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These Shoes Cook! Bont ctt-three Review

01.30.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 9 Comments

Guest poster Don Blount’s search for the perfect bike shoe took him to the Antipodes – in a manner of speaking.  He likes what he found.

I had never heard of Bont. Ever.

Now the company is like my new best friend.

I began searching for new cycling shoes for a simple reason – my feet began to hurt after rides. The Cannondale RS3100 cycling shoes I had worn for two years were great for getting me into biking but I was riding harder, longer and farther. The results I was getting were not the same. I figured the shoes, which were actually free with the discount I received from Performance Bike when I bought my bike in 2008, had just run their useful life.

So I began looking for replacement kicks.

From a fit issue I needed a shoe with a wide toe box and a narrower heel. And I wanted something better fitting and stiffer than my outgoing shoes.

I looked off and on for a few months. I was off the road for two months because of injuries from a fall, so I was not in a hurry. I also took time to get over the sticker shock of upgraded shoes.

Then on a late Saturday night someone in my bike club’s e-mail group excitedly mentioned Bont and how the shoe was being made available in the United States. I had never heard of this 36-year-old Australian company that outfits Thor Hushovd and the Cervelo Test Team among others.

The Bont ctt-three

I settled on the ctt-three. The deal with a Bont shoe is that it has a “fully heat moldable carbon monocoque fiberglass chassis.” Seriously, pop these babies in the oven at low temperature for a bit, put them on, stand in them for a few minutes and they will mold to your feet. In other words, it becomes a custom fit shoe. They were perfect for someone with my shoe-fitting issues.

Chef Don.

I have ridden about 950 miles in the Bonts, I think they are great. They are much stiffer than my old shoes, yet lighter at 295 grams. They flex little and transfer power well. And I really like the look too.

The downside? They took some breaking because the entire shoe – sole and upper were much stiffer than my old shoes.

I purchased my pair online in October for $207, a price comparable to other shoes that interested me. Since then I have found them online for as low as $150, including shipping. This is considered the company’s entry-level model. The top of the line shoe in this category, the ctt-one is a fully carbon shoe that costs about twice as much. I did not have to spend nearly that much and am quite pleased with the Bont ctt-three.

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Categories // guest post, Review Tags // Blount, guest post, Review, shoes

Where To Stash The Package?

01.23.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 6 Comments

Guest poster Jeff Hemmel asks something that is germane to only a portion of the Bike Noob readership.  The distaff lot might want to read a different blog.  Just this once.

Okay, I know I’m walking a fine line here, but lately I’ve been revisiting just where I stash my, uh, package when I ride. C’mon admit it, you’ve probably had the same questions at one time or another. Bike shorts are tight, and there’s not really a whole lot of wiggle room to maneuver. Adjust things just right and you’re a happy camper. Adjust them wrong and you’re squirming in the saddle during your ride, and wondering why you look the size of a pre-pubescent teen when you jump in the shower afterwards.

I’ll be honest, as much as I’m obsessing on it at the moment, I hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought as of late. I’ve fiddled with my position on the bike, settled on an acceptable saddle, and kind of found my groove…so to speak. That’s when I was assaulted by the vision of Liquigas-Cannondale pro Ted King in a lime green pair of shorts.

To be fair, Ted seems like a pretty cool guy. I’m even a little bit of a fan, following his IamTedKing.com website, as well as his Twitter updates. He’s funny (even if he is a little obsessed with culinary skills). But in the aforementioned picture, I couldn’t help noticing, no one could help noticing, that Ted is well…uh…let’s just say he’s an up front kind of guy. (C’mon, I’m writing in a little bit of code here, but let’s face facts…it’s a little bit weird to be writing about another guy’s junk.) And in that one moment, I suddenly began to question the way I’ve been doing things all these years.

So I Googled it. (Let’s see me try to explain that one when all those Google records come back to haunt me someday.) Thus came what I’ll call Assault To The Eyes #2 — this pic of what appears to be a Polish cycling team in red shorts. Apparently, this whole team is rather happy.

Obviously, I’m not a fan of this position. It just feels a little precarious to me. As Kramer told Jerry, “my boys need a house,” and I’m not sure I want any member of the clan peeking out the front door. Sure, it’s probably somewhat comfortable, but I’d feel a little too vulnerable exposed like that should I encounter any mishaps along the way. I’d also feel a little bit like I just stepped into the middle of some cheesy cycling porn film. I tried it the other day wearing my lone white pair of shorts (to be fair they were the only ones not in the laundry and I was planning all along on wearing them UNDER a pair of black tights) and I swear some of that “bow-chick-a-bow-wow” music suddenly started playing in the background.

