Blackjack

Today is a REALLY GOOD DAY.

Several weeks ago PIC Michelle had a little "accident". Bottom line...broken bike. PIC and I ride the same bikes, we wear the same uniform, we have the same coach. We are a little team of 2, we like to refer to it as Team PIC. It's been that way for awhile, we are kinda sisters from another mother...and father. Although my parents have been known to step in as her parents, and her parents have been known to bail me out when I need a parental unit as well.

So, PIC broke her bike. I didn't break my bike. But...she broke her bike. If she got a new bike, then we wouldn't have the same bikes, and that my friends, is just one huge tragedy!

Needless to say, we were in the "hunt". It was new bike time! We talked to Chuckie, because over the last year we have had several discussions about how we had "outgrown" our Isaac bikes. As we got fitter and wanted to move to a more and more aggressive position, the longer top tub prevented that. We finagled things and shortened stems and such, but PIC and I both knew that the "next" bike would be the right bike.

So Chuckie gave us a list. He looked at the geometry of all sorts of bikes and he gave us a short little list that would work well for both PIC and I's geometry.

At the same time Ms.QR read about Michelle's little fiasco and offered to put her in touch with Mr.QR. But was QR on "the list"?

Top and Center! Shorter Stack for the Reach put it squarely on the list.

Woot!

So Michelle and I test rode a set of QR CD0.1s at IM Texas and we LOVED them. Michelle was particularly attracted to the Pink Camo, but we both discussed that color was really the least of our needs. We had bigger wants:

1. FIT - we had that figured out via "the list". But getting on the bikes with a very quick "fit" we were both surprised at how aggressive we were able to comfortably get immediately. Check!

2. Packability - we travel ALL THE TIME with our bikes. We are always breaking them down and putting them back together so we talked at length with QR about what they had done to make the bikes easy to pack. Check!

3. Adjustability - PIC and I knew we wanted more range to be able to grow with this bike. We wanted it to be easy to change seat tilt, and height, along with handlebar and aerobar functionality. Check!

4. Speed - the bike fits, it packs and it's adjustable, but is it fast? Has it been in the wind tunnel? What have they done to make it faster. Well we got the skinny there too. QRs are for triathletes, not TdF riders. QRs aren't limited by UCI rules.

5. The carrot on top - would QR love us? Would they be a company that "gets" the mom blogger, the type A triathlete, the Kona bound chicks that love the outdoors. Would they like us as much as we like them?

CHECK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next up was componentry. Is that a word? Even though Kompetitive Edge sponsors me, and they always treat me so well, I was still amazed at what Ryan and Jared did to compliment the QR frame. I call Ryan my bike shop guru because he is hip, and knows his stuff. He knows all the new stuff and he has a sense of tasteful flare. If you ever have a frame you want built up, you gotta go to him. We had a conversation about what vibe I wanted my bike to have and then he went off and compiled everything, then sent me a list to "okay" and then ordered parts and built it up. I didn't have to worry about anything, he just took care of it all, and my bike has flare, and is functional, and is hot. That's about all I can say about that!

Ladies and gentleman, with a huge thanks to Quintana Roo for a beautiful CD0.1 frameset, and a gigantic thanks to Jared and Ryan at Kompetitive Edge, Blackjack is outfitted with full Dura-Ace, and she's rockin' the super new Profile Design Svet Base bar with the T2+Cobra Aerobars in white (try finding those...talk to Ryan :)).

And now I'm going to go ride my bike...a lot!!!!!