Absenteeism, the Season's End, and 2009 bikes

I've really gotten a track record of skipping events I've signed up for. Last week, I skipped the Mt Tam hill climb because I had a bit of a cold and my lungs didn't feel so hot. I also skipped today's Calaveras Road 10-mile TT, again for a medical reason.

It's funny that I still got a time for Mt. Tam: 52:47. I don't know if someone else got my number (the event was sold out) or what. It's not the time I'd have expected to put up. I actually emailed the organizer asking for them to remove or correct it. 

All this comes after that string of missed races due to crashes. I was actually feeling quite good early this week, after a long Sunday ride and a fairly intense Tuesday morning Polo Fields group ride. It'd have been funny to come back on form right after the end of the season. No worries about that now, as I'm going to take this weekend really easy. 

An exciting part of winter prep is getting new equipment. I've been working on using the team deal with Beyond Fabrications to get a TT bike and 50mm carbon aero wheels with PowerTap rear hub. I was originally thinking of TT bike, race wheels, and road bike as separate purchases (retail price on the wheels and PT hub costs more than many bikes), but the Beyond deal was good enough that I can get both the TT bike and wheels without feeling like I'm splurging much (and given I'd been saving for 2009 upgrades). 

I'm expecting to go down at pick up the bike on Sunday. Here's a pic:

For the wheels, I'm getting the 50mm-deep rims (much less deep than the picture), so I can use them in road races as well as TTs. Unlike some teammates, I'm getting clincher rims, since I don't understand the practicality of tubulars in long local road races, where follow cars are few and far between. Waiting to get picked up is no fun compared to the alternative of changing a tube and riding to the finish. Tubulars make more sense on the track, where it's not hard to have a spare wheel on hand. 

I still haven't quite settled how I'll replace my Scott road bike (busted up by the car incident). The Scott crash replacement deal on the frame is still an OK way to go, but Ben's got me pretty jazzed about Leopard Cycles, with the likelihood of a few teammates going in and getting a custom Roaring Mouse paint job. 

I'd looked at Leopard earlier in the year, when I won a $350 off coupon as a prime, and what impressed me were the paint jobs, especially the sections with translucent paint over carbon fiber. Given that most high-end carbon bikes are manufactured in the same place in Taiwan, the difference between frames are in the design (tube shape, geometry), materials (choice of more or less expensive carbon weave) and paint job. Most bikes don't look all that interesting, usually because they have one base coat, plus a bunch of decals. I'm sure the Roaring Mouse scheme will be pretty interesting, even if it's a lot of yellow. I'd probably get Leopard's M1SL frame for the clean lines and light weight.