craigmwilson.net

This sport can be a fantastic money drain. Here are a few new toys I got recently.

Aerus Transition bag. I won this courtesy of Blue Cycles and Adrenaline Tri Sport in Niwot for winning the Boulder Triathlon Club TT series in the spring (a good attendance award, really). I picked the pink floral print over the blue and gave it to my oldest daughter who was very excited to receive it to use for her swim club stuff. Great bag, has a dry pocket for wetsuit, ample room, comes with transition mat. Now I want one for myself (the blue one).
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XTERRA Velocity speedsuit. I got it to use for open water swims late in the summer. This is what I looked like after 2 1-hour swims. I had BodyGlide and a singlet underneath and I am sure it fits properly. I asked two others who own them and they both experience the same thing to some degree. Why would anyone want to subject themselves to that? While it seems to be well made and has a nice zipper system, I wouldn’t buy it again.
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Race Socks compression socks. I joined the legions of people I know who swear these things work for recovery since they promote blood flow. I have been wearing them to work on days after long runs. Now I feel good and look like Larry Bird, circa 1979. What more could you ask for?
A big thank you to Mike and AJ for these.

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Sampson Stratics Aero bars. I had the good fortune to win these in the Boulder Stroke and Stride raffle drawing. I have used these without bar tape for over 300 miles now and love them as these are fantastic bars in every way: They are very light. The slight drop on the wings makes for a favorable climbing position while still keeping the pads at the right height. They are highly adjustable and easy to feed the cables through. The oval shaped extensions are very comfortable and have gritty grip built in, The bend of the extension allow me to hold on without an awkward angle to my wrists. An unexpected benefit is the cable routing is so smooth my ders now shift much easier than with the big cable-kink my previous VisionTech bars necessitated. The only knock on them is that they do not work with brake levers that thread the cable through the internal center, like SRAMs new levers (which I never really liked and are now on Ebay). I recently bought ans installed the matching Sampson levers and they are very good, too.