Me and my Bitch

This is me and my Bitch, er...triathlon bike. This was taken before a ride this past August. It was a nice day, and I only needed to ride a couple of hours, so I thought what the hell, I'll wear panties and throw on the disk wheel. If I remember correctly, I had tons o' fun on the ride, even while I had to do HIM and IM wattage intervals, ending with the tough-as-nails big gear, low-cadence, leg-crushing intervals. And then I got to run 40' off the bike, still wearing the panties!

I love my Bitch. Her frame is made of boron carbide. She's undergone some changes over the years (she was born in 2001), most notably carbon-ization. I have Cane Creek Chrono carbon race wheels (with titanium spokes!), that I got in 2001, got the HED disk wheel in 2002 (I have yet to use it in an Ironman, but I'm thinking it's going to Brazil next May) and got the Oval aerobars in 2004. Funny story about the aerobars--I had just bought an SRM and had it installed on my bike. When they mounted the rather large Power Meter (the unit that displays all the pretty numbers while you're riding) on the existing aerobars, I realized there wouldn't be room to shove an aerobottle in there. The LBS owner told me Oval made aerobars that had a mount just for a Power Meter and that they would have room for the aerobottle. I looked at them and he asked me whether I wanted aluminum or carbon, and the way I figured, $300/$500, may as well get carbon!

Last summer I had my bike fit re-analyzed, and this resulted in the bars being dropped, as you can see from the photo.

My next carbon-ization purchase is going to be the FSA Compact Crank/SRM combo that isn't even available yet, but you can see it here. If I get that, it's going on the Bitch, and then my existing SRM is going to a new road bike. Haven't decided what THAT will be, but I'm not spending more than $2,000 on it.