The new Scalpel

That's right the pictures you see in the previous entry show the new ride, for now. I managed to break the frame on my old Scalpel and since a replacement is not ready yet they sent me this frame to use until my Scalpel 1 comes. Very nice ride! This one (Scalpel 3) is about 1/2 lb lighter than my old Scalpel 1 but has more rear end travel. The new Scalpel 1 should cut another 1/2 lb as it is all carbon.

At first it felt a little bouncy in the rear but with the longer travel I needed to set the shock a little stiffer to get it to feel right. It feels lighter and climbs better. One down side is the seat tube is shorter that the old one so I have to run my seat post all the way up to the limit, not sure if that is good to do being as heavy as I am I could snap it off. I have about 6 hours on it now and no issues so that worry is going away.

I rode the North Loop tonight and got in two laps. The trail is in great shape (what is open) and is riding fast for spring.

I looked up in my Polar software last years Mountain biking and I rode 53 laps at the North loop. Only 51 to go after a slow start.

I got done with my lab tests yesterday at SCSU. Got a nice bag of schwag and hopefully a check soon. All togther I spent almost 7 hours riding on the lab bikes, 5 finger prick blood tests, 5 VO2 tests, 14 viles of blood donated, one 40k and 2-60k time trials on a computer course that has a nasty hill every 20k and about 4 liters of two different sports drinks.