Tour de France Fitting & Cleaning

Like many of you, I spent much of last weekend watching the final 2 stages of Le Tour.  After watching the final GC solidify during Saturday's TT, Mrs. Suitcase and I went to a cool art show in our town and enjoyed the beautiful summer weather.

Saturday evening SDC came over to help me dial in a new, more aggressive position on the bike.  I'd been feeling for a while that the "cockpit" was too restricted and figured all I needed was maybe a longer stem.  Some other racers had also remarked on the five (5!) spacers between my stem and the top of the steering tube, noting that it looked like my bars were too high.  So it was time to make some changes.

Bottom line: Seat raised 17mm & moved forward 10mm, bar lowered 25mm, stem extended from 100mm to 120mm.

You might think such dramatic changes would take some getting used to.  Surprisingly, after a test ride Saturday night and then a longer ride this morning, I only notice a little more work on my hamstrings and the front end feels a lot "heavier" (due to the bars being further out over the hub).  While it's trickier making slow turns (e.g. on a sidewalk), cornering at high speed seems much more stable.  Also surprisingly, my back - which you would think would be dying from the more-bent-over position - actually feels better.

I haven't done my long commute with this position yet - but I'm planning on racing it tonight, so we'll see how it works!

With the new position dialed in, I figured it was a good time to give my bike some TLC.  I'd ordered a new chain and SDC had graciously loaned me the special Campy tool needed to install it.  Of course, you're not going to put a nice bright new chain on dirty chainrings and cogs, so I had to clean those.  And at that point you might as well clean everything else - even down to applying (appropriately named) Bike Lust to the frame.

This all takes time though - and what better way to spend that time than having the final stage of the Tour de France on TV in the background:

Once I got everything nice and cleaned and the new chain installed, I made some brake adjustments and put the wheels back on (with new red Vittoria Rubino tires - thanks for the recommendations!)
 

Nice!

Cassette purdy as a picture - so I took one.  And, yes, I actually took off all the cogs and cleaned between each tooth (like flossing, usually overlooked).

Ditto the chainrings - removed, thoroughly cleaned, replaced.  Like new.  Beautiful. 

Here's the bike after installing new chain and wheels last October. . .

And here it is last night - note cool new Thomson Masterpiece seatpost & Elite bottle cages.  Those, along with the raised saddle and lowered bars, make it look more like an acutal racing bike.

Now I'll see if I can actually race it.