More New Stuff

A new bike necessitates all manner of other new things, as it turns out.

Like a new bike rack to go on top of the new vehicle. Because there are times Basta wants to take that vehicle instead of the old vehicle which already has two bike racks on the roof, you see.

I swear, he is trying to single-handedly stimulate the economy.

But it is a nice rack. A Thule rooftop rack. Not overly expensive, in the grand scheme of things. Looks like a fine design. It's a Swedish company, so it ought to be.

Oh -- Crister --how is that properly pronounced: Thule. Is it like Thool like in Rule? Or Thoolee like in Truly? Or something else like, Tool or Toolee or Tuh-Hool maybe. We must know.

The new bike also needed new pedals and thus new clips, of course. The new clips are much, much tighter than Basta's old ones. He proved that quite spectacularly when he went down in front of a group of riders last weekend. Pulled up to a group stopped at a light, tried to clip out, didn't make it. Boom, down he went.

He with his fancy new bike, wearing his 'Look what I did!' Ironman 70.3 jersey, getting stuck on his pedal like it was his first time on a bike. Oops. He was very embarrassed. The group looked at him in amazement, then concernedly asked him if he was ok.

He was ok. He did fall properly, taking the blow with his shoulder and not trying to catch himself with his hand and thus breaking his wrist. The bike got a tear on the handlebar tape, but that's easily fixed.

Just his pride was wounded. He told his fellow tri-club members about it, the group that he thought he was pulling up to, and they all laughed at him.

I don't know why those clips are so tight. Maybe they can adjust that when he takes it in next time.

In other news, we did Wildflower a couple of weekends ago. He did the swim portion of a relay. He did the 1.2 miles in 39 minutes, knocking 4 minutes off of his Oceanside time. He is getting faster. He also found feet towards the end and experienced the joys of drafting. He says he's going to try to find feet every time now. Good.

He's also enjoying the bike. He looks forward to his rides and is doing all of them. Big progress there. He's keeping up with some of the medium-fast guys now but is still getting dropped on the hills by most of them. But he'll figure it out. His biking is dramatically better than it was a year ago. He has the machine he needs, now all he can do is improve his skills and put lots and lots of miles on that bike.

To wit, we're doing the San Diego Century Ride next weekend. He's dong the 66 mile (100km) course, deemed 'moderate to difficult.' It's a hilly course and will be a challenge to him, I'm sure.

I'm doing the 37 mile (56km) ride. I hope I finish before him.