11/3/09 – The Bailey gets new shoes!
Good afternoon friends,
Thanks again for all of your support throughout these great experiences — from the Tour de Cure for the American Diabetes Association to the America’s Finest City Half Marathon to the Qualcomm Million Dollar Challenge, including all of the great training rides from June through October 2009, the fundraising for the Challenged Athletes Foundation, and the Scott & BR Cycling Contest. Without your help and unending support, I would’ve never had the opportunity to be a part of all these great events.
With that said, cycling offseason paves new avenues for training, and I will continue to train, whether it be cycling or running to keep up the level of fitness that I’ve gained from the QMDC. What the cycling offseason also does, is provide us cyclists with a good opportunity to take care of our bikes, making sure everything is working and also upgrade anything that’s been pounded on over the hundreds of miles we’ve put on them.
While there a number of ways you can score great deals to pick up great items for your bike, whether it be going to your local bike shop and checking out their deals, browsing online at a number of great sites like “probikekit.com” or “nashbar.com”, or even checking out the deals on craigslist, there is a great event that only comes twice a year and it’s the SD Velodrome Swap Meet at the San Diego Velodrome just off Pershing in the Balboa Park area. If you have a chance, come out this Sunday from 0800-1200 for some great deals on everything from wheelsets, frames, components, saddles, helmets, accessories and clothing! It’s about $5 to get in and I guarantee you’ll walk away with some great items. Heck, if you’ve got some bike stuff to sell, you can certainly do that there as well. The bike swap meet is just one of those beautiful biproducts of cycling — where one person wants to upgrade, another wants to pick up his/her used stuff and at the same time, the person who wanted to upgrade in the first place, gets cash towards their new upgrade. It’s a vicious cycle that we cyclists do.
With that said, I’ve been searching for a new wheelset for the Bailey and I’ve located it in Great Neck, NY of all places at a bike shop called “Brickwell Cycling”. After much research and debate over what kind of wheelset I wanted to upgrade to (after checking out Spinergy, Reynolds, Flash Point, HED, Bontrager and Mavic), I’ve decided to go with the Mavic Ksyrium ES wheelset, for its bomb-proof durability, feathery weight for climbing, and easy maintenance.
This will be a big upgrade from my current wheelset, and I’m excited to see what these babies can do. My current wheelset is a 2003 Mavic Ksyrium wheelset with over 5,000 miles on them as I was the third owner of the wheels after my cousin Eugene purchased them from the bike swap meet a couple years ago and used them prior to handing them over to me.
As the new wheelset arrives in about seven to ten business days, I’ll be sure to post some pics of the Bailey’s new shoes once I’ve installed them. 1600+ grams from my previous clunker wheelset to 1400 grams for the new wheelset will shed almost a half pound from the Bailey! Someone is super amped and that someone is this guy!
Until then, keep riding, keep smiling and always remember to set goals for yourself – whether it be at work, at home, in the gym, or on the road. Goals keep us focused, goals make us stronger!
-BB