Hand Canyon the subject of Interbike came up and we both agreed that we hated doing the show - which of course puzzeled me a bit because I didn't know she was in the industry. Turns out that it was Ellen from Cateye (located about a hundred meters from our office here in Boulder). Hey, I said, I met you at the show a couple years ago, when the Strada computers first came out...

So we chatted away and rolled on for about 3 hours.

She delivered me back to the path that heads up to my neighborhood, and after a groveling 4-mile slog home (slight but constant uphill, and I'm doing my base training glycogen depleted so that my body gets used to tapping the fat stores for energy [a suggestion from Allen]) I sat down for some left over Saag and a tub of vanilla bean yogurt.

On my Sunday ride I mentioned my good fortune on Saturday of finding someone to ride with to my friend Michael Stone. Ellen, she's tiny and really nice, right? Strong rider? It seems everyone knows Ellen and that she has a reputation for being an incredibly nice person, so how can you beat that. Here's to Ellen, and thanks for a great Saturday ride. Look forward to the next...

- Eroica -

Eroica; it means 'heroic.'

This weekend is the Monte Paschi Eroica race in Italy. It's only in it's second year, but this beast over the white gravel roads staring in Gaiole in Chianti and ending 181 kilometres later in Siena's Piazza del Campo, is definitely one of my favorite races of the calendar already. The fact that they moved it from the end of the year to the spring only increases it's appeal to me.

It's true, I make exotic bespoke bicycles, but I really love the nasty, gnarly, brutal spring races.

With Het Volk and K-B-K last weekend, I got into full-steam fascination with bicycle racing again. This year I'll have enough to keep me interested through the Olympics (where Taylor and Meatball will be going for the big wins), but there is nothing that I love more than Paris-Roubaix and the Ronde van Vlaanderen (if you really love it you use the Flemish).

But I'll leave the digression and get back to the Eroica.

The thing that I love about the Eroica is that you can really understand its harshness. There is no way that anyone who has not gotten their electrons and protons rattled by the cobbles of Northern France can understand what that race is like. The Belgian cobbles are no picnic either, but they aren't half as bad as the French version. It's a level of chaos and suffering that no rider can even remotely comprehend without having been there.

The Eroica is different. It's run on long stretches of gravel roads; or the strade bianche as they are known. Every rider with a bit of adventure in them has taken the road bike down a gravel road or two and done some high-speed dodging of potholes that could fit an entire wheel.

In the spring (and summer, fall and winter actually) here in Boulder I have a route that takes in about 60% gravel roads between north Boulder and Hygine. I love it. I may even take it this weekend just in honor of the Eroica (though I had better ride the steel bike with 32 hole 202 rims rather than the Ti-carbon bike with Lightweights - that wouldn't be a good idea).

So here's to the Eroica; the Hardmen of the Spring; and taking a perfectly lice bicycle, covering it in dirt, dust and grime, and ratteling it and rider to within an inch of their life. Man, I love the Classics...

- Hard work pays off? -

Yesterday was a 'chained to the desk', but productive day. As I said, I hate doing web sites, but I think that we have really done a good job of putting together a great template for the new GdT site. The goal was to make it more readable and easier to get around.

For some reason, it takes me about 30 mockups to find one that I like, and it's almost always the one that seems like it should have been the easiest one to think up. When we get too intricate (like the 'floating Lion of Flanders' version - boy was that bad) things always seem to get worse. I do find this odd, because we tend to be the people that rider's go to when they want something very intricate and complicated. That tends to be where we shine. Maybe it just doesn't translate well to the web, or maybe because of the bicycles and products that we are displaying it just becomes overload. Either way, I think we have something that should work well for us...

- What's in a name? -

For those of you who have been digging the Meatball postings, this is required reading. The man, they myth, the legend ladies and gentlemen...

http://www.chadhartley.missingsaddle.com/2008/03/03/tribute-to-meatball/

- More results -

It's always nice to see rider's showing their class and grabbing results. While there is a certainly something special about seeing it on the largest of world stages (like the Geelong World Cup, or Omloop Het Volk), we also are pleased to work with great teams that are racing on a variety of levels. Today I just got an update from Mike Hone of the Carter Saab/VW/Suburu team in Seattle with an update on team placings so far this season. It seems like Mike has been busy grabbing placings on two continents: 3rd Mason Lake Road Race Series #1; 8th Ice Breaker Time Trial; 9th Beaumont Criterium, Sydney, Australia.

Congratulations to Mike and we look forward to hearing about the Carter boys throughout the season...

