Race blocks look glamorous on an itinerary and feel like laundry logistics in real life. Four weekends, three countries, two crashes that weren't ours, and one bike that never once became the story — which is the highest compliment a race bike gets.
Week one: crosswinds
An echelon race in the north. The lesson from the convoy: deep wheels win watts on paper, but the rider who isn't fighting the front wheel eats last in the gutter and still has legs at 40 km to go.
Week three: the mountain weekend
Two summit finishes. The mechanic's notebook says more than the power files: zero mid-race adjustments, one bottle cage bolt re-torqued, brake pads at half wear after 4,000 m of descending in the rain.
What we're taking into block two
Tire pressure decisions moved from the morning of to the night before, off the recon files. And the spare bike now runs the same cockpit width as the race bike — the one time we needed it, the swap cost nothing. The race bikes ran Spear RDC Frameset builds all block.
This is a test article — content is illustrative while the store is in staging.
