Tuesday 7 April 2009

New Saddle, and Taking It In The Seat

First, the taking it in the seat part. Last week, I said that the rally was a red herring based on the mark to market rule change that came out. Guess who was EXACTLY RIGHT on that call? Hopefully I was right enough to bring my account to positive for the trailing 12 months. Haven't checked yet. I sure hope I was because I had to spend a bit of time at the old bicycle retailer this weekend. The team came through in an enormous way with multiple offers of frames to use, and I got hooked up with an idled CAAD9 team frame which saves that skinning for the time being. If I'm feeling flush later in the year (odds of that happening? about as good as my winning the Giro) I'll get one of the swiss new Tarmac team frames. And some day I will explain why swiss is a positive adjective in extremis. Anyhow, the bear is back out of the cave, kids. It ain't good. I should probably buy gold. You should probably buy gold too.

My saddle got demo'd Saturday. Oddly enough, it was the rail attachment that I hadn't had to fix that got wiped out. The one I fixed was on there dead solid. The cover was badly chewed up, so instead of fixing the new f'd up rail I made with the dough to get a new one. Because it has pretty well the exact same outline and terrain of the SLR style that I like so bad, I got a Specialized Toupe 130. I have little girl sized sit bones. No midgets wrestling in a bag when I go walking down the street. Not an apple bottom. Anyhow, it's a dead sexy saddle and comes in lovely white and red. Maybe I haven't ridden on a new saddle in a while (okay, I know I haven't) but this thing is HARD. Clearly there is a little break in period. My first ride on it, on the trainer last night doing 10' intervals, let me know that it fit perfectly where it was supposed to go, but it's no Barcalounger(tm).

Speaking of buying stuff, for those in the greater Bethesda area there is a wonderful new place to burn your cash - Conte's. I love the Pro Shop but going to G'town on a weekend sucks, and Spokes and the Alexandria Pro Shop are a bit of a haul from the house. City Bikes is okay and convenient but I'm not wild about it. I think Conte's is my new favorite. They had the different sized FD clamp that I needed, as well as the little JagWire rocket cable adjusters (the good ones that fit to your shifters that are essential if you ride a Cannondale because Cannondales don't have a spot for adjusters at the head tube stops and the in-line ones are pretty darn near worthless) in stock. Their wrenches clearly know what's up, the shop is clean and nice, it's all good. Definitely a full MSRP experience, though.

Since I won't be around to do my GamJams review this week I will add it here. The Bell Volt is a shockingly awesome helmet. It might be too good. I've actually twice left for rides without it, since I honestly can't always tell whether it's on or not. It fits that well.

Having just reread this I realize that I'm in vast danger of becoming a completely unintelligible series of inside jokes and self-references. You should be so lucky.

2 comments:

x said...

i rode a toupe on my last bike and it doesn't really break in - it was pretty uncomfortable through out.

my arione is a god send, but while the toupe made everything hurt, the arione makes everything go completely numb. cheapest vasectomy i'll ever have.

if you still need any more parts for the bike shoot me an email and i can help ya out.

Sigberto Garcia said...

the sit-bone section of the toupe doesn't break in, but the center definitely starts to sag eventually... it's something you have to get used to that's for sure.