- Hating the web -

Yes, the web is a wonderful thing. Most of the time. Right now we are in the long-overdue process of re-creating our websites to be more user-friendly. That means endless hours of redesign and rewrite sessions. As a small company there are about 27,312 things that I can think of that may be a better use of my time, and more enjoyable as well. But this has been something that has desperately needed to be done for longer than I care to admit, so here I am...

Fortunately the Hudz site was a pretty easy thing to get done. We are adding an e-commerce component in the next week or so in order for us to get Hudz to countries where we don't have distributors yet. We are also working on some other nice additions, but nothing that has been as important as taking our previous all-images site and turning it into a search-able HTML site. And, hey, now we even have those cool rotating pictures...

The next most important thing for us is to get the main Groupe de Tete site updated. This has not been done in the last year and a half probably (aside from a cursory update for IB07). We have a range of new things that we are working on that should really be better represented up there, so that is the 800 pound monster that has consumed every moment of my "free-time" day.

I will probably complain too much about doing this, even though I know it's important (and actually part of me really enjoys it as well). But that's the breaks when you spend all of your time thinking about bicycles - when you have to sit at a computer and get work done, it just seems to bring you down...

Here's hoping we at least have decent weather tomorrow so that I can get a good ride in again. That will make everything better.

- Meant to be together -

There are some parts of a bicycle that are just meant to be together, or mean to be on a particular bike. The bike in my sig photo is my current "go-to" bike. I ride it most of the time when I am not on the fixie. The only problem, if you can call it a problem, is that it really doesn't look right with anything other than Lightweight carbon wheels. I have tried about half a dozen others. They all looked fair (Zipp 303, Campy Eurus, Edge 38), some even pretty good (Edge 68, Zipp 404, Ligero handbuilts). But with the Jacaranda Amarillo wood veneer, the carbon-aramid spoke of the Lightweight Gen II looks perfect and really makes the bike look as sexy as it possibly could.

The other thing that I have suspected, and just "proven" is that the San Marco Magma (which is a very comfortable saddle btw) looks best with Dura Ace shifters. I had the bike set up previously with Record to have the "very serious black and carbon thing" going on while being nicely offset by the wood accents. It never looked quite right, and I suspect that the bike would be better served by a San Marco Rever if it ever went back to Campy (doubtful). The little 'spoiler' on the front of the Magma saddle just goes better with the protuberance at the front of a DA shifter.

Often times there are people who have dire opinions - like a bicycle only looks "pro" with Campy and white bar tape, or carbon cranksets always make a bike look better. But, more often than not, those theories really aren't quite proven to be quintessential in the real world where the only difference is a slight personal preference, but 99.4% of people that are "really into bikes" think that you're just being difficult. There are occasions like this bicycle, however, where it seems like there really is only one right choice for something.

Of course, that may be only true if you are slightly off-balance and obsessive like me when it comes to your bikes. Or maybe I'm just being difficult...

- More on the Meatballl -

I'll start by saying I don't know Mike all that well. I was introduced to him by Maggy, "I'm going to make him my protege," he said of Mike. It was certainly a bit of a surprise to actually meet Mike Friedman - I expected someone in the classics racing paradigm of a 1.90 meter tall, 85kg beast. Mike would take someone like Paulo Bettini in a fist fight, but he sure isn't a big guy. As a matter of fact he's probably shorter than I am.

Despite the polarized physiques, Mike actually reminds me a lot of Maggy. He's one of those guys that is so genuine and solid that you immediately like him. And he's got personality to spare - from the classic Mustang that says "I'll lay rubber when and where I feel like it," to the purposely Poindexter use of a bow-tie, to his "heterosexual life partner" relationship with fellow Colo. Springs resident Brad Huff.

What's my favorite thing about "Meatball?" I think it's the fact that he's called Meatball, or Shrek, or a bunch of other goofy things. There are a lot of guys in cycling that have accomplished a lot less that are rude, arrogant, or standoffish. A guy known as Meatball really couldn't pull that off.

This will be a big season for Mike, with a key role in Maggy's bid for another Roubaix title, and a spot in the Olympics racing the Madison with Slipstream teammate Colby Pierce. His progress to the top of the sport has been nothing less than incredible. Pay attention, this is the guy that one day will be the first American to win the Tour of Flanders.

- Meatball leaves a mark on Belgium -

Mike Friedman of the Slipstream Sports team killed it today with a great ride at Omloop Het Volk. His 12th place today had him finishing in front of an animated Fabian Cancellara, and hard on the heals of top riders like Thor Hushovd, Nicolas Jalabert, and Leif Hoste.

It's a long way to come in three years for Freidman - from racing for Northeastern Mortgage, to a gig with Slipstream, to almost dying of a pulmonary embolism, to riding shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest classics riders in the world (including his training partner Magnus Backstedt).

