You know sometimes I love my job.  The Jamis rep came knocking on our door earlier this week.  He wants to open an account with us because he sees our shop as a reputable mid to high-end road shop with a good vibe.  As part of his sales pitch he said he had a demo bike that the staff could ride and evaluate it.  Wouldn’t you know it the demo bike was a size 54cm– lucky me.

Ok so now I have a weekend with the Jamis Xenith SL.  Here is the write-up from their website:

“Pro racing is the toughest test lab in the world. And that’s where Xenith SL and Team really shine, under the pedals of the Jamis/Sutter Home/Colavita pro cycling team, weekend after weekend.

Last year’s Xenith was a high-water mark for performance. This year we kicked it up a whole new level. We used every trick in the book, then added a few pages of our own: like Near Net Molding technology that allows hyper-accurate reproduction of our FEA-optimized layup schedule. With a high impact-resistant resin binder system and Omniad fiber lay-up, plus asymmetric chainstays that balance out drivetrain stresses, and a tapered-steerer fork with 1.5” lower race that’s completely hollow from steerer to dropouts.

The result: a lighter, stiffer, more durable,
faster platform.”

Source

If my weekend goes as planned I will do a short 30 mile ride tomorrow to make sure everything is good to go on the bike.  Then Sunday I’ll do my favorite century — The Palomar Century.  It is 100 miles and 10,000 feet of climbing with the featured climb being Palomar Mountain 11.7 miles 4100 feet of gain for an avg. grade of 6.8%.

Stay tuned for the Vireo Review…