I can't believe it's a new month, but here we are.
This morning ride went quite well. I didn't fall down for a change and I timed EVERY stop light except for one. I don't know that I've ever done that. As a result, my clock time to get to work was a very fast 44:30. One of these days, taking out the stop times, I will go under 40 minutes. My fastest to date is about 42 minutes, but given the right conditions, I can break 40.
Just to give you some sense of scale, 40 minutes translates to about a 19.6mph average speed. In races of similar distances (with no heavy backpack on my back and no stop lights to get in my way) I can average 22 to 24 mph depending on the course. Tour de France riders could average 30mph or so. When riding with my kids (9 year old being the oldest), we average less then 10mph.
BORING!
Ok, so here's my trusty steed:
I know it's hard to see, but it's a Miyata that is older than the hills - somewhere in the mid 1980s if I had to guess. I bought it from this great guy that I worked with back in the late 90s after I had been out of cycling for years. His sharing of the bike with me and later selling it to me lead to 8 years of triathlons (about 15 to 20 races), an Ironman, and about 20 pounds lighter. I bought it for $150 - an absolute steal I realized later. I have since put no less than $300 into it in terms of wheels, repairs and other stuff, but when I get a new bike, I'll be keeping this one for sure.
I recall a race about 4 years ago where this guy followed me after the race just to ask me about my bike (at the time, I was also racing on this bike, I've since bought a newer bike). He said something to the affect of "isn't that bike a little old?". He went on to wonder how it was that I didn't get last place. It's funny, but I think people put too much stock in the equipment sometimes. Bikes have certainly changed significantly since the mid-80s, but this bike is aluminum and had the best components at the time. I am not significantly faster on my newer, lighter bike even though it's much "prettier"!!
As seasoned bikers always say, instead of spending $100s on buying lighter components for your bike, just lose some weight!
