Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Details, details

On Thursday before the FSA GP, a teammate posted his sweet cruiser bike for sale. I've been looking for one for a while - for the right price, and finally here it was! I contacted him and told him to hold it for me - and if I scored enough cash from the weekend, then I'd buy it.

And although I scored some cash this weekend from the race, I unfortunately had to pass the bike up. 1 - I don't really need another bike and 2 - since I did do well, but not well enough, it's time to reinvest in some expensive track gear to make sure I'm getting the most from my equipment.

I've managed to spend about $600 in the past three days on various gear - it certainly adds up quickly. Sure I didn't need top of the line stuff - but I want to know I used the best I could at the time and have absolutely zero doubts in my gear.

So what could possibly be that expensive? Tires - Vittoria Pista CV (made exclusively for track riding with a supple dimpled black surface = low rolling resistance = FAST) $110/tire. Glue for gluing onto the wheels $3.95/tube x 2 tubes. New saddles (remember my 40k incident?) $99/each x 3 (and I need another for my pursuit bike!). Chain - the Wipperman I bought for my new Naked frame sucks balls. Yep, you heard me right. You can hear that thing across the track on a super windy day! So I coughed up the big bucks (thank goodness Ryan has a full time paycheck!) at $60 for the Izumi Model V. It rides like butta. I highly, highly recommend them. Oh, and then there's the new pedals I had to pick up for the new track bike $130. Ouch. Talk about an expensive week.

Oh, and don't forget about the plane tickets for track races and housing costs. I'm tempted to take David up on teaching some motorcycle classes to help pay for my out of control racing habit.

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