Specialized Thumbs Their Nose at the UCI?!
If you haven’t seen it yet, this is the Specialized eff-you-see-eye or fUCI for short:
Dude, I WANT ONE!
The idea behind the bike, obviously a prototype, was along the lines of what can we do to make the fastest possible bike for a normal human being… It was, according to the designer, “should be less about what’s allowed and more about what if?”
Now, being one who owns a race bike that can catch a draft off of a piece of fettuccini, I can look at that bike and feel comfortable saying it’s worth up to 1-3 mph of free speed over my current UCI approved aero race bike. That means if your comfortable pace is around 20 mph on a bike like my Venge, you’d easily be comfortable with 21-23 mph on the fUCI – and I’m low-balling it so I don’t seem too outrageous. Now, lest you believe that the fUCI doesn’t actually mean “fUCI”:
Some cool, innovative features: That little bubble behind the saddle is a built-in saddle bag. Go ahead and click the link at the beginning of the post and check out the cockpit – and all of the other features (it’s also an e-bike).
This came from Specialized’s “Very Special Things” site where special projects are showcased. Do check it out.
Pretty Tough… I Think. Maybe?
I usually don’t fancy myself as all that tough. I am, kind of, I guess, but I just don’t think of myself like that – mostly because, with cycling, for some crazy reason, I judge what I physically do in conjunction with what’s going on in my head…..
Yesterday’s forecast was awesome, well not really, it was supposed to be very cold even for March but the snow and rain were supposed to hold off till noon, which was great because we were riding at 8:30. I figured 40 miles, call it two hours and some change, we should be back and showered before the nasty stuff showed up. Perfect.
I knew Mike was going to bring his 5200 so I prepped mine but thought better of it just before we headed out. I got the Venge ready. I wanted to check out the new tires anyway. Mike pulled up early on his 5200 and when I wheeled out the Venge he looked at me like I’d just stabbed him in the gut. Long story shortened, I put the Venge back. Friends just don’t do that to friends…. and Mike said he’d stick me at the front for the for the bulk of the ride. Apparently friends do do that to friends.
25 miles out, more than 15 miles from home if we took the proper route home, the first snow started falling. Slow at first, just a flake here and there. We had our buddy Brad with us who is fresh off of chemo in January and hernia surgery less than two months ago so when it really started coming down we couldn’t put the hammer down or we’d have dropped him. I can’t leave a buddy out there in that shit on his own. I’m a strong, healthy horse so I took the front, my wife took up the rear because she had a flasher and we got Brad home.
The cool part was, with my wife on the back, she could call out if I started dropping Brad so we managed to stay tight. For our effort, Brad drove us home the last six miles.
I don’t typically think of myself as tough. I’m just glad I brought my Trek…
Fit Recovery 