Bikeman gets a new Cockpit and an Upgrade!

First things first.  After the results from this past weekend, I applied, and received my upgrade to Cat 3.  Because of this upgrade, I have been told I also will be racing in the Men's B for the remainder of the Collegiate season.

After the last weekend of racing and hard sprinting, I took apart my whole cockpit to find that my stem had cracked on the lower bolt mount for the steerer tube.  This crack confirmed the novelty of using a full carbon cockpit.  The loss of power due to the flex of the carbon handlebars and stem negate the savings in potential weight.  Those grams can just as easily be shaven by riding a little further every week.

This said, I hunted down some full alloy handlebars and equally stiff stem.  The result, full Ritchey WCS cockpit.  I went with the 400mm Ritchey LogicII Triple Butted Alloy Handlebars, with the 90mm Ritchey WCS Wide clamp stem.  So far, the change in components has been a positive one.  I also took the chance to re-wrap the handlebars and throw some new hoods onto the shifters.  Here's the result.

New Ritchey WCS Cockpit with FUBAR Orange Tape and XON Blue Hoods