So after crashing back in January it’s taken a few months to get my bike put back together. There was a high priority of upgrading Becca’s bike before mine, I am sure she will post about it soon!
Anyway that being said, as you can imagine it’s not that cheap, anything with “Carbon Fiber” or “Dura Ace” in the title comes with a pretty price tag. I’ll confess and say that it hurt this time around to hit “Submit Payment” for some of these parts, I had already upgraded a lot of them back in 2012 for Ironman Arizona, but when the basebar of your handle bars sounds off (the test is to tap it) it’s money well spent rather than having it break race day and spearing yourself with razor sharp carbon edges. Little known fact most pros use aluminum bars as these are much safer when they crash!
Becca got a full Ultegra drivetrain upgrade, new levers, pedals and tires!
So the three main items that had to be replaced were the Aero Bars, the shifters and the brakes, I probably could have missed the brakes but better safe than sorry. Additionally of course bar tape was needed and I had to replace my Torhans mount that broke last year at the Monte Rio Olympic. So as you can see this was adding up rather fast!
After shopping around looking for alternatives I just went with what i had originally, simply put it worked I liked it and there would be no need for playing with my position. Finally I had all the parts and I dropped them off at my local grotto of bicycle magic, aka Win’s Wheels as well as a box of ice cream and some cookies…you know to grease the skids as it were.
The next day I picked up the bike and brought it home, I went to replace the Profile Design Garmin mount and for some reason the aero bars were narrower, or should I say closer together. After a bit of tinkering involving a hacksaw, it fitted, but the shop had not leveled the ends as they didn’t know which one to match to as when I crashed I had pushed one back by an inch or so. So I adjusted them and them left it at that.
My Torhans mount arrived and went to fit it, during which I noticed that the right bar was off center, so I loosened it off and straightened it. Using my torque wrench I started to tighten the nut when snap, I had sheared it off. #$%^!!!! So back to Win’s again where they fixed the problem, then back home where I mounted to Torhans and fitted a new Zipp TT mount for the Garmin.
So now I am all set…all I have to do is ride the damn thing on the road and that’s the plan for Sunday!
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