My new red road bike

For my road bike, there were no shortages of research materials on the Internet.  My head was dizzy with biking geek jargons and conflicting advices from my riding friends.  Don’t want to be a racer, just wanted a good road bike for recreational rides. The cover page of Bicycling magazine caught my eye at the airport while on a business trip.  The bike reviews were quite interesting.  I quickly realized that I need to shell out some high dollars to get a good road bike and wanted to keep it under $1,500.  I also went to Performance Bike on FM 1960 to check out what they had.  The Schwinn Peloton and this review caught my eye.   Because of the 2008 model year change, I was able to get a good price for the carbon frame bike for $1,400. Hope this bike will last me awhile.

My first ride

The genesis of my bicycling interest started on February of 2007. On that month, I joined LA Fitness and started to participate in the Spin classes.  Being 53 years old, my joints were making some strange noises.  I have not excised in a long time and was grossly out of shape.  However, after one year, not only have I lost about 20+ pounds of fat, but surprisingly I was enjoying exercising.  Then one day, I heard that my company is a sponsor of MS150 and has a Cycling Team!  I have not ridden a real bicycle over 20+ years. Can I ride a bicycle after all these years?  For that much distance?

I purchased a used Trek hybrid bicycle from a friend of mine and started to ride that bike around the neighborhood.  Wow!  It wasn’t that bad.  I have not forgotten how to ride.  I am now ready for a longer ride.  I chose the Bulldog Bike Ride as my first challenge.  They had 25, 32, and 50-mile routes.  I should be able to do 25 miles.

As the ride started on Saturday, February 16th, 2008, 8:30 am, it was cloudy and had about 700 riders.  My adrenaline really started pumping.  Breathing very heavy, oh no! Getting tired already and have not even made to the first rest stop.  Once the bike traffic thinned out, I finally started to relax and my breathing slowed down.  One thing that I immediately noticed was that I was putting lot of effort and was being effortlessly passed by folks that had really nice road bikes. I did happen to pass by a guy that was riding a mountain bike (looked kind of similar to mine). He said something about he will not get a flat.  I said, “me too”.

I felt good at 15-mile mark and decided to go for the 50-mile route.  What a mistake! My ego got better of me. After 30 miles, I was totally exhausted.  Every mile after that was very difficult. Around mile 40, it started to rain and head-wind.  I finished at 12:30 pm. It took me four hours, but seemed much longer.

The lesson that I learned from the Bulldog ride was:  if I am going to do MS150 and 180 miles on a bike, I need to purchase a good road bike.  I have so much to learn.