Monday night should have been a rest day, but I couldn’t help myself.  I just had to get out and spin around.  The evening weather was just too nice.

The ride itself was nothing special just more or less a really mellow (i.e. 15mph) recovery tour on the DC surface streets.  What it did do was give me time to take in the scenery and think about the procurement of a race frame.

As hinted at in the prior couple of posts, the lust for a race frame started this past weekend and has been dominating my thoughts for the past few days.

The Zurich, for all its comfort and simple elegance, is not a race machine.  I found this out during last Saturday’s race finish after having sprinted the bejesus out of bike and body, taking special note of the major weaknesses in both.  The body…..well, I just need to ride more and ride a little harder.  The bike?   There’s not much you can do to milk more performance out of a steel frame.  If this were the 1980s and everyone was sprinting and climbing on a 19lb bike with boat loads of bottom bracket flex (I can hear chainring rub when I sprint), then I’d fit right in.  Since this is 2009, I can’t help but feel as though I “need” a stiffer, lighter and racier frame.  That being said, I still don’t regret parting with the Seven.  It seems a little strange, since the Seven fits the criteria just mentioned, but the bike just wasn’t me.  I don’t know if it was the aero downtube, the compact geometry, or the obnoxious paint job.  It just wasn’t really me.  I tried to really like it on account of how nice of a bike it was (the parts were certainly top shelf), but it just didn’t click.  I guess you have to be a pretty obsessive cyclist to get to this level of bike ownership analysis, but I’m just rolling with it.

Ok, so where am I going with all this?  What’s the point?

Well, I scored a new frame.  It’s another eBay transaction and I’m putting it in the “good deal” column.

I had been leaning toward going mainstream, getting a bike that most common folk would recognize…..maybe a mid-level Cannondale or a Giant.  I spent several hours on Saturday and Sunday, scouring auctions and classifieds, looking for something for a few hundred bucks.  Something that I could just migrate my tired, worn out and trusty Ultegra onto.  With our wedding approaching later this month, and thus knowing that cash is flowing out the door faster than in any prior point in my life….I know I can’t go all out building something up like I did with the Seven.  I can’t be out buying carbon anything.  So there was never really too much consideration for buying a bunch of high end parts.  As such, I didn’t want to target a frame that had too much of a trendy, techy 2009 look.  I needed something a bit more classic, with plenty of cachet, but something that wouldn’t look too underdressed in 2002-3 Ultegra.  I also wanted something that could jive well with some modern accoutrements once the wedding is behind us and the cash flow situation improves.  So what did I go with?

Well, I’m gonna leave it as a mystery until I can take some proper pictures and get going on the build.

Stay tuned for the full story, and frame pedigree will be revealed next week upon arrival.

You’re welcome to email me your guess in the meantime….