OK my bike is ready, where's the snow? I've setup my touring bike to carve through the snow. I've put permanent fenders and studded cyclocross tires on it.

I'm looking forward to trying my hand at some winter cycling. Regretfully I didn't do too much of it last year. It teaches you some good bike handling skills.

My race bike may now sit 'til spring in the trainer :(

These are various running shoes I wear to run (clockwise from top):

• Nike ACG Gortex winter trail running shoes (still good)
• Saucony Hurricane 8 (new pair at Christmas)
• Nike Free (wearing out)
• Asics Gel-1100

Generally I don't like Nike, but my ACGs have worked great for winter running (they feel good but I bought them before I had a gate analysis done so they might not be ideal for me), and the Nike Free are very good for the treadmill (but they've developed a tear and need replaced).

I love my Saucony Hurricane 8s and I'll be buying them again in December when I'll retire this pair.

The Asics are already retired, but I wear them around and use them for shorter rainy runs (soon to be replaced by the Saucony).

Slow Twitch is a great site for triathlon articles and reviews. I highly recommend looking through it.

I live in an apartment and I don't own any indoor drying racks (although I guess I could buy one), and since I don't machine dry my aesthetics wear I always end up draping it over my bikes. The 3 bikes I own already take up a fair amount of space, and it must look strange to the untrained eye when all three are covered in damp sports gear. The bike in the photo is my Giant OCR Touring bike. I'm currently outfitting it for winter riding, although snow has yet to fall here in Montreal.

So my FSA/Vison Tech Mini Clip-Ons arrived yesterday I gave them a spin today. They feel quite different from the other aerobars that I've used, and it might take some getting used to. The pads contact the arms just above the wrist, and my watch made that a little uncomfortable, however, I think I'll be able to adapt to them. I couldn't do laps around the Grand Prix race track so I haven't had the chance to stay in aero position for any length of time, but soon they will get a good test run when I set my bike up in my trainer.

Hopefully the weather will permit me to take my race bike out a few more times this year. I'll be writing an extensive review of my cycling setup before winter hits full on.

I'm also going to get a good nights sleep tonight so that I can do some cycling tomorrow. I really have to test my new Ritchie Pro Pelaton pedals. I'm not sure how good they'll be, but they are a light licensed offshoot of the LOOK Delta system. They were pretty cheap as well so... They weigh 280 grams which is significantly lighter than the Delta pedals still made by LOOK.

Not being able to ride my bike for the past couple of weeks has been driving me nuts. Anyway this the story of my bike:
  About a month ago I decided that I should see if I could take advantage of any year-end bike sales. I needed a new bike because racing the bike split of a triathlon on a touring bike wasn't really working out for me as well as I would like. I had decided at the beginning of the summer that I really had to have a racing bike (I chose against a triathlon bike because I wanted more flexibility in what I could do with it), but unfortunately at that point in time I couldn't justify the expense. Anyway... after shopping around I realized that Yeti had the Devinci CX Ultegra (with full ultegra drive train) in my size and on sale (a rarity considering I'm 6'3"). I've looked at this bike before, but chose against it due to the fact that it was about $300 more than an equivalent Argon18 (another Quebec company whose bikes I love). Once I saw that it was on sale for $500 cheaper than normal I decided that I had to have it. I ran home to figure out how I could maneuver the expence (it would be tight but I could do it) and double check the specs (they seemed to be in line with the other bikes I had been looking at). I called my father to tell him about it and in an incredibly generous and unexpected move he decided to get it for me for my birthday.

Anyway this is the bike that I’m going to begin riding again this weekend. I must say it’s a very sweet, light, and fast ride that handles beautifully.

So I'm waiting on an order for FSA/Vison Tech Mini Clip-On's from Performance Bike. I'm hoping I like them. I've been reading a lot about aerobars and triathlon vs road bike geometry: the majority of opinion seems to back up the idea that full aerobars on a road bike cause the angle of one's back and legs become too narrow making one to lose power in one's stroke. The mini might be an odd length and not lead to full aero position, but it's designed to work properly with a road geometry and it should help enough for my purposes.

I have a whole story to tell about my Devinci Ultegra CX race bike, but for now all I'm going to say is that it's fast and I love it.