phil woe.

yesterday, I dropped off the cannondale track at freewheel hayes to have it tuned up.  tension on the rear wheel was a bit slack, and there’s been a slight creaking sound coming from the drivetrain.  figured it was the chain, since it was the same one used on the initial samson build months ago.  and sram pc-7x chains are cheap enough to change semi-annually – better to be safe than sorry, wearing out drivetrain components on something as preventable as that seems easy.

after I dropped off the bike, I went for a walk down to the polo fields to watch the start of eugene’s race, king of the hill.  long story short, I was sucked into running a checkpoint with sean chan.  we held it down at stussy for the 8 racers.

there weren’t too many guys that came by, and we ended up splitting after a brief 20 minutes.  at the top of twin peaks, the finish, it was fergus (messenger from sf), mark (guy from southbay-ish), and bennett (YOU ALREADY KNOW).  $100 cash prize for 1st, pushbike stash was 2nd place, and i minus d shirts/stickers for everyone else.  thought there’d be more racers, but I guess the 90mi mixed terrain alleycat took some riders away too.  oh well, glad there were no accidents and everyone, for the most part, had a decent time.  glad I came out.

went back to freewheel to check up on the caad, and long story short, dustin ended up swapping out every drivetrain component trying to isolate the creak – big whoop, it was the magnesium-titanium phil wood bottom bracket.  apparently, the titanium spindle needs some sort of maintenance, something only phil wood can do.  so, a standard phil bb, with regular spindle, sleeve, and bearings was quieter than my super epic, awesome bb.  go figure.  overall, I’m not impressed with the bottom bracket in terms of reliability…however on the flip side of that, the carbonite bearings and lightness of the spindle assembly with the mag-ti is unparalleled.  they’re sending the bb back.

I wonder when it’ll be back in my bike…