I've had a frame hanging in the garage, annoying me every time I've gone in there, like a surfer who sees perfectly good yet unridden waves rolling in on the beach. They need to be ridden, and so does this frame. I have an unused fork to match. They're both part of an experiment in a new style of geometry.

You can get to the geometry discussion by clicking the link above, but it's ultimately not for that reason I decided to build the bike up. The national triathlon championships in Shreveport are next weekend, I haven't been riding very well lately. I think I need a technological ace in the hole and I'm desperate. Of course, I haven't been riding well because I haven't been riding much at all lately. But that's beside the point.

So I went rummaging around the garage to see what I could throw on this frameset. Turns out that when you spend a decade in the bike manufacturing business you end up with a garage full of stuff. Add another four years in the tri magazine business and you have a lot of additional stuff by virtue of people sending you things to test. I can therefore kill a lot of birds by building this bike.

This means I'm going to write about some parts I shouldn't be writing about yet — stuff you aren't going to officially see until after Interbike in a couple of weeks, but what the hey.

First I had to find a headset. I had a lot of headset parts. The photo adjacent is five percent of all the Cane Creek headst parts I've acquired over time. Then there's the FSA headset parts, a pile just as large. And so forth.

But that's all I had — parts. I couldn't exactly lay my hands on an entire headset. At least a 1 1/8" headset (I had one-inchers). So I went scrounging.

This is not an easy task these days, because, what makes a headset? It's not as simple as it used to be. What with finding the crown race that matches the bottom bearing, and the dust covers, and the little wedgy-rings that keep the steerer centered inside the bearings. But I figger the headset just has to do its duty, ya know? If the fork doesn't wiggle once you get it installed into the frame, and you can steer the bike, what else is there for a headset to do? It doesn't have to make coffee, right?

So I found what I considered sufficient parts to make a headset and proceeded to open the box and get the fork out and — surprise! — there was a new Cane Creek headset in the box (I have no idea how it got there). So I ditched all my spare parts and got to work.

It just so happened that all the stuff I laid my hands on was light. The frame was a Yaqui Mariola. I could've used a Felt S22 in size 58cm, or a Cervelo P2K or P3 in the same size, or a QR TiPhoon or Caliente in 59cm, but the Mariola was the frame I had sitting around, and anyway it was built for a specific experiment. The fork was an all-carbon Reynolds Ouzo Pro (not the aero) that was a geometric match to the strange frame I had Mandaric make. So although I didn't set out to make a specifically lightweight race bike, it was a lightweight start.

The stem was a Syntace F99, and at just over 100 grams in the 135mm size I used it was by far the lightest stem I've ever had on a bike. I don't generally go in for light stems, because I'm chicken. But I have confidence in Syntace.

I had two options for aero bars, Profile Design's new Sonic Strike and an experimental Hed clip-on that isn't yet for sale. I chose the latter, and will review the Sonic Strike this Fall. I did use Profile's Stoker 26 base bar, really the only thing I could've used with the clip-on I'd chosen, since I needed to get the clip-on's extensions a bit farther apart than possible using the average pursuit bar, which starts with a diamater of 26.0mm and swages immediately down to 22.2mm (the Stoker 26 doesn't swage down until the very ends of the bars, where you plug in the brake levers).

I've been trying for some time to find a clip-on that has a long armrest, one that I can move up my forearm and away from my knees (when I'm out of the saddle) yet with enough surface area to displace a substantial amount of weight over a larger area. The Sonic Strike is a good step in that direction, and I'll get to that in a month or so. But for the use of Hed's clip-ons on this bike, Steve Hed made me a special pair of carbon armrests that were quite long. I laid my forearms in, scribed the amount I needed, and hacked off the excess I didn't need.

I had some sticky-back 5mm neoprene (tri wetsuit thickness) to put over the top, and I added a bit of tubular glue to make extra sure the armrest pads wouldn't come off. After I stuck the rubber on top of the carbon armrest holder I took scissors and cut off the excess rubber.

I dipped into the Profile Design well one more time, for brake levers. I've had a pair of QS2 levers sitting around for some time, and just didn't have a bike to put them on. This was the perfect occasion, and after installing them I can relate what a nice feeling it is finally having a pursuit bar brake lever with a return spring!

I've been waiting for a set of FSA Compact Drive cranks to show up, but they didn't make it in time. I'm looking forward to these, but in place of them I resorted to my cache of obsolete parts. This included another FSA product, a square-hole bottom bracket in 103mm, the size I needed for the only set of cranks I had in the size I needed — a Stronglight Speedlight in 172.5mm. This might seem a bit on the short side for me, a guy of 6'2", but they were my choice for three reasons. First, I intend to spin quite a high cadence on Shreveport's flat course, something like 95 - 100 revolutions, and a shorter crank will make that just a tad easier. Second, the front of this bike is going to be exceptionally low — much lower than anything I've ever ridden — and I'm going to need to open up my hip angle a bit as a result. And finally, I have a legality issue. I need to get my saddle height over 80cm (explained in the geometry experiment article).

On the very day I needed them I got an eagerly awaited shipment of wheels from Hed. The rear was a Hed3 in tubular, and the front is a wheel that I don't think Hed is selling yet. It's a new all-carbon, very light, deep-rim wheel and from what I understand very reasonably priced. It's only available in tubular, which is what I'm now racing (the wheel is called "Speedace"). Of course I already have a fine pair of Hed Alps race wheels. But my Alps rear is built around a Powertap hub, and I wanted to build a bike with no paraphernalia — not only the lack of a power measuring device, but no computer, no nothing. Just pure bike. On these wheels went some Continential 24mm GPs, and with the wheels on the bike, now I could put the chain on.

Next came another item I've been hording, a new titanium 9sp chain just out from Wipperman. Now all I needed was brake calipers, derailleurs, seat post and saddle. I stripped some Dura Ace off a bike I'm not using at the moment, and I pulled the seat post and saddle out of my current tri bike. Yes, I know Selle San Marco is really pushing its Aspide for triathlon, but I just can't do without the Triathgel Azoto's plush front end.

How low is this bike's position? The armrests sit 17cm below the top of the saddle. This is 2cm lower than I've ever ridden, and 4cm lower than I've ridden all this year in races. My armrest formula calls for a range of 13cm to 16cm, the latter being the most drop in the most extreme of circumstances, that is, a very fit, top rider with the steepest of seat angles. But what they hey, I'm desperate (I believe I said that), and nothing ventured nothing gained, right?

My intention is to race this bike next week in Shreveport, and there are a couple of reasons why this particular bike is built the way it is. I did ride this bike today for the first time, and went 20 miles. It took a tad of getting used to, but a very successful experiment so far. I might be as low as Joe Bonness, and my bike is very probably lighter. Does this mean I'll ride as fast as he does?