Tuesday, January 17, 2012

10.25ozs!!!!!!!!

Yup, I'm still a weight weenie, even though I'm not lightweight, I like my bikes to be (I used to be a flyweight rider)

So, to add to my previous post....

The new (Old) wheelset saves a total of 10.25ozs over the clincher wheelset it replaced.

Really a pretty interesting difference given that I went backwards about 10 years in the vintage of the wheels, and up by 4 spokes per wheel. Finally, the tires on both sets were Vittorias - Rubino clinchers and Evo Tubulars!

The end result is that the Colnago is now 19.25 lbs without pedals! Not half bad for a bike older than half the pros I watch on Versus!

Magic Shoes......

So a few posts back, I mentioned that I got my hands on some new vintage wheels for my Colnago. Some internet search proved a provenance and date of Shimano 7200, approximately 85 vintage. Just right in era for my Colnago (if not in country of manufacture)

I also recently scored a pair of NOS Vittoria tubulars. Got 'em for less than the price of a pair of innertubes. No they did not fall of the back of a truck!

So after stretching the tires on the wheels all last week - they were very tight at first - I started building up a few layers of glue on both the wheels and the tires.

Finally last night, I was ready to glue them up. It all went fine, and the glue job did not get messy. Everything was/is very clean. I'm really happy with how they turned out.



As a bonus, the front wheel cut a quarter of a pound off the bike when compared with the old clincher. I can't wait to compare the rear as well.

I've ridden tubular CX tires, but never any tubular road tires/wheels. I'm definitely looking forward to it and will post a report of how it goes when the weather is good enough to try them!

So now my Colnago has new 'Magic Shoes'

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Tour De Cross 2012 Race #2

Well, my wife surprised me this weekend. She asked if I had seen anything lately on Facebook.... My answer was that I was reading about my team members heading out to the Tour De Cross #2. She commented "You did not ask to go to it?" I replied that I hadn't because I thought I needed to be home with her and our new son.

My wife is a wonderful person, and not just because she told me, "Go ahead, we'll be here when you get here". A little cleaning around the house before I left ensured some good karma and put a small deposit in the domestic homefront bank.

So I headed out to the race. I decided to drive my Triumph to the race with the bike on the back. Unfortunately, it was cold (sub freezing) and so the car backfired a bit. I got there fine though and surprised my teammates (they thought I was in poopy diaper land)

The course was pretty doggone good. Aside from being somewhat poorly marked in a few areas, it really made the most of the land the organizer had to run the course on.

I started out great and got a substantial holeshot on everyone. Unfortunately that only lasted about half a lap and I blew a bit. I managed to hang in about 5th position for a while and then took a wrong turn on the course and literally got lost....

Two people passed me and I figured out where I was supposed to be. I decided to follow one of them for the rest of the lap to make sure I did not get lost again....

Finally, after figuring out the course, I made up a couple positions and held there until the end. I actually finished fairly strong considering how long I've been off the bike.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

New - Old Wheels... For the vintage Colnago!

So the same friend that hooked me up with the vintage Colnago called me this past weekend and offered me a set of wheels.

The wheels are Dura Ace hubs (36 hole) laced to mid-80's Matrix Iso tubular rims. Also included was a nice 6sp Shimano 600 freewheel. 13-21 gearing. Pretty tough for my fat old legs.

I have a set of nice Vittoria Evo Tubular tires (NOS) that I may glue up to these rims and set up for riding.

The question now is to sell them and lace up the Campag Super Record hubs I have stashed away for this project. Putting Shimmy hubs on this beautiful Italian bike seems like heresy!