2nd Ride: Giant 2008 TCR C2...

I got back from my 30 mile loop around 360 on my new Giant TCR. After logging 50 miles over 2 days, I can say the ride quality is really amazing compared to bikes I rode 5 to 10 years ago. It is somehow stiffer and does a great job absorbing the bumps in the road for a smooth, comfortable ride at the same time. This has always been a trade off with road frames. There's an article about this here.

The latest generation of frames and wheels do an amazing job of both. It takes off when sprinting and is remarkable smooth over rough pavement. This bike begs to be ridden hard. Put the hammer down and it responds instantly.

It's handling is very responsive, yet stable. You probably wouldn't want to ride down the rode in a trance, but the handling rewards attentiveness with an ability to be chucked instantly into corners. This is after all a race bike first and foremost, but its comfortable and stable enough for anyone that likes to ride hard even if you aren't competing. 

I did plenty of 30+ mph efforts and hit 45 mph coming down the hill to the 360 bridge and sprinted uphill on the bridge at 30 mph, and I can say that high speed stability is great and inspires confidence. I would have no problems bombing down a mountain at 50 mph on this bike.

The Mavic Aksium Race wheelset is great. It's much more aerodynamic and smoother rolling than than standard Mavic Open Pro 32 straight gauge spokes I usually run. It features only 20 bladed spokes on both the front and rear wheel. The wheels are clearly superior than the standard wheelset both in aerodynamics and smoothness. It was quite windy today and I didn't have any handling issues with crosswinds. The only concern I have is durability because of the low spoke count. But only time and miles will tell how well these wheels hold up.

The only thing that I need to work on is my position. As with every new bike, I tried to copy my position from my old bike, but there's always that few weeks where I need to tweak my position in order to feel comfortable. Something is still a little "off" (I'm not sure what yet) with my position, and I'm going to need a couple weeks to sort it all out.

Giant 2008 TCR C2 Walk Around...

I was playing around in iMovie trying to put together some video. I managed to add a voice over and add a music track. I'm no video editing expert, but just trying to play around with the software. There is an HD version available too if you click on the video.

Also, check out photos of this bike on my flickr page.

Giant 2008 TCR C2 Road Bike. First Ride.

After riding my 2002 Giant aluminum TCR for 6 years, it finally bit the dust. Back in 2002, I destroyed my brand new steel Bianchi after a couple months by crashing in a race. I had a 2001 and a 2002 Giant TCR aluminum frame. There wasn't any particular reason for me to get one. They were cheap ($600 frame/fork/headset), light, and rode surpassingly nice considering the price. I destroyed my 2001 several months ago by driving into a parking garage while it was still on the roof. I destroyed the bike and the roof rack.  I know, please tell me what an idiot I am. :( My 2002 Giant finally bit the dust when a car backed into in the parking garage of my condo.

The Giant TCR was surprisingly nice ride for a race bike, especially one made out of aluminum. The ride wasn't harsh like the old Cannondales. In fact, it was quite comparable to a stiff steel frame. The handling was much quicker than my 1999 Jamis Eclipse, but still quite stable. What stood out about it was the acceleration. It was noticeably better than anything I had ridden before.

I decided to go with another Giant since I had been riding this for so long and didn't want to mess with my setup. I was quite happy with my Giant TCR and getting a new bike set up has always been a hassle, so I decided to just get the same frame to make transitioning to the new bike as easy as possible.

My old bike was a medium, which was a bit too small. But back then, there was only small, medium, and large. Now they have a medium large, which seems perfect for my 6 ft. frame.

This bike is a 2008 TCR C2. I got it at University Cycles for $2000. It was 10% of the list price as they are getting closing out their 2008 line. The 2009 version is much more expensive as the bike industry have raised prices across the board for this year. It features Giant's monocoque one piece full carbon frame, a full Ultegra drivetrain, and Mavic Aksium wheelset. The bike is not particularly light. After adding my Speedplay Zero stainless pedals, water bottle cages, and Cateye wireless computer, and my saddle (a Bel Air SDG that I've been using for the last 10 years) the total weight comes to around 19.5 lbs

I finished my first 20 mile ride today and my first impression is, WOW! It rides and handles very much like my old aluminum TCR, but much smoother and well behaved way. That's the first thing I notice about it. There's much less road feel since it absorbs the bumps in the road so well. I thought the TCR aluminum frame was fairly plush, but this frame is so much smoother. In fact, it's so smooth that it feels like I'm going slower, but one look at the cyclometer shows that I'm going a bit faster if anything. I easily got it up over 30 mph many times, and I'm not in particularly great shape.

