The "RGB" bike

Here is the San Mateo, Thursday night at the top of the West End overlook:

Before shot!!

The tires are wearing thin and coming very easily off the rims now, and the handlebars are too wide.  I'm going to document the week long process of this bike's transformation.

Step 1: New tires.  I love internet shopping.  I spent a lot of time reading reviews, shopping online, and decided to go with Vittoria Rubino Pro III.  However, it was $4 cheaper per tire to get colors instead of black.  So the RGB bike begins:

Okay, well, this may look a little wild, but they ride great.  I really needed new tires.  

I bought matching handlebar tape to the blue, which will go on with the next step: new bars.

What's also noteworthy is that these tires are 700 x 23, and should be inflated from 100 - 145 psi.  The old ones were 700 x 25 with a range of 87 - 116 psi.  I inflated these up here to 115, and I could definitely feel the difference when I took a test ride to the oval.  Also noteworthy is that changing tires out is super easy; I'm a little scared about operation handlebar.

Step 2:  The 40 cm handlebars that I ordered on the internet came, with a diameter of 38.1 mm.  I checked out the San Mateo, and noticed that they were 26.0 mm.  Whoops.  By this time, I had already exuberantly ripped the tape off:

I started ripping tape off as soon as my new
bars came.

I looked online, and it doesn't seem that 40 cm ergo drop bars with 26.0 mm diameter is an especially popular size, and there were none that I could find for a reasonable price with fast shipping.  Fast shipping because I had a race on Sunday!  Thursday at work, I started calling bike shops to see what they had, with a bunch of dead ends.  "We have 42's".  When I got in touch with Carl at Pro Bikes, he suggested that while they also didn't have anything in that size, perhaps I could get a new stem.

Picked up the new step, and operation handlebar was on!  To remove the handlebars, first you remove the tape.  Then, you remove the brakes and shifters with a 5 mm allen wrench:

Removing the shifters requires a tool.

Once we slid these off, we removed the stem.  Now was where we got into trouble again.  When we put the new stem on, it ended up there was more space and we needed a spacer.  

New stem on right: note the spacer above the stem.

At this point, Becca and I got frustrated and just put everything on, leaving loose screws.  Bike and I ran back to Pro Bikes to get a spacer, because there was nothing we could do without that piece.   Carl totally had my back when I came in.  He tightened everything, checked our work, and adjusted the brakes/shifters evenly.  It was hard for me to tell what felt right, because it felt so good in every position!  Amazing what a comfortable size bars can feel like!  I left Pro Bikes with a bike ready for taping:

Thanks Carl!

Becca really likes taping handlebars, and since she bought them for me for my birthday, it was very fitting. 

Taping the new bars.

There is special piece to put over the shifter/break thing

Once the first handlebar was taped, we took a picture:

Can you see how much more lady sized the bottom bars are!  (Use the tire for size perspective).  

Then we were done, and I have a beautiful bike, ready for racing:

I love my bike!!  I took it on an easy ride with Justin to get a feel for it, and it was amazing.  We went up a few moderate hills, and I concentrated on doing everything Greg and Suzanne always tell me to focus on: even cadence, smooth pedal strokes (scrape mud!), relaxing my arms and shoulders, and NO knuckling the bars!  The thing was, I could finally comfortably do all this, and I got better a couple hills in.  The first hill, up to Brighten Heights, I felt myself wobbling a little at the top and noticed I was knuckling.  By the time I was riding up Greenfield Ave, I focused on relaxing my hands and felt smooth the whole way up.

Ready to race!!