My New Love

 

 

 

Here are some snapshots of my new bike! This was my Christmas/Birthday present from my parents, Emily's parents, and Emily. This is basically the bike that I have been wanting for a few months. I've wanted a Felt for a few reasons. I didn't want a bike that a ton of other people had. I didn't really want a European bike because I feel more comfortable maintaining components that I am more familiar with. Basically, I wanted Shimano or SRAM, which are on American bikes. I wanted as much carbon fiber as possible, but I didn't want to pay a ton for it.

I'd been looking for a bike more seriously for the last two weeks or so and had seen some on ebay and in the classifieds that I liked, but never one that I could afford. I finally saw this bike on KSL just this last saturday. It was $200 over my budget, so I emailed the seller and asked if he would take what I could give. He said he could if I could throw in something to sweeten the deal. I knew he had an iPhone because it said so on his email, so I offered to jailbreak his iPhone and modify it to make it sweet. I also offered to do any leather work he wanted like rebinding scriptures or books or anything else he needed. Last, I offered to give him a tennis racket that I don't ever use but is still in really excellent shape. I got an email from him a few hours later saying that he would take my offer with the tennis racket!

I was so excited! Monday night, Emily and I made the trek up to North Ogden to try out the bike and possibly buy it. When he opened his garage, the first thing that I saw was a Cannondale Scalpel. The Scalpel is Cannondale's full-suspension cross-country racing mountain bike. His looked like a Scalpel 3, which is a $4000 bike. It was in perfect condition. It looked like it had been not just cared for meticulously, but maybe even obsessed over. This increased my confidence in buying a bike from him. The next thing I noticed was a LOTOJA sticker on his Jeep. The LOTOJA is a 206-mile bike ride that goes from Logan, UT to Jackson, WY. LOgan TO JAckson, hence, LOTOJA. I knew he was a serious rider, and I felt even more confident in the bike. Looking around his garage, everything was in order. Everything was clean. You could tell he took very good care of his things.

By this time I had seen the bike and it also looked like it was in excellent shape. It was clear that he took very good care of it. There were very few scratches and the whole bike was immaculately clean. I took it out for a ride around the cul-de-sac. It was perfect. Everything was so smooth. The brakes, the shifters, the crank, everything was super-responsive and smooth. I knew that this was the bike for me. We bought it and as we drove away I just stared at it in the rear-view mirror and couldn't believe I had gotten such a great bike! For those of you in the know, this is the setup I have:

Felt F55

Aluminum frame with carbon seatstays and fork

Shimano Dura-Ace shifters

Shimano Dura-Ace derailleurs

Shimano Dura-Ace brakes

FSA ISIS Drive Bottom Bracket

FSA Carbon Pro two-ring crank (175 mm)

Shimano Dura-Ace 10-speed cassette and chain

Velomax Vista SL wheels

Vittoria Rubino Slick tires

Felt carbon fiber seatpost and seat, Al stem and bar

Aheadset integrated headset

Wellgo M3 pedals (clipless-SPD. Bought for the mountain bike but am using them on both bikes for now)

The bike weighs 16.5 pounds

He also left the wireless computer attached to the bike and I am trying to figure out how to use it right now. I'm going to try to figure out how to upload rides I take from my phone to the blog, and I'll keep you posted on that! Until then, I hope you can all help Emily cope with losing me to a new love.