Putting in brutal days with Maggy for a couple weeks during a training camp in Gerona meant that Meatball had the strength to make it look easy - this photo on Cyclingnews.com says it all... Actually, that doesn't look easy, but I hear that Mike actually likes to suffer, so he was probably enjoying himself immensely.

Congratulations Mike, it was an inspired ride, and a great result.

Bring on K-B-K...

- More new DA -

It's amazing the internet has taken the 6-degrees of separation of the 80s and turned it into 3. What does that have to do with anything? This is info found on the WeightWeenies forum that quotes a source on RBR, an now it's posted here...

"Derailleur cables under tape. Ti clamp band. Carbon blade with easier reach from hoods and relocated pivot for better leverage. 20% reduction in lever throw. No trim for front derailleur (not needed, cross chain away). Adjustable reach. Flight deck with HR, altitude, & incline (PC download). Front derailleur 20% stronger spring. Brakes have Ti hardware and recessed cable stop and arch style for more power. Rear derailleur carbon jockey cage and redesigned wheels to get rid of need for GS. 3 cranks alloy 130, alloy 110, and carbon 130 with BB30 on the way. Crank spindle alloy/carbon. A lil' bird told me..."

I must say that this new group excites me enough that I have swapped my favorite bike from Campy to the current 7800 DA that we had hanging around from an 07 Interbike build.

Please don't get me wrong, I love Campy. I have used it exclusively for the last 7 years. But for some reason when I think about putting in big miles DA seems like the group I want to ride - never realized that until I started training again. The mileage that I have put on all of my Campy groups is far less than I used to put on one DA group when I was racing...

- Not what you want to see happen -

Most people who have ridden a set of Mavic's Cosmic Carbone wheels swear by them. They are solid, fairly aerodynamic, and bombproof. It's my favorite Mavic wheel.

Ksyriums make less sense to me. They aren't particularly light, or aero, or a great value. I still don't quite get the big aluminum spokes. But they are very popular.

The R-Sys is supposed to not only be stiffer than the Ksyriums, but the spokes are supposed to resist compression as well as elongation. Unfortunately, it also seems that they have a PR problem. There are a number of images floating around on the internet of nasty crashes with an R-Sys completely exploding. Some of these crashes were precipitated by rider error or prior damage to the wheel. Whatever the cause, there aren't many wheels that you ever see do this...

It will be interesting to see how this develops.

- A short treatise on why ISPs are silly -

ISPs - those very trendy integrated seat posts that are popping up on bikes from everyone and their brother - Time, Giant, Trek, etc. etc. - are officially just irritating. Sure, you say, "you have one on your track bike." True. That is why I now hate them.

I had one on my road bike for a bit, but that got hacked off and replaced with a normal seatpost. It took about 3 rides. I usually test a bunch of different things based on projects that I am working on and specific client requests. Since one of our projects is custom cycling shoes I ride with different pedals on a regular basis to better understand the pedal/shoe interplay. That doesn't work with an ISP where pedal system stack height can very by almost a centimeter. Sure I could swap back and forth between a Selle Italia c64 and regular SLR to change the 10mm, but that seems pretty cumbersome when all I need to do is change a couple mm in height.

I figured that on my track/fixed gear bike that there wouldn’t be much of an issue – it’s not like I usually change anything there other than the front end to convert it from road to track (fork, stem, bars). But after yesterday’s ride my hindparts were feeling a bit tender for the c64 saddle, so I wanted to swap on my trusty SSM Era Composite (it’s been through the wars with me). Too bad the SSM has 1cm more in stack height than the c64.

So I put on a fresh hack-saw blade and removed 1cm of ISP height, re-slotted it and mounted my Era. Unfortunately since the seat tube is CHT/T treated Ti it killed the blade even with liberal use of cutting oil (which is a killer to clean out of an ISP). And now if I ever want to torture my delicates and go back to the c64 I’ll have a geeky 1cm bit of seatpost – which completely kills the whole “I’m cool and super pro with my ISP cut to the exact height that I need” look.

Though I guess I could always swap my DA pedals for Speedplays if I want to do that – they are a centimeter lower in stack height…

- A fixed path -

It's one of those facts of life that there are only so many hours in a day, and you only have so much energy to do everything. After about 6 years of 100-hour work weeks (starting a new biz ain't as easy as it looks) I am certainly not the svelte athlete that I was before this endeavor. Looking back on the photos of "skinny me," it's perplexing to remember how badly I felt I needed to lose a couple pounds at the time.

