okay, it’s really carbon fiber but you get the picture. Here she is. This is the new bike I will be riding on the AIDS/Lifecycle event coming up in June. A lot of the parts are carbon fiber so its much more comfortable than the steel and aluminum bikes I’ve ridden prior. It weighs 15.6 lbs even though I didn’t really build it to be light. I could easily knock another pound off but I’d rather have the extra durability at my size.
Choosing the correct size was difficult as always because I don’t have normal dimensions. For my height I have short legs and a long’ish torso. Because of that I went up a size to get an extra centimeter of top tube length, which is why I don’t seem to have much seatpost showing. If I could have gotten a custom frame I’d have spec’ed a 51cm seat tube and a 54.5cm top tube. I have a custom-made steel alloy frame in my closet but I retired that. Carbon fiber is too expensive to get customized. As it stands this frame has a 53cm seat tube and a 53.5 top tube. That means the reach from the saddle to the handlebars is less so I had to get a longer stem to compensate. Yes, 1 cm is definitely noticeable when you’re on a bike 2-4 hours a day.
100 of my closest friends and I negotiated a group buy rate of $500 for the frame. It is normally produced and sold under various brands. The previous revision of this frame marketed as the Litespeed Pavia sold for $1,200 so we got a great deal. I cherry picked all the parts and looked for deals wherever I could. The final cost was around $2,700 and thats with getting the frame well below retail cost. If I had walked into a shop and said “build me this bike” it would have run near $4,000.
I got in a few rides this weekend and it feels really good. The comfort of well-made carbon fiber will really be advantage when I’m on the bike for 4-5 hours a day. Aluminum tends to be very stiff and transfer all the rode vibration right up your arms and ass. You feel like you’ve been on a jackhammer after a while.
So, here it is. I’ll put more in the gallery later in the week. I’m pretty tired right now.
