… and I have been riding it. It’s a lot like the R3 was except the rear end is a little softer over rough pavement. I think much of that is due to the smaller diameter seat post- 27.2mm vs a humongous 32.4mm. So there’s a little flex there. The smaller seat tube might have something to do with it as well. I like it but now the front feels stiff in comparison. Set up like this it weighs about 15.25 lbs. Not super light but I have heavy brakes and handlebars, and the cranks aren’t all that light either.
- Wheels- Reynolds DV46C carbon clinchers on White Industry H2 hubs
- Cranks- FSA Carbon Pro ISIS, SRAM Rival chainrings 50/34
- Cassette- DuraAce 7800 12-27
- BB- FSA Titanium ISIS
- Shifters- Shimano DuraAce 7800
- Derailleurs- DuraAce 7800 front, 7703 (triple) rear
- Brakes- DuraAce 7800 with Titanium bolts
- Bars- Easton EC70
- Stem- Ritchey WCS carbon wrapped
- Seatpost- KCNC SC Pro aluminum
- Cages- King Titanium
The 7703 derailleur is there so I can run crazy 12-30 gearing for Everest Challenge.
ericm Equipment
One problem with the R3 frame design is that when you derail the chain off the chainrings it jams between the inner chainring and the frame. I got it pretty badly stuck a couple times on the old R3. Suprisingly the gouges on the frame were quite minor. But I don’t want any at all on the R3SL, never mind having to stop in a race to unjam the chain and put it back on. Normally you can put a chain catcher on the frame which will keep the chain from derailing, but the commercial ones that clamp around the seat tube won’t fit the R3’s large squarish tube. So as part of my build up I made one. It bolts to the front derailleur “braze-on” fitting.
As you can see from my dirty garage scale, it weighs all of 8 grams. It’s made from a section of aluminum angle about 10cm long with most of it trimmed away. I just cut off everything that didn’t look like a chain catcher, and this is what was left.
ericm Equipment
For the warranty replacement for my R3, Cervelo let me upgrade (for a fee) to the R3SL. I’ve been wanting one of these for a while but the economics of buying a new frame for retail and selling my old R3 as used just didn’t make sense. It turns out that upgrading under the warranty replacement doesn’t make sense either but it is a lot closer, and in any case the new R3 paint scheme is ugly.
The best thing besides being black is that its lighter than the old R3 was, by about 100 grams- it’s 845.
ericm Equipment
The R3 is officially dead. I brought it in to the shop today and they immediately agreed that the BB insert was loose. I stripped the parts off the frame and it’ll go to Cervelo and presumeably to the crusher.
I’m kind of bummed. I spent probably 1200 hours on that bike. That’s a lot of shared suffering.
I hope the replacement is as good to me as this frame was.
ericm Equipment
That’s what I heard a minute into this morning’s first hill interval, as I stood up to power up a steeper section. Another broken spoke on my Powertap rear wheel. That’s the second in the last month. For someone who doesn’t weigh much and doesn’t make much power I am remarkably hard on rear wheels.
I had to do a road-side re-truing just to get the wheel close enough that it could pass through the brake with the quick-release open. Even then it was quite a ways out of true. I bailed out of my intervals, worried that I’d completely destroy the weakend wheel, but still did the Chain Reaction ride. With the wobble in the wheel I had to take the curvy descents slower than normal.
I just found out that my Cervelo’s fork has been recalled… they have been breaking. Aiee! Not what I want to be worrying about when I’m tucked in at 50 mph on a long desert descent or banked over in a 40 mph turn on skyline. So now I’ll have some last minute equipment hassles before EC.
Speaking of Everest Challenge, I signed up last night. I’ll be in the master 45s this year. Kevin K from the Chain Reaction ride (and my club, Webcor/Alto Velo) is also racing in the 45s. The plan is to ride together for at least part of each day, assuming that we’re both going roughly the same that is. When we rode 3x Diablos a few weeks back I was feeling better on the first one and he was feeling much better on the last one while I faded and he left me behind. Kevin’s always much stronger than I am on the flat and will be a faster descender on the long straights so I’d benefit from us riding together, assuming I can keep up!
ericm Equipment, training rides
I haven’t been talking about equipment much on this blog because I want it to be about riding, but I’m going to change that and see where it goes. First a confession: I’m a complete bike equipment weenie. My bikes and parts have to be just so. Not the latest and most expensive, in fact I prefer not to spend too much if I can avoid it. (Although the definition of “too much” seems to have gone up quite a bit in the last four or five years.) But the bike and components have to work just the way I want, or I will change them. I like reliable easy to use controls that require as little thought as possible, so I can worry about riding. But I don’t want to have to push a bunch of heavy stuff up hills.
A couple months back I got some spiffy light weight KCNC brakes. They’re cheaper than the usual light weight Zero Gravitys that everyone has, and lighter too. Plus they won the five-way weight weenie brake shootout at FairWheel Bike. Once they became available in the US (conveniently from FairWheel, who are actually very nice people) I ordered a set. I delayed putting them on since I had some races that involved serious descents and I didn’t want to change something on the bike right before a race.
Finally I had a few weeks window where I could do some brake testing. The first problem was that they wouldn’t fit. The front brake bolt is too short. FairWheel sent me some longer brake nuts and I drilled out my fork a very small amount to let the long nut seat in the fork.
Obligatory shot on a scale:
They’re 169g; DA brakes are 312g. That’s almost a third of a pound!
Once I got them on, they turned out to have much stiffer springs and more friction than I am used to- Dura Ace brakes like all their parts have very light action. I replaced the poor stock pads with DA pads after the first ride. The brakes worked ok but required a lot more lever pressure than the DA brakes. They take a little longer to come on too, although that’s not such a bad thing. I tend to brake a bit too early and too hard in pack riding when something scary happens, so slowing the braking down there would be ok.
But what I didn’t take into account is the increased lever effort on long descents with a lot of turns. Like say Mt Hamilton. The other weekend before I broke my toe, I did a front/back/front on Mt Ham. On the second descent my left hand hurt. On the third descent I was trying not to use the brake and getting sharp shooting pains right up the heel of my hand when I did. Ow ow ow. When I got into the car to drive home it hurt to hold the steering wheel. I have a lot of Mt Ham rides coming up; getting crippled with carpal tunnel syndrome isn’t conducive to cycling or working for that matter.
So this last week when I wasn’t working (code freeze deadline) or icing my foot I went out to the garage and removed the KCNC brakes and put the good old DA brakes back on. I was thinking that I’d keep the KCNCs for uphill races but now that I have ridden the DAs again they are so much nicer. Nice and light and smooth. I think I’ll sell the KCNCs. If I get a good price for them I can use the proceeds for some titanium bolts to lighten the DA brakes…
ericm Equipment