Happy Birthday To Me

Coming to a road near you—middle of next week, probably—is this fine Raleigh Competition, my entrée into carbon fiber. I plan to swap out the Mavic Aksium wheelset for my Easton EA70s; the Aksiums will be fine indoor trainer wheels, but they’re too heavy otherwise. I’ll also swap out the 100mm stock stem for my 110mm Easton EA70. The saddle is a question mark but if the new one doesn’t work out I can steal the old one from the OCR1. And I’ll need pedals, probably just another pair of Shimano M505s, which is what I already use on both of my Giants. Drivetrain? I’m going from Ultegra/105 9-speed compact triple to Ultegra/105 10-speed compact. So, I’m expecting a lighter and more rigid bike with crisper shifting. Can’t wait for that first long day on the road and that first charge up a challenging hill!

In one sense I’m getting back to my roots: my first real road bike was a Raleigh Rapide. It wasn’t a bad bike for the 1980s, but I got it at about the same time I got my driver’s license and I never did get as much use out of the bike as I thought I would. I sold it in 1988 rather than move it with me back to Pennsylvania. After that, I didn’t own another bicycle until 2003! What was I thinking?