First Real Ride on the New Ciocc - Sweeet!

I was supposed to do the Lake Washington Loop w/ Dennis & Rachael yesterday, but after a night of drinking and dancing at the War Room's sing sing, that didn't happen. Actually, I was so hung over I didn't even leave the house yesterday! Good times though..

Anyway today I finally got a chance to take a real spin on my new super-bike, and damn was it a fast ride! First, some stats:

Route: "Two-lakes loop" - counter-clockwise loop that goes around Lakes Washington and Sammamish, starting and ending on Capitol Hill in Seattle. It passes through renton, issaquah, redmond, bothell, and back through seattle
Total dist: 105.6 km (~66 miles)
Total (rolling) Time: 3 hrs, 52 minutes
Avg speed: 27.7 km/h (~16.8 mph)
Max speed: 73 km/h - going east on Madison the 53x11 was FAST! Too bad it was a little wet out, I sure don't wanna wreck the new ride.

Elevation profile (minus Inglewood, which is only 400 ft or so):

The large bump in the middle of the ride is going up and over the plateau on Highway 900, from Renton to Issaquah.

The Ciocc COM 12.5 steel frame really responds well, it feels a lot stiffer than my Bianchi Eros, which is also steel. I was afraid that the higher gearing would throw off my climbing, but it seems about as hard going up climbs like Inglewood Drive (12% for .5 mi), if not a tad easier. I never used the smallest front-ring on the triple my Eros has anyway, so I'm loving the gears: 39,53 in the front, 11-23 in the back. Can you say speed?!

On the flats my speeds were at about 32-40 km/h (20-25 mph), and it felt incredibly easy to hold those speeds on the windy Sammamish River Trail. Going downhill was great too, I rarely ran out of gearing, and hitting ~45mph on Madison was probably a new top-speed for that location. Once I get to Tolt Hill Road on a dry day, my goald of 100 km/h (60mph) will be within reach!

The rain started to come down really hard when I was just about in Redmond, so the last two hours of the ride were pretty cold, but my vest kept the core pretty toasty. The climb going up 180th/Perkins way in Lake Forest Park, which is three miles long, didn't seem all that bad. And 5th Ave E. (parallel to I-5) is usually a slog at the end of the ride, but this new bike carries me around like a.... well like a decently light Italian racing bike, that's what!

(Here's the bike, btw)