If you still have a job, you might want to think about getting your bike dialed so that if you get laid off, you can ride away your work fat and your crying-broke stress during your months of almost assured unemployment. I really like titanium as a bike frame material. My new favorite frame for the money is the Lynksey Performance Cooper Ti frame. Lynskey is offering these all-titanium frames for $1295 + fork. Sure, if you can afford to get a completely custom frame, go wild crazy. But we have built two of the Coopers recently, an extra large and an extra small. And if you can fit correctly on one of the variously sized life-time guaranteed, never rusts, never fatigues, made-in-the-USA titanium Cooper, buy one. Ti is really comfortable to ride. And the titanium tube set for the Cooper is shaped and flattened. The down tube is bi-ovalized. This is not your grandma's thin-and-round-tubed whippy ti bike frame that click,
click, clicks every time you are climbing and the front derailleur,
chain, and crank are kissing from the stress. The ride and price of the Cooper is reigning supreme.
Oh, and I'd put one of those Lynsksey CNC'd ti shamrock dropouts on a chain, and wear it around my neck to dinner and a movie. Lynskey does the dropout CNCing and the frame fabrication in-house in Tennessee. Go click around on the Lynskey site while you are still getting a payday. (Jump to read more and more about the Cooper.)
(Photos of Lynksey Titanium Cooper taken by Wheelgirl. Photo of the shamrock dropout lifted from the Lynskey site.)
I test rode the gift for his Dad spec'd by customer Ronan, an XS Cooper with a WCS Ritchey and Ultegra SL build kit.
(Ronan, a kind Irish lad, is giving his Irish Dad in Ireland this sweet ride with the CNC'd ti shamrocks.) The bi-ovalized and flattened
diamond-shaped down tube and the rear triangle felt good. Adam the Mechanic test
rode the extra large build (too big for me, think 6-foot 3-inch
customer Dana), which was build up from a 9-speed Ultegra groupset
moved from Dana's older Lemond steel frame. Adam, also in the tall guys who ride hard club, was nodding when he returned from the routine test ride. (We also recently built up a Lynskey Titanium R230 for customer Joanne. I'll write about that one soon.)
Freaking out about money or the lack thereof is not a good thing. So, we often suggest moving your current group set to a new frame, if the group set is in decent shape and at least 9- or 10-speeds. This way, you can improve your bike over time with less stress on your wallet. Then, as you earn your new components by wearing out your old components, you can slowly upgrade out of need, not want.
This summer if you want to attend events like the Italian Festival in North Beach, San Francisco and eat a grilled Italian sausage on a baguette, grilled corn, a banana and cherry Italian ice, a free tiny bag of Potato Pop chip samples, chocolate cookie samples, Bare Naked granola and yogurt samples, some amazon rain forest drink, and then, walk 11 miles around the city of San Francisco before sipping an iced coffee and chomping a few bites of Frog Hollow apricot and raspberry cobbler before you put away a bowl of Japanese udon, you better have your bike sorted. You need to train hard during the week to get the most enjoyment from the weekend San Francisco June food festivals and events.
