A couple of months ago, Mike DeSalvo sent out an email to see if there was any interest for a spare Shimano Dura Ace 7900 gruppo he had. I was intrigued. I have to say, I've never been really fond of the 7800 crankset - it looks like a big metal pie plate to me - I don't care how stiff it is. Despite the flashy anodized and brushed finish of the new series, I think the new crankset looks pretty decent. Anyway, I pulled the trigger, and I got an email from Mike today saying the parts should be here soon. Why such a long wait? - well, Mike allowed me to spec some of the parts, so I chose the 172.5 compact, the 11-28 cassette, and the braze-on front derailleur. Apparently, the crank and cassette took a while to get in. I'm curious how the 50/34 will work with the 11-28 (Shimano's widest range road cassette). Should be interesting.
Along with the Dura Ace parts, I'm also getting a set of Shimano RS-80 wheels. These have a carbon section bonded to the aluminum rim. The difference between these wheels, and say Zipps, is that the carbon is actually structural in the Shimano wheels. Check out the review.
And in more bike news, my 2009 Speedvagen is in paint and should be here soon also. Vanilla built a few (4) extra road frames for this year's run, so I was lucky to get the last spare frame they had. Sadly, pale blue ('minty fresh') was not offered this year, so I went with 'celery soup'. It'll look similar to the frame in this picture.
In any case, I guess it'd be logical to mate the new frame to the new parts. We'll see if I get Campy withdrawal. If so, I'm sure I can find someone who needs to upgrade their drivetrain (Glenn - hint, hint).
No comments:
Post a Comment