Yesterday, I got my new wheels that I've been waiting about 3 days for. They're pretty much your run of the mill aluminum clincher wheelset, but for me they're a pretty significant upgrade because I seemingly try to find the shittiest, most bombed out wheels I can find to put on my bike. Witness the last two sets I've been racing on, in reverse chronological order:
1. Bontrager Race wheels (~$250 retail) with tires so thick and puncture resistant that you really only need to pump them up to about 20 psi to ride on them...
...which are a lot nicer than...
2. Rear 8 speed 105 hub, front mid 90s (that's 1990s) Deore XT hub with slotted out spoke holes, laced 3x to $40 rims with bladed spokes cut out from a warranteed wheel from work, which I rode for the longest time with a broken axle even though I just thought the front QR was bent which was why it was so hard to get it into the wheel.
There's a pretty big discussion about irony over on bikeportland.org and bikesnobnyc, so I guess I'm liking the idea of being ironic by putting crappy wheels on nice carbon bikes (I should point out that we're talking about Alanis-Morrisette-irony, not Ethan-Hawke-Reality-Bites-irony).
Along with my new wheels, I got something I'm even more excited about: a Dura Ace 10 speed 12-21 straight block cassette. Yeah, that's right, that's 12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20- and 21. I really like how it looks. And since I choose my gearing for the day depending on my mood, I now have proper gearing for both "happy" and "morning mist".
Ok, that's a lot of talk about bikes. I'm also excited to read this book I got today, the Commons by Jonathon Franzen. Mostly because I like the Simpsons episode where Moe goes to a literature conference. Franzoooooooooooooone!
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