Saturday, September 02, 2006

Expectations

Hmmm, isn't it funny how many times reality is different from expectations? The story of my life. Being married has far exceeded all my expectations. Austin is better than I expected, but things like traffic and the lack of truly quiet rural roads anywhere near the city is a mild letdown. But I've found other places to ride that make up for it.

So we shift to my latest project. I tore down Horse, and used the shifters from him to build up my Specialized Allez. So after all is said and done, Horse weighed 21.25 lbs in his last state, which is quite heavy. One of the guys at work rides a BMC which is 14.5 lbs., so you can see how much of a disadvantage I was at. Anyway, I spent a lot of time on this other bike, Jack O Lantern. Being aluminum, I thought it would be quite light. Today I rode it to work and weighed it, and it weighs 20.25 lbs. What !!?!! Ok, I can get the weight down some by throwing a carbon seatpost in, a lighter seat, a carbon stem and bars, but after that it's pretty much impossible to lighten this bike much more.

Now Horse is on the stand to be rebuilt in a lighter version. We'll see how that goes. I really should be more concerned with getting down to the weight I was in late May than trying to pare off weight from my bikes. Cheaper, too.

3 comments:

David Amulet said...

You can lead Horse to water, but you can't make him lose weight?

--david

Mike said...

True to both of you. Of course, now that I work in a bike shop, I have my pick of what I want, but no matter what, it still costs money. I'd do better to lose about 8 lbs, truth be told.

SK said...

No, no no. We like the extra weight on you. :) I still say you were too skinny before.