New bike Day!

Wow.

After a lot of discussion, debate, consideration and procrastination I finally manage to purchase my 40th birthday present to myself. Only one year and three months late, but I finally have my very own Pinarello :)

Happy Birthday to me!

This is a day that for a bunch of reasons was a long time in the making, most recently the possibility of further redundancies at work. That said, I figured that if I was going to get one, now was the time.

About a year ago I stepped into Mike Turtur Cycles, with the thought of getting myself a nice birthday present. Despite making it abundantly clear that I was there on a tyre kicking exercise with no intention of purchasing, the guys there were ultra helpful, whipping out sales catalogues and brochures en masse  in an effort to help. Super impressive stuff, and if nothing else made me want to buy a bike there.

This time around I had fairly convinced myself what I wanted and that I was going to buy one. As it turns out, one advantage of waiting the extra year turned out that the new frame would be Di2 specific whereas last years model was not. Apparently sometimes it pays to be indecisive!

So while Miss V was away visiting her sister in Melbourne I wandered over to Mike Turtur Cycles to (once again) ask a few questions. After a little bit of a discussion, I walked away to ponder things further. I headed back in on the Saturday to get measured up, and to work out whether I could get the paint scheme that wanted. As it turned out, the size I needed (ie "midget" or "clown bike" size) was in stock in the Black on Black scheme. Sweet.   A bit more a discussion with Greg Turtur and he suggested that I could bring in my old wheels (Mavic Cosmics) for a free service and they'd set the bike up with them. Very awesome, and an unexpected bonus.

With a day off work today, the plan was to go in for the bike fit and finish the process. I was hoping that the weather would have been nice so that I could have gone for a quick ride on my new steed afterwards, but apparently we're having about 10 years worth of rain today, so that won't be happening.

Very stealth looking from this side!

Wandering into the shop this afternoon for a fit session with Chris Turtur, I was strangely nervous, this being the first time I get to see my Pinarello.  Peeking over the counter, there she was, in all her Cosmic shod glory set up on the trainer waiting for me.   Shit just got real.

First time on the Pinarello

After a brief run down and explanation of the process, we went through a fairly comprehensive fit session, primarily covering cleat positioning, saddle height and position and bar reach. It was interesting comparing the fitting process with others that I have had recently. Bike fits by BMCR, Bike Station and now Mike Turtur Cycles were (I think) very good, with minor differences in approach, but in each case have provided a good demonstration of their knowledge and skills. Ultimately, the fit and position on this bike is closer to that on my Focus cyclocross bike than my Giant road bike, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and possibly indicates that the frame size on my Giant is larger than I need. Pedalling on the trainer, it felt smooth and my position nicely balanced and relaxed.







I brief run down on the operation of the electronic gear shifters and we were done.  One detail that I hadn't noticed initially was that the bike had an internal battery, nice touch.

Me, looking pretty happy with things

New bike seems happy too.