Scott Plasma Pro

After 2, top 15 finishes in flat, fast, and what seemed to me to be dangerous crits, I decided to limit my crit racing moving forward to 2 starting in 2009. The crits I've chosen are relatively "safe" and include some rollers that will cause some separation and again make things safer. At almost 40 with 2 kids and being the sole bread winner, I can't afford a broken collar bone or anything else moving forward. Call me a whimp but I say I'm pretty darn smart!

So what's my focus for 2009 and beyond? Road races and time trials. I think my road racing will benefit significantly from time trialling and throwing in the occasional sprint triathlon such as Tri the Midlands on 6/21, I will benefit from having a TT specific bike and gearing my training towards these events. If everything goes well, I may enter the SC State TT Championships in October.

I'm staying with my team's (Harrell's Bicycle World) bike sponsor - Scott and will take delivery of my Scott Plasma Pro next week. I was a little bummed because I'm a Campy guy and all of my wheels are Campy and I was already thinking that at a minimum, I would need to change the free hub on my Zipp 404 tubular (not the one with the PowerTap SL hub) from Campy to ShimaNO and ride using PE or heart rate. That was the plan up until I found the ShiftMate from Jtek Engineering.

ShiftMate allows you to mix ShimaNO and Campy components such as in my case, a Campy cassette with a ShimaNO derailleur and shifter and have it shift as if it were a complete drivetrain. In addition, I can use index shifting instead of friction. This little device installs just behind the barrel adjuster going into the rear derailleur. This little piece of heaven is only $35, significantly less than new free hubs, cassettes, etc.