My new bike!

My repainted bike has arrived, and is in my grubby little paws. I want to thank the folks at Ghisallo Sports for their patience with me, fretting and fuming over my elusive bike. And to Trek, well, thanks for finally getting it back to me. The bike arrived at the shop this morning, and to slake my urgent bike-thirst, they built it up immediately and I bolted from work early to pick it up in the afternoon.

These pictures, I will tell you right now, do not do the orange paint justice. It is much brighter, and more sparkly in real life. Hopefully I will get some outdoor, sunny pics tomorrow.The pictures also don't do a good job depicting the enormous dimensions of the frame tubes. The stem looks spindly by comparison. May need to get a large carbon stem that matches the gargantuan frame tubes a little better.And of course, the obligatory shot of the beefy bottom bracket. Mmmmm, beefy. And I love those angular, triangulated stays. The clunky fork crown (above) I could do without, but oh well.I still have to go in for final fitting on Monday. This should be reasonably close. Close enough for a test ride. The saddle looks a little nose-down, may have to fix that. I'm more of a level saddle kind of guy. The bars might come down a bit, they're nearly level with the saddle. I'm not that inflexible, yet. And I'll see what these 2009 SRAM Rival components are made of. Probably remarkably similar to the 2007 SRAM Rival components on Velotron, although I think they've made some changes to the shifters. I like the bend of the handlebars, too. Plenty of room for my big paws in the drops. If only someone made handlebars with a larger diameter throughout, for those of us with gigantic mitts. Sure, I could double-tape them, but that's lame unless you're riding Paris-Roubaix.