The first Brevet was surprisingly hard

Wow - rarely I am that much behind my own expectatons. The first
brevet of this year's season I thought I would do with an impressive
time. But I didn't. Well in fact the time was impressive - kind of. I
needed good 11 hours to do the 200km. Okay, threre was wind and there
were heights, but anyway I was quite shocked how slowly I have been. A
good excuse may be the lack of sleep the night before. I had about 3-4
hours of sleep, that was a bit to less. But it was kind of fun anyway
and reminded me to take every distance seriously. Only because I rode
600km already and nearly PBP doesn't mean 200km are nothing. 200km is
still a pretty long distance. Nothing too hard, but also not to
underestimate. Cheers!

A new bike

I spent some sweet Euros and bought an additional bike. A nice
Specialized Sirrus Comp. It's another speed bike and in many regards
similar to my Bergamont Beluga Speed. But with better components and
the frame is a tad smaller.
It's a below 10kg, but not especially light. I modified it to have the
same Specializes Avatar Gel saddle and Ergon grips like I put on my
Bergamont bike.

But the main reason I bought it was not to get better material, but to
have a dedicated bike for sports. Yet I used the Bergamont for
everything. But the winter was hard for the bike, the dirt, the rain,
the ice, etc. The bike goes easily to bad condition during every day
use. The Specialized will be reserved from these hard every day
conditions and stay in better shape.

Originally I intended to get a pure racing bike, but the ones I liked
most were a bit over my budget (e.g. Specialized Rubaix 1750 EUR) I
had good experience with this type of bike on my long distance rides
last year. Paris-Brest-Paris failed not due to my Bergamont bike.

Coming weekend the this year's brevet will saison start, if the
weather will be fine this will be the first hard test for the Sirrus.
But if the weather will be rather I bad I'll start with my Bergamont,
because I have no luggage carrier for the Sirrus yet and no fenders,
too.

After my first rides on the Specialized bike, I guess I'll gain about
5% more speed due to the better material. But I should not forget that
the Bergamont performs quite good, too.