High-end equipment: durability or performance?

Recently, I’ve been riding a lot with my fellow MUcyc’ers (Melbourne Uni Cycling Club members), some of whom have very nice (and very expensive bikes) whilst others have more humble machines. I will readily admit I am a member of the former group (my Scott CR1 Pro is coming up on its second birthday). I have spent lavishly on my bike as I would rather spend money on something I enjoy immensely rather than wastefully invest it for the moment. The bike comes stock with a full Shimano Ultegra groupset, Ritchey Carbon seatpost and Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels. Since then, I have added a Fi’zi:k Aliante saddle, numerous computers (my latest one is a Garmin Edge 500) and, most recently, a full SRAM Force groupset. I will also be adding new wheels to it soon. It’s safe to assume then that my bike is fairly high end.

However, this hasn’t stopped it from having reliability issues.

Eye-opening moments

Having been away from cycle races for nearly a year, I finally got back into the swing of things in the last couple of weeks. First up was an Individual Time Trial for Northern Combine at Balliang. Having only done one competitive TT before (Tour of Bright '08), I was keen to see how I'd go. Having been a fairly solid C-grade rider before my overseas escapades, I dropped myself back to D to ease myself back into (and the fact I have added 7 or 8 kegs since then). Needless to say, 4th in D (by only 2 secs to 3rd!) and 4th in the secret handicap, I was reasonably happy with my effort considering the ridiculously windy conditions.

Tour de France recap

This year's Tour has been one of the hardest for years, and not only due to torturous mountain days. The drama of the first week, rain, crashes, cobbles, heat and more crashes ensured the general classification was whittled down to just a two horse race after just 8 stages.As we look back on the Tour de France this year, lets take a look at the winners, losers, heroes and villains of the race.