At the weekend I discovered that a couple of small cracks had appeared in my bike frame just above the front forks. At first, I thought that it was just the paint, but I thought that I had better get it checked out so I took it back in to the guys at the Cycle Surgery. The prognosis - I think the technical phrase they used was "Your bike is toast!". Just to be sure they stripped it down and checked the inside of the frame and it turns out that the crack was indeed structural and amounted to a 2-2.5cm crack. Time for a new one - well, a new frame at least.
Goughy, Geoff and Aaron had already hatched a plan to upgrade me before I went in with the dead frame so they were already on to it. "Ah, we were just discussing about us upgrading you to a new frame", Goughy said before I had even had a chance to tell them about the cracks I had discovered. It was a bit 'used car sales' ("Have we got a deal for you!"), but I had to agree with them and I had been thinking about it myself over the last couple of weeks anyway.
So by lunchtime Tuesday they had set me up a full carbon CR1 Comp frame with a new aero base bar and my existing aero bars with bar-end shifters and brakes. They put my Shimano 105 gear on it and upgraded the derailleur to Ultegra as well as a couple of other bits and pieces. (Sorry that bit was for the bike guys amongst you, the rest of you can ignore it if you like.)
The Cycle Surgery boys gave me all the low down on the benefits of full carbon and why the CR1 was right for me as opposed to something else. They had run a little sweepstake amongst themselves to see how much lighter the new set up would be than my old bike (it turned out to be about 1.5kg or about 15% lighter). To be honest, I'd always thought that all the talk about the benefits of full carbon was just that - all talk. How could carbon fibre possibly make the ride any more comfortable? How is one bike more responsive than the next? Could 1.5kg really make any difference to my speed when I myself weigh 105kg?
How wrong I was!
I headed out today for my first test ride totally skeptical and ready to pick up any little flaw in the hype. WOW, it really does make a difference and not just a small difference, the difference was enormous. I liken the difference in ride comfort as being about the same as the difference between my dilapidated 1991 Nissan Datsun Ute (slow, rough riding, noisy and no power steering) and our 2007 Subaru Forester AWD (good pick up, smooth on the road, relatively quiet and sticks the road like glue). The carbon frame is smooth and responsive and very comfortable in comparison to my old alloy frame, but could it really be any quicker?
To be fair, I am not sure that I can give an accurate assessment on how much faster it might have been based on just one ride to Portobello and back. Yes I was faster (about 2-3km/h faster in fact), but was that just because I was putting in a harder effort or maybe the tail wind was stronger on the way out than the head wind coming back? I am sure that it was a combination of effort, wind and bike, but I am convinced that bike was a significant part of it. The rises in elevation were definitely faster and it was definitely easier to climb the small hills in a much smaller rear cog. I decided that the real test would be a hill so I decided to include a hill at the end of my ride and sure enough this is where it really made a huge difference. I don't think that I was that much faster than normal, but the effort required was definitely far less (I reckon about 10-15% less) than I am use to.
Now I am faced with several dilemmas. Can I afford to upgrade to the carbon frame or is it a case of can I afford not to? The extra comfort will definitely make the bike leg of Challenge Wanaka on the rough Central Otago roads much more bearable. Do I accept that the Subaru Forester (CR1 Comp/Full carbon road bike) is what I need to do the job (comfortable, reliable and faster than my old ute) or do I test drive the Ferrari that is made for the job (a full carbon time trial/triathlon bike)? The latter might compromise a little on comfort and versatility but it should be significantly faster. A lot is going to depend on whether anyone is willing to let me test drive a Ferrari and whether there is a significant difference in price between the Forester and the Ferrari.
I think I feel a Ferrari test drive coming up soon, but what I really need is to find a sponsor to help me into one permanently.
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