Wednesday, March 19, 2008

The two of them, or us or three or four...

Well such a long time, as usual. I have a few days off to celebrate the christian calender, but beggars can't be choosers. One takes what one can get these days. (not that I have that much against christianity per se,(apart from the fact that it's a religion) but the christians are giving it a bad name these days, or perhaps they always have). Anyhow back to me, the main man, at least as far as this blog is concerned. I hope to achieve a few things in these free days from my grueling schedule (I'll have a whinge later on my Letters to Tao blog) and one of same is to post on the blogs and so forth. So here I am.

I gave the two bikes a wipe down and took them down to the square this morning to take a few views of them together.



Eni came along, of course!

One wouldn't expect any less. I'll help him do an entry on his blog later with some more photos of him with the bikes.

But enough of the beauty, back to the beasts.



Any regular readers (I know there is no such thing on this blog, but let's just pretend) would recognise the closer bike as the faithful Orbea of the last 30 thousand kilometres. The further is the new luxury Colnago Extreme Power. And quite the beast it is too. I was a little dissapointed that the difference wasn't more, hum, shocking, as it feels just about the same as the Orbea. It's not like when I changed from the 20 year old steel Battaglin to the Aluminium Orbea. Now that was an astonishing difference. No, this difference was a bit more subtle. But still, the first time I took it for a serious ride though I went up the Galapagar pass, and cut 30 seconds off my all time record there. And it's still basically the off season.



So, difference there is. Perhaps the PowerCranks have something to do with it too. I know that I have suffered plenty with them, so they must be doing something. The guys in the bike shop that I went to the other day flipped out over the cranks that both hang down the bottom of the stroke. I had to give them a lend of my shoes so they could have a go.



That's them, as the theoretical regular reader would already know, from the Christmas day entry on this very blog. They are the training aid from hell, but I would recommend them to anybody who thinks that suffering will get you to where you want to be.



and then there's the top of the line biking experience. Or as close to it as I'll ever get, (I assume). The civilisation will crash before I get a chance to better this machine. It's not really the most beautiful of all the bikes on the market but it's among the most elegant, that's for sure.



Although I was hoping to pull my head in a little on the spending front, I really need to and and all, I also am really sick of suffering such a sore arse. (from the seat of the push bike) so after hearing the for the nth time how comfortable the Fi'zi:k Arione Wingflex was, I gave in and bought one. I took it out for the first time to do the 200 km brevet des randonneurs mondiaux organised by Pueblo Nuevo Cicling Club, and liked it enough to buy the company. No wait, that's not right, I liked it enough to buy another one for the other bike.



So now I have two beautiful Fi'zi:k Arione Wingflex Titanium saddles and 200 euros less.

And also two brand new saddles that just didn't seem to agree with my bum. Both of which are really top class saddles too. And then there's the bottle cage that came with the new bike and all.



Since I am completely hooked on the Specialized Rib-Cage (as you can see if you look again there's two on each bike)



That leaves me with a fifty euro Moro d'Elite without a use. Anybody that wants to make off with a bargain just let me know.



a shout out as usual to illustration friday.
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