- 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...