Breaking Down Is Easier than Building? Duh...

I bought my first Fuji Team RC in 2006 only becasue Fuji sponsored the Davis Bike Club Race Team I rode with as a Cat 5 and 4. I loved that bike. It was my first carbon race bike, and at 17.1 pounds, it felt really light. It was also compliant enough to ease a lot of my back pain.

I destroyed the Cane Creek Volos wheels in less than six months, so I bought a pair of Mavic Kyserium Elites that served me well until my crash in the Ozarks 7 weeks ago. I also despised the shifting of the TruVativ Roleur carbon crank, so I installed a DuraAce version that vastly improved the power transfer.

In the summer of 2007, the front derailleur hanger popped a rivet and tore out some carbon. After a four-week wait, Fuji sent me a rasta red and yellow Team Issue frame, a paint scheme so fugly that narry a picture of it can be found on the interwebs. I threw a fit, and they sent me this:

I didn't run the Eastons or the SRM, but you get the idea....













That one developed a crack in the carbon (enamel?) at the junction between the seat and top tubes, so they sent me a 2007:

Which ALSO developed a crack in the carbon in the exact same spot. Of course, I raced it for two and a half years, so....

Fuji had no 61cm carbon bikes left in North America at the beginning of 2010. None. So they sent me a 58 cm CCR1 made of a lower-grade carbon as a temporary replacement. Now, having waited three months, I finally have this:

Today I spent a few hours stripping all the components off the CCR1, washing them, and attempting to reinstall them on the new Team RC. The seatpost, bottom bracket, headset, derailleurs, crankset, brakes, and fork all went on pretty easily. But tomorrow I'll try the cables and housing--a first for me. I want to finally achieve self-sufficiency in bike maintenance, especially now that I don't have Andrew Wike at Davis Wheelworks to save my ass from botched first attempts. 

Given my history with bike repair and riding new frames, I'll probably kill myself on the first ride around the block. If I post again tomorrow, you'll know I survived.