Of course, hiding everyone in the cellar isn’t the best strategy, either. It’s cramped down there, and bike seats aren’t the most forgiving cushion should you hit a bump. Personally I try to just stuff everything front and center, but that doesn’t always work the best, either.

So I’m throwing it out there. Is there a correct method? The only thing I’m sure of at the moment is to always, always, always wear black…


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Categories // guest post, Odds 'n ends Tags // guest post, Hemmel, package

That New, Better Bike

01.13.2011 by Ray Niekamp // 12 Comments

Ramon H.

 

Once we noobs have been riding a while, it’s only natural to think about upgrading to a better bike.  For one Bike Noob reader, Ramon H. of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, everything happened to line up at the same time: the bike shop had what he wanted, his wife is really nice, and he got a heckuva deal.  I asked Ramon to write a guest post about acquiring his bike, a titanium Serotta.

It all got started because I had taken my entry level Trek road bike into the LBS (Wally’s Bicycles) because there was a severe shifting issue in the back.  Basically, the bike kept shifting back and forth all on its own.  I had ridden the bike for several thousand miles, so I would not have been surprised if they would have told me to get a new cassette.  While I was there, I decided to ask how much it would set me back to buy Shimano 105 components.  The rationale was that I was probably going to buy a new cassette anyway, so might as well do this upgrade if the numbers looked right.

Wally had always had a Serotta floor model that several of us would drool at everytime we came into the shop.  He commented that the main shortcoming of the bike was that it was a titanium frame and that most of the folks that were serious about spending that kind of money would inevitably veer towards carbon framesets.  I had always thought about getting a Serotta with a titanium frameset, but the cost was very prohibitive.  Wally informed me that the issue with my entry level bike was that one of the cables needed replacing.  He started running the numbers on the gruppos I had asked him about and they were not coming back too nicely.  I already had known that when one buys a bike, the gruppo is a big part of the cost, so no surprise on my part there.

The interesting part is what happened next.  I think the cycling gods were smiling upon me that day because you could almost see the lightbulb go off on Wally’s head.  He took out his measuring tape and did a couple of quick measurements on my entry level bike and the Serotta floor model.  I was extremely hesitant because I knew what the cost of that bike was.  I remember Wally saying something like, “Hmm … this is very odd, almost freaky odd.”  He started telling me the measurements and they were coming back uncannily similar to my own bike.  He already knew that I always wanted a Serotta because I had mentioned it a couple of times before.  He said, “Those measurements are coming real close to your existing bike.  You are welcome to ride it during the shop’s ride in a couple of days so you can test it out.  The bike has been sitting on my floor since the day I opened the store over a year ago.  I want that bike to go to a person who is going to do plenty of riding.  Let’s make a deal …”

And quite a deal he gave me.  It was one of those deals that I could not refuse.  Unfortunately, it was one of those deals that I had not budgeted for.  I went home and consulted with the missus.  She came back to the shop the next day to take a look at the bike and asked all of the preliminary questions a spouse tends to ask.  Ultimately she said, “Ride the bike during the shop’s ride tomorrow and see how it feels.  If you like it, you would be a fool not to buy it.”

The Serotta Fierte, all Ultegra. (Click to enlarge.)

Of course, the next question you will have is: How does it ride?  It is almost magical.  For starters, I get a lot more for the effort I put in.  This bike is fast!  I can keep an 18-21 mph pace quite easily.  On the entry level bike, this same amount of effort would only get me to a 16-19mph pace.

The acceleration is phenomenal.  When leading a group, it is not uncommon for me to easily drop the entire group as we are coming out of a traffic light or a turn.  There is a lot of yelling when I do this because folks think I am being a jerk.  Honestly, I don’t do it on purpose.  The bike just takes off by itself, so I have learned to tone it down when I take off and not even get off the saddle because otherwise I end up dropping the group.

The ride is also very smooth.  I can ride over chipseal and while most folks are hurting, I am just enjoying the ride.  Now here is the best part of owning a titanium frame: never having to worry about rust on the frame or about the paint job.  Titanium rusts very very very very slowly, and not the same as other metals.  That means I don’t have to worry if I get sweat all over it.  Additionally, there is no paint job and I don’t have to worry about scratches or about having to apply polish/wax to it.  As as friend put it, “If your frame gets scratched, you just take some steel wool and rub it right out.”

Good for you, Ramon.  If we wind up on the same ride in Central Texas someday, you’ll have to let me ride it — before you use it to leave me in the dust.

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