What I go through to buy a bike

I fell in love with this bike from the first time I saw it late last year in a Velonews ad. When it became a reality (financially) to buy a new bike I hem-hawed between the Transition and a Trek TTX. I don't remember the exact model, but it was the blue one. I kind of forgot about buying a bike until the prologue of Paris-Nice was on tv and the Transition was under Quick Step and Gerolstiener. It reminded me how much I liked how it looked and the process began.

Trying to pick the right model became the issue. I chose the lowest end bike (Comp) and figured I would swap all the gear from my current time trial bike to it. Phone call after phone call after unsuccessful phone call, it looked like all my key races would be over before I would even own the bike due to supply/demand issues.

After a post last week on SlowTwitch, I found out that Fraser's bike shop north of Detroit had the Expert model in my size. A couple of phone calls and an internal debate later, I put a hold on it. I had to sit there for an hour with pictures of both the Comp (carbon/yellow) and the Expert (white/red) to determine if I liked the white one as much or better. The Expert has better components and therefore was more expensive by about $800. The Comp was a mix of Ultegra and 105, whereas the Expert is a mix of Ultegra and Dura-Ace. The wheels were also an upgrade, but that doesn't matter as I plan to sell those as soon as I find a buyer.

Tuesday morning started the 4 hour drive to Detroit. I also scheduled a FIST fitting and thought that would take 2 hours or so. Once at the shop, they started the dynamic fit as was asked "did you plan on taking the bike home today???" I explained my situation and my lack of desire to repeat an 8 hour round trip of driving and they worked hard to get my bike ready for me. Typically, they do the dynamic fit, then after the customer leaves, they make all the bike modifications (cutting aero bars, seatpost, swap stems, etc). Then the customer comes back to finish the fit days later on the bike and dial in the cleats. Well, we did that all on Tuesday.

4 hour drive, 4 hour fit, 4 hour drive home. All that on just one Venti Americano.

Yesterday morning I swapped the wheels out, changed cassette and installed the power tap and took it for it's first ride. Since there was a wind out of the south, I headed to my favorite 20 minute interval spot that mostly to the north. Unfortunately, due to the crazy seat stay my install didn't go so great and the power tap kept dropping out on me (fixed that later that night). Regardless, it didn't hamper the ride. The main thing I noticed was that I was more aero than on my other tt bike, but not at a comfort cost. That was weird. MORE aero and MORE comfortable?!? This bike is pretty fast. Too bad there's no time trial this weekend!

Hopefully, the power tap re-install will keep the dropouts from happening. I'll find out today.