August 7th
Today I picked it up. The finished build. Glorious. Halleluja. The Soloist is done. Day marked, crossed, noted, done. Next will be - how does it ride
Musings on Cycling
Bodensee Radmarathon -129 days. On September 12 this year, my good friends J and M and I will start the Bodensee Radmarathon: 220 km around Lake Constanc...
Latest posts
Yes - and No
My build is still at the LBS. Local Bike Shop. Long story. Let's say ... or maybe lets rather not. In the meantime, stage 16 was underway. They have entered the Alps. The second rest day was a few days ago. On the first - incidentally - Cervelo did a thing. Yes. They did. They announced a new Soloist. Two new colors: One is white, the other is sparkles and black smarties. Or something similar.…
Day 0 - And also Stage 2
Today I deliver my bicycle parts to my LBS. Yesterday was Stage 2 of the TdF: UAE strike back. Tadej tells Isaac del Toro where to push on the last descent on stage 2 and guides him to win the stage. Very smart. Tadej takes a few seconds back over Jonas. Smart, well done. It’s a race
12 Days in June
It has taken me 12 days - most of them in June - to make most of the decisions to complete my Soloist build. The only really important outstanding questions are the saddle and the cassette. 11 - 30 or 11 - 32. Big or small decision, depending on how you look at it. Saddle too. I like the one I have on my R3, the classic Fizik Arione Triflex. Pretty enough and tested. Maybe a different model would…
The Ride is the Ride
Yesterday the frame arrived. It actually did. A 61cm Burnt Amaranth Cervélo Solist Frame. Giddy as a Birthday Child I unpacked. There are few joys as deep and as joyful as unpacking a new set of wheels. Which in this case didn’t even come with wheels. It’s just the frame - and fork and seatpost. Of course. Now my original plan had been to secure the frame first. Why? I wanted the 2025 model in…
Going Slow
We are cyclists. Road cyclists. The point is not to go slow. Quite the opposite. Yet. All training advice is that you need Zone 2 work. Aerobic base work. Build the engine. The adaptation you need to sustain your speed. Yesterday I went slow. My shortened route - 30k - in just over an hour: 1 hr 10 minutes. Slow. And here’s the thing. You need to learn to enjoy slow. Hold back, hold in. Compound.…
A Day in Amaranth
A big day today. After weeks of to-ing and fro-ing I went ahead and did it. I pulled the trigger on a 61cm Dried Amaranth Cervelo Soloist frameset. Many decisions will follow. As will - surely - many a post here.
Down we go
A few day ago I brought my beloved and trusty R3 to the bike shop. The gears needed proper indexing, my hubs were not as tight as I wanted them. In short, my bike needed an inspection. The other reason I went there was because…. As every cyclist knows the answer to the perennial questions of how many bike one should own is: n+1. With n being the number of bikes one already has. This is only…
Not Fade Away
I rode my first 200 in 2016, it was with my Audax friends. This meant a very leisurely pace, and a very pleasant long day in the saddle: 10 hours and 44 minutes of moving time, 14 hours in total. Apparently it didn't scare me off, for I've done five subsequent double centuries since. Corona years were excluded. Last year I rode two, a beautiful flat and fairly quick 200 in the Spreewald in April,…