Sunday, April 17, 2011

Good Week and the Superfly!

My first mountain bike (I no longer have) in the top photo, and my new Superfly (from the Trek website) in the lower photo. Ok, straight to the meat and potatoes of this blog post...The 2011 Trek Superfly. I don't even know where to start with this. The bike just rocks, plain and simple. Full carbon frame, excellent wheelset, great Sram X9 groupset with Shimano crank, sweeeet Fox fork, and great Avid Elixir R brakeset. There are two levels of Superfly bikes. The one I have, which is the lower model, and the high model, appropriately named the Superfly Elite. Both bikes share the same frame, however the Elite is spec'd with higher level components. For the money though, the regular Superfly is unbelieveable. Fast, stiff, sturdy, durable, this thing has it all. I couldn't be more happy with this bike. Like I told the guys at the shop, this is the first time I've EVER noticed such a big difference in the way a bike allows me to perform. I've been riding a Trek Paragon (the model just below the Superfly in Trek/Fisher's 29er line-up) for a few weeks and loved it. It's everything a good bike should be: comfy, responsive, and fun. The Superfly, though, blew past even my wildest expectations. Right out of the box it was a fistfull of FREAKIN' AWESOME! I still can't get over how light this bike is, and that's with the heavy Shimano crank. With a few minor upgrades, including carbon bars, a carbon seatpost, and swapping out the heavier Shimano crank for an XT Crank I have, This thing would be pretty damn close to 20 lbs. That's almost lighter than my road bike! Ok, not quite, but you get the point:). So far I've got about 7 hours on the bike. I can't say enough good things and I'm excited to find how much more enjoyment I'll get out of this bike once I race it! Ok, so now on to my week... Nothing all that special, just got work done. Training has been going well, and though I'm tired from a bit more intensity, the body is adapting. I'm actually scared of how strong I am on the bike. I've never had so much power and it literally freightens me how fast I can go and how long I can sustain it. It's like a gnarly drug that needs to be regulated. I have so much fun going so fast, particularly on the road, but I really need to have enough discipline to ride easy when I'm meant to, and hard when I'm meant to. There really can't afford to be any "grey" area in there where I just ride hard all the time. It's easy (and fun) to get carried away, so I've gotta train smart. It's just too bad I've never felt this way about swimming!:) Things are also coming together regarding a trip across the pond to Spain to see Anne. It's been waaaaaay too long (hell, 5 minutes is too long!) and I can't wait to see her. Unfortunately it won't be a super long stay (most likely only around 3 weeks), but at least we'll make the most of it I'm certain. With that, I'm also able to finally get around to planning some sort of race schedule. In addition to XTERRA, I'm really eyeing some of the NUE series, as well a a couple other 50 and 100 mile races. There's one that I'd love to get out to Colorado for, but money might prevent that from becoming a reality. Saving is priority numero uno, so some sacrifices might have to be made in that regard. Fortunately, there are some good races close to home I can gun for. I'm hoping to hash things out race-wise in the coming week, and post my races up on this blog soon. I really wanna take advantage of my cycling this season, both in XTERRA and Endurance races.

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