Saturday, March 1, 2014

Introducing: Acinonyx

My previous steed treated me the best she could, but it was time that Gravitas Libertas and I went our separate ways. I had been lusting for carbon for a while and finally let myself use the old bike's badly bent rear triangle to justify the purchase.

After a somewhat sketchy feeling transaction with the folks over at Dengfu and some not so patient waiting my new frame finally arrived.

Here she is on her first day out of the box:
She's a FM098 in size 58cm and a matte 3k finish. Went with the BSA bottom bracket. I didn't really know what to expect ordering direct from China, but I'm more than pleased with the way it looks (and rides). I named her Acinonyx, which is the genus name of the cheetah. I think sprinters are pretty comparable to cheetahs as we can go way fast for a short burst, but expect a long effort out of us and we're toast.

She arrived in the middle of trainer season, so I was in no hurry to get it built up. Plus, I was waiting on new cables, bartape, and the like. Additionally, I had ordered some custom decals from Marco in Brazil that I was still waiting on.

Eventually the time came and I sat down to build it up. Everything went fairly smoothly, although the internal cable routing was a pain. I had hoped to get some solid outdoor miles on it before our first race at Lindsey Wilson, but the weather had other plans. I ended up only being able to put 13 miles on it before we headed down to Kentucky.



So needless to say I was a little nervous when I lined up for our 50 mile road race. The frame didn't explode into a billion carbon shards and passed the crit with flying colors as well. I don't want to give too much away though since those race recaps will be coming soon!

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