On Monday, March 8, 2021 at 1:19:33 PM UTC-8, wrote:
I decided that riding a carbon fiber bike can only end badly one day. Of course that day might be past the end of my lifespan but if it isn't I would just as well not have a CF bike come apart underneath me. This has become enough of a worry that it slows me up on descents whereas I find that ascents are not remarkably faster on my steel bike. So rather than worry about the descents when the ascents show little to no gain seems a rather stupid means of sport riding.

Also, the sheer number of gears showing up on the scene is growing more and more preposterous every year. I was happy enough with 8 speeds and I could see Armstrong's point of a 9th gear to add a climbing bike so he didn't have to change bikes at the bottom of all of the hard climbs. So when it became difficult to get 8 speed parts, I didn't complain about changing over to 9 speeds. But that was followed all too rapidly with a change to 10 and then 11 and now 12 is the "standard" at least until 14 becomes the "latest standard". Why should I be shifting three gears at a time to arrive at the gear I want? Most especially at higher gears where you might have a 14-13-12-11 and the only places a 12 or 11 can be used is if you decide to pedal on downhills.

So I've put my carbon bikes on the chopping block and since they aren't selling on Craigslist I suppose that sooner or later they will go onto eBay.

Since I got the Felt new off of eBay I ran into the Eddy Elite while I was looking. Decent price if not a super deal. Rapid delivery which is becoming more and more unusual. The bike is not particularly light but neither was my Colnago C40s and I put in many miles on those. While I might have Preferred a Colnago Dream that particular aluminum frameset seems to have undergone a new appreciation and they are no longer available in my frame size. Once received though I have been rather impressed with the Eddy.

With frame, fork, headset, spacers, stem, seat clamp, bottle holder and Campy Skeleton brakes and shoes on it I would expect the finished bike to weigh around 20 lbs or so. Maybe a lb. more that would make it 3 lb.'s lighter than the Lemond. I guess the question is more about how it rides. It being a Merckx I an not worried about that.

It's an 18 year old Easton 7005 frame -- with CF fork that looks like a Kinesis with bonded ends. I'd rather have a 6061 CAAD 7.
And an 18 year old CF fork is a poor choice for you with your history of broken CF forks. Buying a new fork would exceed the reasonable value of that frame. Have you made money selling any of these odd-ball bikes?

-- Jay Beattie.