And it Begins...

Yesterday saw the close of registration to the 2007 TransRockies race (a record length of time) and today, through coincidence, brings the official start of my 40-week training plan for said race. Unfortunately, I'm back up to my post-crunch period weight (197.4 pounds) after spending the first half of the year about 10 pounds lighter, and exactly 20 pounds lighter after my dehydration-ified day on the Mountains to Sound course. So I have my work cut out for me. I won't bore you with the details other than the plan revolves around an average of 22 hours a week spent on the bike, with a couple of weeks approaching 35 hours in duration. The old axiom "quality over quantity" isn't really all that appropriate in this case. For this, it's quantity, quantity, and more quantity.

Ken came over Saturday and "window shopped" online with me for the Ellsworth Evolves were both going to be getting and helped me decide on components and other parts. Their prices seem ridiculously high, but the Competitive Cyclist website has nice drop-down menus for all of the parts you would need to build a bike up, complete with weight (in grams) and pricing. I wouldn't buy a bike from them for several reasons, but price is definitely the biggie. They're selling the Ellsworth Truth with Shimano LX componentry for $4095 whereas the Seattle REI has it built up with SRAM X-7 for $3295. All other parts seemed similar. So when their website spit out a pricetag of nearly $5k for the bike Ken and I configured, I took it with a grain of salt. I have no intentions of paying that much for a bike. Nor will I have to thanks to the ability to get better prices from REI (not to mention 10% back in store credit) plus all of the other great wholesale shops online like Pricepoint.com. Nevertheless, it was good to see that the 29er Evolve can easily be built up for our purposes and weigh only 26.4 pounds. That's sweet!

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