Bicycle blog

So it is supposed to be a bicycle blog after all don"t you know? But with the coming of February there now have been two complete months during which I have ridden zero miles. February is likely to make it three complete months. On the bright side I am willing to predict that there is a very low probability that the streak will reach four months. I expect at least a couple of rides and a few miles in March.

My residual fitness has not slipped as much this year as in some years past. I spin for 20 or 25 minutes four or five times per week on the stationary bike in the basement. My legs still feel pretty good, I think, although any ride of greater than 25 minutes will obviously involve issues.

Further, even though my fitness has not slipped as much as in some years past, the fact is that last year I never felt that I achieved the level of fitness that I achieved in other years. The certainty in all of this is that when outdoor bicycling begins it will be an adventure.

To begin the return to the bicycle theme I am going to run a series on a couple of my bikes. I am pleased to be the owner of two of the nicest bikes on the planet and today I begin to introduce one of them.I bought the frame at the 2004 end of the season warehouse sale of the local bicycle chain store. I ended up in face to face negotiation with the owner of the chain. I bought the frame for $200 less than wholesale. The owner remarked that he was paying me $200 to take the frame out of his warehouse.

It is a Look KG381i. The year of manufacture for this frame it was the team frame of the CSC Professional Bicycle Team. They switched to Cervelo the following year. The KG381i is the frame that Tyler Hamilton rode on that famous one day solo breakaway victory in the Tour de France in, I think, 2003. That Tyler Hamilton ride was, of course, the foreshadow of the great Floyd Landis solo breakaway of 2006 that resulted in Floyd's positive drug test and disqualification. Being as Tyler tested positive after the 2003 season I suppose the thing to believe is that Tyler's breakaway may have had the same fuel as Floyd's 2006 ride.

In any case, there isn't any reason to blame the bike. It is a fabulous frame, it fits me, it is full carbon tubes and fork, it weighs nothing, nothing at all.

I bought it as you see it here, bare frame. I selected and purchased all of the components individually and therefore ended up with just exactly the bike I wanted. I built it up myself.

Tune in to watch the step by step process.