New Hardware

I've been riding my current cx bike for a few seasons now. That's what I've been thinking. Then I started thinking for real and realized that I bought it in the fall of 2004. And it was already used then. Not sure how much, but quite a bit. Originally it was made at Hot Tubes, but then the first owner got a D2 pro contract with Team Saturn, who had Lemond as their bike sponsor. Lemond did not make cross bikes at that time, so this bike was painted up to look like one. So it must be over ten years old. It's been pretty good, not a perfect fit, as the top tube is 59 cm. The guy it was built for is taller than me and has freakishly long arms. Normally I like a 57 cm top tube. The good news though is that the bike also had a very shallow seat tube angle, and about 18 cm of setback. I run the tip of my saddle 70 mm behind the BB; on that bike I had to push it forward quite a bit, thus shortening the effective top tube length. In fact, once I got a -17 degree stem, 100mm long, my points of contact were just about perfect despite the long top tube.


The old rig, fresh back from D2R2 duty.

Ten years is a long time though, and it's time for a new bike. Connections being what they are, something from Trek or Fisher was my best option. The 2010 Fisher Presidio is pretty sweet, with near perfect dimensions and cool sliding dropouts, but alas they are not going to be available for another few months. Besides that, the design has a rather high bottom bracket (shallow drop), and I prefer lower. Enter the 2009 Presidio at the top of the entry. The geo is a touch off ideal in some ways but I think it will work better than my Hot Tubes bike. The irony here is from what I've heard, this bike is actually a rebadged Lemond Poprad, fallout from the Trek-Lemond disputes. So I go from a cx bike that is not a Lemond but is painted like one to a cx bike that is a Lemond that is painted like something else. Got it?



Speaking of connections, who do I have to know to get MY picture on the side of the BOB Magic Bus? I am going to have to have a word with Duano. Thanks for reading.