Getting it done?

I shoveled myself out of the house earlier this week and now it is getting warmer. -4f at 6 in the morning is refreshing, but it has been warming to the low 20's by the afternoon.

I ordered an FSA headset from Village Pedaler the other day and it came today. Gary popped it in and had it waiting when I showed up after work.

After combing the interweb I have come to the conclusion that the 48f is a decent bike, but perhaps poorly designed. It's like a high school drafting class project that was forwarded to a factory in China. While it looks pretty it does have a few flaws. It is my humble opinion an 18" 29er frame should have two sets of water bottle braze-ons. The 48f only has one set. A seatpost mount might take care of that for now. If not, I'll look into having Cannondale rivet-style bosses popped into the seat tube.

Another flaw is the down tube. The hydroformed tubing looks massive and strong, but the way everything meets behind the head tube leaves little room for the fork crown if the bars get spun in a crash. But then who plans on crashing?

Other who have had Rebas on the front have said it hits the down tube. I doubt I'll be putting my Reba on it after looking at the clearance it has with the Bontrager Race. Before taking it home I put it on the scale at VP. With the cranks, BB, fork, HS, pedals, seatpost, seat and stem it weighed in at 11#. 

It's difficult to tell what it weighs now, but it feels scary light. With the Origin 8 Space Bars to give my hands the same familiar points of contact as the Fe2+ and the wheels from Russell, it feels nice. As for the blue chain, Sephie picked it out at YJ on Monday so I'll be proudly wearing the paint off it all season.

The Fe2+ is sitting by the liquor cabinet, waiting for me to put Stan's in the tires and get the multi speed bits off and quickly.