2009 Specialized Roubaix SL2

Chapter 1: Over the Hill

In 2009, my dad turned 50. To celebrate, my saint of a mother bought him this Roubaix. At the time, this was the top of the top, the creme de la creme, the capo de tutti capi in terms of carbon road bikes aimed at the cobbled classics. Dura Ace everything and a world champs rainbow on the seat-tube, for some reason. Excuse me, but this is a fuckin bicycle!

After a big wipeout in his early 60s (I inherited these genes,) Scotty K hung up his clips in favor of his tennis racquet. The bike is officially mine, and it's time to crisp her up a tiny bit. There certainly isn't much crispification needed. We just gotta figure out the old-man-upright-stem situation and the preposterous 46cm (?) bars. If we get that right, the fit and front end aesthetics will take the bike to crispy perfection. I'll use this thing only a few times per year when I visit my parents. She'll live in the air conditioned basement for most of the year only to sortie out when I'm in town. Another plus: it's flat where they live, so the Dura Ace 7800 drive train has more than enough gearing to get up the steepest hill in the surrounding few counties.