Kuota Kross

So i figured: I have to go to work every day of the week and my new place (actually the old place: airport Frankfurt) is just 20km away. Why not use the commute as a base building exercise. I had done the stretch on my way to a short 55km round I do sometimes (See here), however its not too comfortable with a road bike. Some dirt stretches and a lot of zig-zagging for decent roads. The plan was / is to build up a cross bike to make the rides around Frankfurt (a lot of woods with trails but no asphalt) more enjoyable. Getting the parts was a nightmare and the guy who built it up the first time is a total goof - he may know his bikes but his accuracy and punctuality are a pain in the ass. I scoured the net for decent cross bikes, and part of the plan was to spend some of last year's bonus as a thank you to myself ;-) So finally after trying some Ridleys (too short) and Scott (not stiff enough) models, I tried a Kuota. Wow. Nice frame, super movement but stiff as my Colnago alloy! This is what it looked like, when I picked it up in December:

Where do I start? The guy didn't have the saddle I wanted, the wheels, the crankset, ... I was soooo frustrated. Still, I have to say, he at least put on the spare parts he had... see how there's a Shimano crankset (dorky), the wheels were supposed to be the CX version - he gave me an old set of roadies. The Deda Zero bar is mounted the wrong way around... So, slowly getting there:

I added the sleek Look carbon holder, I'm still stuck with the Shimano crankset, but I got this beautiful fizik Arione CX today. (and yes, I still need to change the back tire before I head out tomorrow).

So, tell me what you think and I'll keep y'all posted on the progress!

Race Calendar

Timing is everything. So as I started to think about how to take triathlon a bit more seriously, I also started to think about which races I should plan for this year. Also, my daughter was born just last December and I knew this would put some hard constraints on the time I could afford to be away from home on my bike, in some chlorine infested pool or plogging endless miles with my running shoes.

If I'll manage to long anything close to 250 hours of training this year, I'll have done a FANTASTIC job. Given the general un-triathlon-esque condition I'm in, I felt safe going for an Olympic Distance in August (Frankfurt). Working back from that date my first competition will be a local sprint TRI event early May, and I'll do at least one more sprint in June and one in July.

While I've been viewing Frankfurt as my season highlight, I recently started eyeballing the Barcelona triathlon on October 7th. Let's see if I can get my two girls motivated to come ;-)

Race Calendar:

13. Mai - Kinzigman - Sprint

9. June - Short Track Griesheim - Sprint

July - still looking

5. August - Frankfurt - Olympic

26.August - Cross Tri Oberursel - Sprint

7. October - Barcelona - Olympic

Lactate Test

Starting the new year, I decided to take a lactate test to verify my training zones and figure out, how good (or bad) my shape actually was...

As you can see: not too bad, but lots of room for improvement, esp. between 130 & 160 watts... so, more training in zones 2+3 The test overal was quite OK and took less than 90 mms - at IQ athletics where I did the test, I actually brought my own bike frame, which was pretty cool.