Saturday, May 27, 2006

Wait let's talk Weight

So, the carbon bike is pretty well sorted out. The Campy front derailer works like a charm - and seems to be lighter than the Deda clamp/FSA derailer combo. The bike as shown in the pictures has a 56cm actual seat-tube and a 58cm virtual seat-tube. So its no small bike.

As shown in the pictures, including the 2 water bottle cages and the heavy old look pedals, it weighs in at 17.8 lbs. I've obtained a mounted a new set of Ksyrium SSC SL3s w/ Deda RS Corsa Open Tubulars and Michelin Airlite butyl tubes. Then a set of Look Carbon Keo pedals with CrMO axles. And, finally a lightweight (mfg claim is 142 grams) cassette (the Ti record was too expensive at $400+).

The net weight on a digital scale of the complete bike was 16.44 lbs. This compares favorably to my neighbors Colnago C50 which is similarly (not exactly) equipped. He was impressed.

I continue to be impressed by the ride and handling. In the pack, mid-corner corrections are great. It was possible to ride to the outside entering a corner, keep speed up and going straight longer, then dive around nearly squaring the corner without much braking. Easy way to pass people without much effort - but only with nimble and trustworthy handling. I'm definitely starting to respect carbon more - and the basic design of this frame is spot on.

More later.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Looks like this landed squarely in the weight range hoped for in the post dated Friday May 12