So here I am, starting the training regime again, and as always I am relying heavily on hours spent on a fixed-gear bike to provide serious base fitness in a hurry. The beast that I have built for this task is actually a modification of the track bike that we showed in Las Vegas this year (perched on a stand in the Pedros booth - we like the Pedros guys...). The frame is a combination of 6/4 and 3/2.5 Ti with some massive dimensions and wall thicknesses. The frame has been CHT/T treated. The fork is an old 38mm rake AlphaQ EX fork that has been resprayed (the glitter finish that came on it was hideous). AlphaQ also takes care of the stem and bars. Tektro brake levers are comfortable and cheap, and DA track cranks and BB and some trusty Zipp wheels finish it out.

For the first time, I decided to use a "doubler" so that both brake levers would work on the front brake. It looks like a pig up there, but I certainly appreciated the option of using both levers to lightly bleed off speed on some of the steeper downhills. Sure I could have done it one-handed, but for some reason my "road" brain just copes better with the modulation that two levers provides.

So here's to hours spent on a fixie, and the fitness that it brings. And watch out Meatball, I'm gunning for your spot on the team at Paris Roubaix next year...

- In the Slipstream -

Since late November we have been working, under the radar, with the Slipstream Sports cycling team. Today the relationship became official with JV's signature on our contract. Because there were a number of intellectual property issues involved with this partnership, it took a bit longer to get everything ironed out than we initially expected, but it was time well spent, and we are very pleased to be working with the team.

GdT will be a "technical consultant and strategic partner" of the team. Basically that means that we could tell you what we do for them, but we'd have to kill you... No, it means that we will be working on some proprietary things for the boys that will give them an advantage on race day, but that we can't say what we did until after the fact.

GdT will also be providing Magnus Backstedt (continuing an existing relationship), Taylor Phinney, Lucas Euser, and Meatball Friedman with our custom cycling shoes this year. Maggy has been giving us feedback for over a year on the shoes and has been instrumental in getting things to their present state. (Now, if he could just stay upright over the winter...). Talylor, Lucas and Mike (Meatball) are all young guys looking to make a splash with the team, and we look forward to growing with them and developing a long-term relationship with each of them.

- New Dura Ace... -

It seems like half the world expected Shimano to unveil a new Dura Ace (7900) at the 2007 shows. Usually that's what happens, they bring out a new XTR one year, and the new DA the following. That didn't happen.

My theory is that Osaka wanted to see what the impact of the Sram stuff would be and to gauge what was needed for DA based on the favor that Force and the rumored Red group were receiving. It seems that Shimano will care even less about what the Italians are doing than they have in the recent past, and toe the line - largely - against Sram for dominance of the OE market.

So, now that they have a good idea of what is needed to beat or compete with the Chicago boys, there is a good bit of speculation about what will be coming this summer (i.e. at the Tour). What is "known" is that there will be two groups - DA7900 and eDA. for those of you (like me) that are not so interested in powered transmission, the 7900 group holds the most appeal. Rumors are consistent that the carbon crank will take a swan dive and be replaced by a lighter, stiffer alloy crank with a hollow forged spider and arms. Carbon should also make it's first appearance on the rest of the group's parts. Other little niceties - like better ergonomics for the STI levers (darn them - it's harder to improve the ergonomics with new Hudz if they did it themselves), and hidden shift cables from the STI levers will also be included, I hear. As a matter of fact, I am so excited about the new DA group that I've abandoned my Campy-Only credo and set up one of my bikes with DA (the 7800 version) for the first time in about 8 years.

And from what I hear about the new Record and Chorus groups, more bikes will follow as soon as 7900 is available...

Wait, did I say new Campy groups???

- That was a good weekend... -

When you get to work with top-level professional cyclists it's pretty cool for you as a small business owner. Sure, we like working with almost everyone - and people who have never raced a day in their life are some of our favorite clients - but there is something about seeing things that you contributed to winning or doing well on a world stage.

Not that I helped Katheryn Mattis do anything on the way to her vicotry in Geelong at the Women's World Cup opener this weekend, but it was the first world-class victory (probably first victory period) by a rider using our Hudz. It was a gutsy ride, and we'd just like to congratulate Katheryn and all the ladies at Webcor for showing what they can do down under. (More info on the race and some great pix at here.)

It was also nice to see CVV and David Millar putting in such good shows at the ToC this last week. I was sitting at the keyboard updating away the cyclingnews.com coverage of the ITT in Solvang and hoped that David would pull out the victory on the day and pass Levi in the race. Unfortunately that didn't happen, but it was great to see half of the top-6 in TT sporting argyle, and the same thing on Sunday's GC final. I am really starting to look forward to two great races in Paris this spring (Roubaix and P-Nice), and hopefully one in July.

More on the Slipstream squad to come...