Back In Black

I'm going to make an admission here: I'm super anal about bike geometry. Since last year, I've been on a quest to find a road bike which would allow me to duplicate the position of my Tiemeyer, with very little luck. A standard 74-degree seat tube angle doesn't allow me to get far enough over the bottom bracket, and the top tubes are too long.

I refuse to compromise my workouts by not training with absolute specificity. A bit overboard? Maybe, but I can't afford to have any doubts about the quality of my training.

Then, I realized I was looking in the all wrong places. I needed to look for a time trial frame, and I found exactly what I needed. It's not super-special, but it's cheap and it looks cool (subject to personal opinion).

Leader 720TT. 54cm. It's black, it's stiff, and it has steep geometry.

Admittedly, it looks a bit odd because of the TT geometry, but it fits perfectly.

I spent half of Saturday at Granite City Cycles getting in Luke's way while he helped me build it up (read: he built it while I watched). Here's the full run-down of parts:

SRAM Rival build kit.

165mm cranks (again, specificity)

Cane Creek Volos Wheels, Dura-Ace pedals, Cane Creek SL brakes

Salsa seatpost, HED Aerolabs saddle

Thomson stem, Deda bar, Cateye Strada Wireless computer, and of course the Cane Creek Maple headset.

At first, I was unsure about the headset, but I think it added a lot to the bike. I couldn't be more please with it.

I have yet to ride it outside, but 2 hours of meticulous measuring and adjusting has made it feel very comfortable on my rollers.

I'm totally ready for some epic road rides.