Getting Race Ready: 73 Days and Counting....

The wait is finally over. Yesterday was one of the longest shifts of my 21-year career as a firefighter! All day, I was thinking about the fact that my bike...you know, the one that I have been waiting on for nearly six months...was sitting in a box in my house. I actually considered taking the remainder of the shift off, so that I could head home and check out my new toy. Then reality hit...it's just a bike, right? I had a job to do, and my bike could certainly wait. After all, I had waited this long...what was another twenty-some hours?

My pooch Chloe is so excited she cant keep her head still!

This morning when I got home, the box was waiting for me just inside the front door. It was smaller than I had imagined, and when I began to unpack it, I thought they had only sent me the frame and wheelset. But as I unpacked more of the cardboard, the wonderful little components began to appear. First, the shifters, then the brakes, the handlebars, the cranks, tires, saddle, stem, seatpost, grips...and finally, the fork. You remember the fork right? The fork that I almost didn't get? Thankfully they included it, as it would cost me nearly $1000 to purchase. Thank God...it was all there! All I wanted to do was get to work building my new race machine...but first, I had to do some training with one of my clients. Patience, patience.

I couldn't wait to unpack it...I didn't even change out of my uniform!

Once I was finished training, I got right to work on the bike. This is my first attempt at assembling a bike like this from scratch. I have rebuilt a number of bikes over the years now, but this was something different...I would be building the bike that I would be racing on...pretty cool huh? Donna was surprised that I wouldn't just pack it all back up, and take it to my local bike store, where they would put it all together for me. No way! I was really looking forward to building this little masterpiece all by myself!

There is however, one task that I am unable to do. Install the headset. The headset is a set of bearings that are pressed into the frame, which act as an anchor of sorts, for both the forks and handle bars. To install this, I would need to take my new bike frame and fork to the bike store, and let the mechanic use his special tools to press the headset into the frame. I dropped it off at the store, and three hours later it was ready.

What a cool looking frame

One of my beautiful new Ellsworth Wheels

I spent a good portion of the day trying to convert the tires to a tubeless setup. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so, and will need to go buy a different set of tires tomorrow, which will allow me to convert this bike to tubeless. You might be asking yourself "What is tubeless?" Traditionally, bike tires have used inner tubes to inflate the tire on the rim, and keep it full of air. In recent years however, the trend for mountain bikes has been to remove the tube, thus eliminating unwanted weight, but also enabling the tires to be run at much lower pressures. Running the tires at lower pressures creates more surface area contact between the tire and the ground, allowing the bike to handle much better at higher speeds. Unfortunately, some rims and tires are not compatible with this new system. Hence the reason why I will need to purchase two new tires tomorrow.

I hope to be finished building my bike tomorrow, but it may run into next week...this is something that must not be rushed...like I said before...I've waited this long, so I can wait a little longer. Check out the pictures of the great Ellsworth Bike Build, thus far...