In between training these last couple of weeks I’ve been working on a project — I’m building a lightweight race bike based on Heather’s old Trek OCLV frameset. She had her Trek for years and years, then about three years ago, I noticed some thin cracks in the frame around the bottom bracket. Since Trek has a lifetime warranty for the original owner we took it into Idaho Mountain Touring (IMT) and had them send it to Trek. We got back a brand-spanking-new, red Trek 5500 OCLV 120! It has been Heather’s training bike since we got it back but since Heather’s getting a new race bike, her Javelin will become her training bike. So that means the Trek is free game for me to snatch up!

So I stripped it down and started picking out the parts. We had some items like the stem, handlebars, brakes, and wheels but I did have to bite the bullet and buy a Dura Ace 10-speed group. Today I finally completed the build and so I took it down to Reed Cycle for the official weighing in. I was hoping to get it under 15 pounds but I think the frame is heavier than I thought. When I got there Bill picked up the bike and guessed it would be 15 and a half. We put it on the scale and sure enough, it was 15.5 lbs even! Bill definitely has some experience in guesstimating bike weights! So compared to my Kestrel, with the same wheels this bike is at least a pound lighter. It is also noticeably stiffer when stomping on the pedals. But what it doesn’t have is the Kestrel’s incredible ability to dampen the high-frequency vibrations from all the scratch gravel roads around here. That’s OK since the Kestrel will be the training bike that I put on the big miles, and the Trek will only be used for “A” priority races. Boy, it’s sure nice to have a wife who’s scored tons of great equipment in her cycling heyday!