Cervelo P3 Becomes a Road Machine

Found a used frame on eBay at a great price to use next season in tris. Ordered some old parts to convert the cervelo p3 into a road machine. Great time to buy bike junk on the bay. Example: bottom bracket for $8.50... normally a $70ish part. Tonight the last of the parts arrived so I assembled the beast. Naked frame/pile 'o' parts to road machine in a few hours. Fair amount of cussing as I stole from peter (mountain bike, ebay and old parts cache) to pay paul (new setup.) Seriously pedals... wtf.

Ava said "GooDah, what wrong?" about thirty times. "Nothing sweetheart, I'm just fixing my bike." "Who broke it?" "GooDah did... go play your Diego computer game."

Five minutes later, "GooDah, what wrong?"

Freddy wins the Spot the New Bike in the Back of the Picture Contest... he commented on a picture of Heather getting the wreath ready with lights a week or so ago. Marc, Dana and Matthew win the First Ride Contest. Josh wins the Notice How Long Joe's Seat Post Is Contest. Blair wins the Recommend New Road Handlebar Model Contest. Tim Smith, who filled his frame with lead and epoxy, wins the Have a Bike Lighter than Joe's New Tri Bike For Next Season Contest.

Thanks for playing. You win nothing. Sorry.

Safety win. Taking my hands off of the brakes to shift is tricky and amplifies risk. Because of... what's that other thing you do better with two hands... oh yeah... steering. After six years of riding a tri bike in tons of centuries, big days, trips to the gaps, two sufferfests, vo2max tests, computrainer sessions, group rides, pizza rides, airport rides, beyond six flags rides, etc... tonight I finally pedaled a road bike. Hadn't ever done that. Literally... as in never borrowed somebody's. Never took a test ride at a shop. Nothin'. Kinda dug it.

Road bikes are reverse-mullet: messy in the front, business in the back. Holy cables batman. I've been around road bikes for years but never realized how much slack there is. I actually had to take a trip to the shop just to make sure there was supposed to be that much junk hanging out there in the wind. Tri bikes pwn road bikes on the cleanliness front.

Questions for people with road bikes:

1) Can you reach your brake/shift up lever when in the drops? When I pulled the horns up far enough to be comfortable (palm part of horn horizontal with ground) I found that I have to reach a bit for my shift up when in the drops. Like, straight arm, have to reach. Elbow bent a bit, I'm good. That about what you've got going on?

2) Downside to too-wide bars? Turns out I rtardedly didn’t measure my tri bars until after I got my new bars. My tri bars are 40cm. My new are 44cm. Should go with a narrower bar but don’t want to do the work or spend the money. Aerodynamics? Shoulder fatigue?

Other than that and a little gear shifting/braking tweakage I’m basically ready to roll. Really digging the ability to shift in a group riding position. And happy that in the drops my back’s fairly flat and aero. Gotta figure out what to do about the Garmin. I like symmetry but don’t think I’ll be able to pull it off with the hardware I've got. May just wear it on my wrist. Or not wear it at all... I turn the screen to something useless and ignore it the entire time anyway. (But it is a good emergency mapping/where the hell am I device.)

Did the competitivecyclist.com fit. Heather helped me out. They have you do eight very specific measurements (inseam, trunk, forearm, arm, thigh, lower leg, sternal notch, total body height) and then spit out a three fit recommendations ranging from tame to aggressive. I snuck in a ninth measurement: shaft length. Heather didn’t fall for it. Damn.

Found that most of my measurements are within a centimeter or so of the fit recommendation. Not as tight as a true roadie might be looking for (they give some a 0.1-0.3cm range) but I’m surprised that it turned out even as close as it was. I mean, I'm taking one of the most classic tri geometries and throwing on some handlebars. I got it comfortable first and then compared it to the competitive/aggressive fit. One area where I don’t agree with them is the saddle set-back. I’m used to a much steeper seat angle after riding in tri/aerobars for so many years. I compromised between what they said and what I had. As long as my arms don’t hurt too much I’ll keep the saddle set-back closer to the tri fit.

Bike feels light. No aerobars. Using a me vs. me+bike on bathroom scale methodology (six measurements, averaged, difference taken) I get a weight of 18.06 lbs. But realize that my body weight somehow fluctuated over a pound and a half during the 3 minutes I was taking measurements. Scale not exactly accurate. Still, 1.8 lbs less than my new tri brick. I mean, bike.

Fingers crossed I'll be able to get this thing comfortable for group/road rides.

Off to The Gaps I go this weekend. Or the WBL. Turns out the guy who runs/works at/owns/whatever Smyrna Bicycles is coming off a state championship cyclocross season and is heading out to Athens. That or Airport. Or The Gaps. Just not The Comet. Need something that'll make shifting *and* braking at the same time a near-necessity.

Later.

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  p3 phone camera pics