- the DHL guy had just left it sitting in the middle of my parking lot,
- there was a big hole in the box,
- the box had sprung totally open...
So 'D-' DHL, but as nothing seemed to be too damaged I was off and running. Of course it was also darn tempting to have somebody collect this clearly "abandoned" bike from the parking lot and have DHL buy me another one, but my friend says the most important thing he learned from his father was not to commit insurance fraud, and besides I wanted to get biking.
Next up was throwing it all together, which was just fine, although I had to go run out for some lube from the $$$ LBS. Happily this gave me an opportunity to verify that their pedals and bikes are still a terrible deal. Anyway, soon it was together and I was off for a ride... just to find that it needed some serious deraileur work. Essentially it shifted continually back and forth across most of the cassette. I have to hand it to the ultegra though, I could almost have ridden it in that state. Coming from my old bike where you've just about got to stop pedalling to shift nicely, this is pretty amazing. 
So sadly it was back to work for me, but all was not lost as I scored myself a lovely deal on some look pp-206 pedals from Brands Cycle & Fitness who were good on their word of shipping same day, and for free no less.
Anywho, finally rode it this morning up into the Norwhich hills and it was just lovely. You can't imagine the difference between brand-spanking new ultegra 10 speed and 8-year old marginally maintained Trek 470 RSX 7-speed. At least all that friction got me in decent shape though, right? Anyway, she rode lovely. I was worried about the shock of stiff aluminum, but it was fine as far as I'm concerned. Need to figure out what to do about my seat though, my old one had a hole in it and I forgot how numb the bits n' pieces can get.. not sure if she's up to snuff from a snazzy-looking perspective however.
now I just need a couple cool jerseys...
