Dogma On The Road #2

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
― Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll

Fantastic morning on the Dogma! I made it to the same spot as two days ago without having too hard of a go at it. Not that it is easy.... just that it is easier. haha So, today I turned left instead of right to take the longer road home - 55 km instead of 34 km. All is good and right with the world! On the descent toward a little town of Perinaldo (famous for taggiasca olives) I stopped for this view towards Castel Vittorio perched up high on a ridge. We drove up here a few nights ago for their annual town festival which involved eating lots of grilled meat, baked vegetable pie and batter fried apples. I was a good boy and stayed away from the wine, but there was plenty of the local wine to sample too. Looking at this picture is easy to understand the desire to remain sober for the drive home! ;-)

So, if you get bored of bicycle stuff - stop here! I am having a fun time breaking in the new bicycle (rather me breaking in than the other). The new compact cranks are great and I dropped 220 grams with the upgrade! As I was perusing the used economical cranks in the bin, I asked about the Zipp Speed Weapons that were setting on the shelf... more than half the new price! Some self questioning, a sanity check, and then more deliberation... in the end done deal with them mounted on the spot.

Now... I am deliberating what to do with the carbon rim which according to the bike shop is trashed. I admit to being neive when I bought the bike, and the seller did a good job to gloss it over (I think he might have used some black resin to help hide the defect which is now opened that I have used on a couple good descents). Bike shop said that it will not explode / desinigrate at any moment, and so far it is not too annoying braking at speed.... but it does leave some doubt about the overall reliability. Anybody have any experience with these?

Overall impression to date: great climber, very aerodynamic, descends faster than the speed of light, and I don't get saddle sore or pain in the shoulders as quickly as with the Colnago. I still don't feel as fast as the Colnago though.... The Colnago seems to sort of fall up the hill. It is so rigid that going over bumps it seems to speed up. Rack it up to the beautiful B-Stays? The Dogma instead just soaks it all up. The Dogma is so smooth though climbing putting down the power evenly from left and right peddles. No swaggering up the hill...

Happy happy happy