The October numbers are in. The MS150 helped out this month, pushing the cumulative mileage well past 1000 miles:

September Summary
Total distance (September): 327.69 miles
Total distance (Cumulative): 1386.22 miles
Total time (Cumulative): 104 hours, 35 minutes

I also have the bike upgrade update I promised. First, Rachel’s Sirrus has been upgraded to dropbars. The Sirrus now sports Salsa Bell Lap (40 cm) bars, Sora eight speed STI shifters, super squishy gel tape and a Wippermann 808 chain. The front deraileur and adjusters are still being sorted out, but will eventually be some model of Sora bottom-pull (triple). The stem was also swapped for a significantly shorter unit with a little more rise.

So, those bars came off of my bike. Am I without a cross bike? Of course not. The original plan was to use the eight speed 105 STI levers off of the Gunnar on the Sirrus. Unfortunately, the front lever turned out to be a double (we thought it was a triple) and wouldn’t work. But that problem was solved. So what happened to the Gunnar?

Among other things, the Gunner received a pair of Paul’s neo-retro brakes on the front and Paul’s touring on the back. If you haven’t seen or ridden a bike with these brakes you are missing out. The neo-retro brakes are strong enough to flex the fork and deform the sidewall of the Salsa Delgado Cross rims. The Paul’s touring brakes are pretty nice too, but they lack the feel and power of the neo-retro. However, they are more than adequate for a rear brake. So, I’ll finally have decent braking power, and I didn’t have to switch to super mushy v-brakes.

One disappointment with the brakes related to the supplied cable yokes (straddle cable carriers). I suppose these cheap looking bent aluminum yokes are similar to the original Mafac units, but they look pretty bad compared to the rest of the setup. I kept the Avid Tri-dangle on the back and the eyeball from an unknown source on the front. If you don’t have some nice carriers already, I’d look at the Paul’s Moon Units. They are expensive, but look a lot nicer than the supplied pieces. Unfortunately, not many other manufactures are making custom cantilever brake parts these days. I’m glad I kept my old parts from the mid ’90s.

The drive train now includes ’06 105 nine speed levers, SRAM PG-970 Road 12-26 cassette and Wippermann 908 chain. The bars are still Salsa Bell Lap, but are now a more comfortable 44 cm. A side note: the Wrench Science bike fitting system recommended 46 cm bars. I though that was a little excessive, so I compromised with the 44 cm bars. The bars are wrapped with black Salsa Classico tape, and attached to the rest of the bike with a Salsa CroMoto SUL 110mm / 90° threadless stem. I think that about does it more the upgrades.

For a parting shot, I took this one on my way to work Monday morning. I think that was probably a little after 7:00 am. Nothing special, but I do get to see a nice sunrise on my way to work most mornings. Soon I’ll be riding in the dark…

Last weekend we went on a evening balloon ride. This was my first time in a balloon, and I really didn’t know what to expect. The ride was great and a lot of fun. Four to five balloons took off around the same time, and had an informal “race” to the 50 yard line of the MU football stadium. Our balloon won, being the closest to the goal.

If you ever get a chance to go up in a balloon, I highly recommend it. Here are a few shots from the trip. All photos were taken with a Canon 30D, Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens, and Tiffen 67 mm circular polarizing filter. We got lucky and caught the beginning of the fall colors: