It's Not About the Bike

Ok, maybe it is, but at least it's not about THAT bike. (for the record, that book totally was about the bike. Who does he think he's kidding?) Today, we're going to talk about my much neglected road bike. Sure, I keep her in good running shape and occasionally give her a wash and sensuous rub down to get the road grime off but generally she's a neglected wench. Sometimes I ever giver her a little nipple tweak or two, she groans a bit when I do but I can tell she likes it. Well, the other day, her rear wheel developed a wobble. Seemed strange but I threw the wheel in the truing stand to give the nipples a tweak and had a bit of trouble getting the wobble out. Upon further inspection I found this:

what's that? Can't quite see it? How 'bout now?

That right there my friends, is a ugly scene just waiting to happen. Can you say catastrophic wheel failure? Despite that, I have to admit that I still did my afternoon interval session on the wheel. I already rode the bike in and if I didn't do my ride home I'd have to call for a ride and we all know that is not going to happen. Instead, I crossed my fingers, puckered my sphincter and went for it and thankfully I made it though unscathed. Now I just have to buy an el cheapo replacement since I have no road races planned for this season.

Ok, now I am going to talk about THAT bike. You knew that I wouldn't be able to hold off didn't you? Anyway, when I had the bike built up, the fork arrived at 100mm travel. The bike is designed for 80mm so I had planned to have it re spaced but now, after a few weeks of riding on it at the longer travel I don't think I'm going to have it done. Am I stupid? I guess my reason is that I LOVE the way it handles now and it feels plenty quick in the turning department already and I'm terrified that I won't like the feel after the switch. So what would you, my adoringly small fan base, do?