It's done ! Well...actually it's been done for a while : )

Midway through May I purchased the last piece of componentry required to build up the bike. I received the SRAM Red shift levers in the mail at work on a Friday and set to it that night to begin building the bike. I got most everything together, but as it was getting late, so I left the fine tuning portions such as cable running and bar tape, etc for the morning. After that, it was off to the local bike shop to cut the steer tube off and voilà the bike was done.

So this blogging thing isn't always the easiest thing to keep up with. There's just one thing about finishing a bike build. You start riding the bike !!! And when you get to ride a bike as awesome as this one has been for me, well...you don't spend much time writing about it. Can you blame me?

So here we are, it's now early October and a lot has happened since I started riding my bike. I raced the local Thursday night crit at Seward Park all this last spring and summer. Things went well so I went out for the weekend races. Over the spring and summer, I got to race in 6 sanctioned races; finishing 5 of the 6 and winning the races I finished. Keep in mind this is only category 5 at this point. I had my first crash. The bike and I survived, well the bike managed better than I did, but I feel lucky since it was in the rain which made the pavement much more forgiving than it would have been when dry. So I've experienced my first bit of road rash and ripped cycling shorts...I don't recommend it for those that don't like pain, but it's just part of racing.

Throughout racing, I got to meet a lot of cool people! The bike riding / racing community is an excellent bunch of people who love to better themselves and who love to get out and just be competitive. Among the people I got to meet, were a number of members of different Seattle based cycling teams. One of which was called Lenovo cycling, but this next year is named Kryki Sports Cycling Team (www.krykisports.com). They are a highly competitive group of riders who is headed up by a guy named Mike Hone. It's been around for I think 4 years now and well, in my mind, they were the team to be on. I got in touch with Mike, who encouraged me to race in the weekend races and I gave him updates on my performances. After he returned from photographing the Tour dé France, we spoke again and he was happy to have me join up with the team.

So that's pretty much where I am now. For now, the team has Saturday relaxed winter rides. We'll start training up for the 2011 season in January. I was able to upgrade to category 4 at the end of this last racing season and I'm excited for this next season to move up categories as quickly as possible to get challenged by more experienced riders and help out the team however I can.

This is basically the end of this particular blog site, but I plan on starting up a racing blog to keep whoever cares to read up to date.

Thanks for reading! Enjoy the build pics and see you later - Jeff