Handling is very quick, but a tad more relaxed than my old bike. After all, this is a size larger than my old bike, which results in a longer wheelbase, longer top tube, and slightly more relaxed seat angle. I did a handful of sprints and I can say out of the saddle acceleration is noticeably quicker than my old TCR bike. The ride and handling of any road bike is determined mainly by the wheels and the frame. The improvements on the wheelset and frame are quite noticeable after 6 years. The handles quickly without being twitchy. I got it up to 35 mph riding back into town on 2244 and it was very stable.

The drivetrain is standard Shimano Ultegra. I'm glad to finally be back riding Shimano. This is the first time that I have ridden Shimano 10 speed drivetrain. I have been riding Campy for the past 8 years and the quirks to get annoying. The good thing about Campy is that things can usually be fixed or rebuilt if they break. The bad is that it usually is pretty expensive for parts. Meanwhile, Shimano stuff generally needs to be replaced when it breaks. The shifting on the Shimano is very smooth and the action is very light. The shifting action on Campy does require more force on the levers and the action is much louder. Both work well if adjusted well, but my feeling is that it's much easier to use the Shimano drivetrain. It's also easier to find parts and accessories to work with Shimano. Overall, it's an improvement over my 2003 Campy Chorus drivetrain. The downside is that none of my rear wheels will work with this bike!

Those are my first impressions. I'll write more about this bike as I spend more time with it, but if you have any questions, just email me.

Driving Into Mexico...

If you are ever driving into Mexico, remember to bring your car registration or title if you intend to drive past the border towns. You also need to buy Mexican car insurance, which was $30 for 2 days.

You need a physical document to show the border people in order to get a vehicle permit. In Texas, our car registration is a window sticker. If the police stop you in Texas, the police only need the sticker on the windshield. I thought that would do, but it was not enough. You need the piece of paper that the sticker comes on, which I no longer had since I threw it out. I didn't bring my title to the vehicle either. If you do not get a vehicle permit, you will be stopped by Mexican border patrol in ski masks, armed with machine guns at about 30 miles past the border. They will send you back to the border to get a permit. Therefore, we ended up taking a bus from Nuevo Laredo (Mexican side). It was actually not bad at all and more comfortable that driving in my car. It costs around $8 each way for the 2.5 hour bus ride. Once you get into Monterrey, taxi's are a great way to get around. They are very inexpensive, usually $4 to $6 to get anywhere we wanted to go.

Otherwise, it was quite simple to get into Mexico with a US passport. There is no inspection to cross into Mexico, but surroundings do feel a bit ghetto. There will be people eager to point you in the right direction (and they want $2 for their trouble), but just follow the blue signs that say vehicle permits. Here you will pay $20 to get a visa (just a form) and get a vehicle permit, which we could not do because I did not have my vehicle registration.

We were fortunate enough to find someone who spoke English to take us to the bus terminal in Nuevo Laredo. It does take some effort to find someone who speaks English once you cross the border. I would find a friend that speaks Spanish. People are friendly and eager to help, but it would make life a lot easier to have someone who is fluent in Spanish with you. 

It is about 250 miles and 4 hour drive from Austin to Laredo and another 2.5 hours from the border to Monterrey. The total travel time would be about 7 to 8 hours including transfers, assuming you don't get held up like we did.

ScanCafe.Com.

I just got my order in from ScanCafe.com. This service is pretty cool for those of us that have a huge collection of film. I've been in photography for over 15 years and I have a large collection of film. I did own a Nikon Coolscan 3, and I scanned many pictures with that film scanner, but it was not practical to scan everything. It just took too long.

But here's an ingenious idea. Send all your film to ScanCafe. They ship your images to India and will scan each 35mm picture for $.29 cents at 3000 dpi with Nikon film scanners. They will scan at 4000 dpi for another 9 cents. The turnaround time isn't fast. It will take about a month, so this won't work for time critical photos. The quality is excellent, however. Here's a sample picture, which was shot on Fuji Provia slide film back in 2004 on my Caribbean cruise.

Pic 1

Pic 2

You can get the full size versions by clicking on the "All Sizes" link.

Ringing in 2009

Well, it's 2009 and I finally was able to add a blog entry. Some updates on what I've been doing.

• I got a new electric scooter to zip around downtown. Parking is so bad downtown.
• Got my road bike smashed by some car in the parking garage. It's an old bike, but still, I need to buy a new one. :(
• Austin SSC is awesome. I love my wiffleball and dodgeball teammates. I highly recommend it if you like sports and want to meet new people.
  
• I finally feel as if I have a group of friends I really relate to. It does take a while when moving to a new city and knowing no one.
• I'm going to start shooting more video now that YouTube has hi def 720p video! It looks really good. I've got the Aiptek HD GVS coming in today.

I can't believe it's already 2009. Time just seems to pass faster as I get older.