Another birthday come and gone. Thank God the goodies last longer than the day itself. Speaking of which, here’s my new bicycle:
Pretty pretentious, eh? So pretentious it came with clip-in pedals, which in turn forced an investment in high-tech bicycle shoes. I rode it for the first time today, mainly to get the knack of clipping in and out of those diabolical pedals. Getting into them is a pain. Getting out of the damned things is authentic pain. Eight miles into my training ride a toddler ran onto the bike trail and down I went, feet welded to the pedals, swearing all the way to the ground. Next time I’ll hit the kid.
They say you’ll go down three times learning to use clip-ins. Having excelled at every other thing in my life, I’ve set my sights on a higher number. To ensure I get lots of practice, I stopped at the bike shop on the way home and bought a pair of clip-in pedals for my other bike. No going back now!
Of our little riding group, I’m the only one to sign up for El Tour de Tucson. The rest wimped out. Two Saturdays from now I’ll join thousands of bicyclists, most of them even more dangerous than me, for a 35-mile ride around the north side of Tucson. There are 66-, 80-, and 109-mile routes as well, but we’ll leave those to riders for whom “peloton” and “spandex” are everyday words. Maybe next year, or the year after. I haven’t decided whether to tackle the tour on the old bike or the new one. Right now I’m thinking old . . . I’ll need more than the one or two practice rides I can squeeze in between now and then to be comfortable on the new bike.
That’s the latest from bicycle land, where all the riders go down easy.