n_maher

Chris, holy poo that may end up being a long two weeks. In the brief stints I've done as a single dad I find the key is just resigning yourself to the idea that the only time that will be yours is after bedtime and even then you will more than likely find that most of that time is spent prepping stuff for the following day. I don't know how truly single parents do it.

So I decided to ignore the thermometer this morning and ride to work. I got up at 5:30, had a quick banana and watched the tempterature drop as I got ready to go, WTF? Anyway, it was 20.1F when I left the house and I had a slight headwind the whole way so this afternoon's ride should be a good 25 degrees warmer and holds the promise of a slight tail wind.

Not to worry, Shelly. My team is doing everything within their power to make sure you win.

This. That X-ray looks...uncomfortable.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Sorry Justin, how broken?

Shit Justin, sorry. I got a nice 7 mi MTB ride in this afternoon on some much less technical but still local trails. It was nice to not be constantly in fear of an epic crash.

I consider a single 15mm spacer sufficiently slammed.

No stopping, they use a dropper.

I went a bit crazy this afternoon and swapped the wheels and cassette and put my 25mm GP 4 seasons on there for the rest of the year. I this bike.

I suppose I deserve that. Silly me for taking the owner at his word or maybe he and I both managed to confuse each other at some point in Q/A part of the process. Regardless I'm psyched to have one less thing to be pondering upgrading - 10spd Dura Ace will do just fine, thanks. The only thing that I probably will look into is the max gearing that I can run with this derailleur as I'm thinking this setup won't be great for big hills. Ultimately that'll have to wait for a little experimentation next year but I'll probably troll the used market over the winter to see what's out there. Thanks Gene (and everyone else). I can't imagine where I'd go from here for a road bike which is a nice position to be in. I looked at my existing Ksyriums and the tires on them are shagged (showing cord) and I'm too lazy to change the tires and cassette this weekend just to ride the Calfee in my aesthetically preferred setup. I did toss the front wheel on just to get to get the flavor of it and I like it, a lot.

Hmmmm, further investigation first muddied the waters and then cleared them immensely. 1. From what I can tell there's no such thing as a 9spd 7800 shifter. I have confirmed from the manuals included with the Calfee that it's got full 7800 on it and that the shifters are made for a 20spd group. 2. The cable routing on the rear derailleur does not appear to be setup for 9spd. So then it occurred to me that this guy never road the bike and I counted the sprockets... :palm: Uh, yeah, so it's got a 10spd cassette on it and I'm a fool.

I'm going to leave it as a 9spd for now for sure. I am interested in the cost of the changeover and that was why I mentioned investigating the price of the shifter. And it's a DA cassette so no worries there .

We're both wrong, just confirmed via multiple sources that the RD will work fine but the brifter, cable, chain and cassette have to change. I'll probably see how much the right brifter would set me back...

That would require a new brifter, rear derailleur, and cassette - way more than I want to get into now.

Stupid effing Verizon won't support it.

You're both not wrong. But going from no drop to ~4" of drop is a pretty drastic change and I think I can get about half that back between the spacer (already done) and the stem flip. It was definitely a semi-surprise that the ride is as compliant as it is. I was expecting something on the order of bone-jarring and it's a far cry from that. And yes Juan, it's DA 7800. The guys and the shop said that it should be a very reliable group and the shifting action is light and predictable. It should get even better with a little use. And the Ksyriums are great in my book, I just wish they were the version with black spokes. I know, I know... seriously weak reasoning. I may see if the hub on my other black set is compatible with the 9spd cassette and if so, switch them over. We'll see and like I said, there's no good reason to do anything with the bike other than ride it.

I got the bike over to the LBS this morning at 9:30 to throw myself at the mercy of the court and see if they couldn't help me dial in the last few bits to get me on the road today. As usual, they were great. We played with the spacer arrangement and were going to flip the stem but the current front brake cable is too short to do that. So we put the big spacer under the stem and got it setup as best we could. I bought a set of pedals for it - the least I could do given that they charged me $10 for what ended up being 45min. of shop time - and I raced home. I got home, folded some laundry so that I could at least cross one chore off the list and while sitting there the wind blew so hard that it pushed my Weber all the way across the deck and into our deck table in turn pushing the hole thing tight up against the railing and toppling a few chairs. Uhhhh, not a great sign. But WTF, it's only wind, right? At least it was 70 and windy today. So I headed out for my usual ~18mi loop around town. It was entertaining dodging sticks and leaves and the bike feels great. It's very responsive, climbs like a beast and surprisingly I did the whole ride in the big ring. Now, I always do that on the Roubaix but the Calfee is running a standard 53/39 up front and a 12-25 in the back, a far cry from the 50/34 and 11-32 of the Roubaix. My back definitely felt the much more aggressive setup but I made it through the hour long ride without any real pain. Over the winter I do think that I'll have the stem flipped just to relax it a bit more but without really putting any effort into the fit I'm pumped. All I really did was set the saddle level and at the right height, centered over the seat post. With a proper fitting it should fit like a glove. And originally I was not at all psyched by the silver group on the black frame. In person it looks much better. So much so that I've gone from hunting for takeoff SRAM groups to thinking there's no reason to do a damn thing with it. I still would like to get a different set of hoops/spokes for it but the silver Ksyriums might grow on me too. All in all it's a stupid amount of bike for what I paid for it. No pics - it was so windy I was afraid to try to lean the bike anywhere.

It was rainy and 50 when I left the office and unfortunately the bike required some reassembly so zero chance for a ride today. I've got it 90% back together and the plan tomorrow is to take it to my LBS as soon as they open and see if I can beg them to finish the final few bits and send me home. One thing is for sure (at least to my eyes) - this thing hasn't been ridden much at all. Or it didn't get ridden outdoors or something. A few quick pics. The only issue so far seems to be a sticky rear shifter, which from limited research is pretty common and hopefully cured by either replacing the cable or liberal application of WD40. I'm hoping my shop can get it cured tomorrow.

The Calfee is at the house. My desire to work is quickly waning...

Yikes, that's not good. Me: the Calfee is out for delivery a day early. That never happens. I already put in to work from home tomorrow (unofficially of course) and now it'll be a challenge to work on anything other than getting out for a ride.

For casual, non-critical extended listening sessions that tend to happen at work I would stick with something like the 600/650. They're not that hard to drive, very comfortable, and most importantly don't really have any glaring/offensive sonic traits. They're just good, solid performers.

Ouch, sucks Stretch. I went to the dentist this morning and other than raping my mouth with floss it was a relatively pain free event that did not identify a need to return for 6 months. Win.

Brent, When it rains it pours man, hang in there and like everyone else I'm glad to here that you and the family are OK. Hopefully a year from now you'll look back and laugh at all this. Or at least realize that it was just a bump along the road to a better life.

Donation sent for a couple of tickets. Good luck and well done in advance, Mike.

Definitely.