Fast Bicycles

Last night I discovered that road bikes go really really fast. Yes that's right I was one of those non-exhaust exhuming freaks in tight clothing getting in your way while you try to get wherever it was you were going.

Andrew called me up yesterday afternoon and said it was time to hop on the road bike and ride over Paris Mountain. I wasn't doing anything so I said ok. This is the second spontaneous ride of the week.

Andrew let me borrow his Ritchey since he was riding a new Bianchi that he purchased. We are about the same size so I just hopped on the bike and said "Man this is weird." Itty bitty tires and the thing weighs as much as a Frisbee as far as I am concerned. After a few minutes, I figured out the integrated shifters and had decent control of the bike so we were on our way. We met up with Ty close to the base of the climb up Paris and went climbing. As we started to roll up Paris I tried to shift into granny and realized there was no granny. Ooops I am going to have to pedal a little harder than I thought to get up these pitches.

Those guys are definitely faster than me but it was my first time so give a guy a break. Once we broke the top of the climb, and started our decent down Paris I realized that these bikes can really get moving. That's when I realized that I better back off on the speed because I started to feel out of my comfort level.

I let Andrew pass me so I had somebody to follow on the decent. As I was ripping down this mountain, I looked down at the bike and tried not to think about the fact that this Frisbee weighted thingamajig (FWT) underneath me was the only thing that was keeping me from going into a 40+ mph skid down the pavement.

Well I negotiated all the turns and made it to the bottom unscathed. I was a little squirrelly on one turn that snuck up on me. Other than that I felt I handled it pretty well.

Sitting at the bottom Andrew informed me that many people have crashed on some of those turns. Hey thanks for the heads up. It was fun. I don't know if I want to do that all the time but we had a good time and we cranked out ~25 miles around 15 mph average. Not bad for climbing mountains and being a virgin on the FWT.

Well I have a few people interested in the Pisgah ride this weekend but not many. Hopefully we will see great weather. Speaking of the ride this weekend I am headed to Cola town to get my CAKE all in order. I might be making some adjustments to the Drunken Monkey too we will just have to see.

Apparently Blogger won't allow me to post up any pictures this morning. I don't get it, sometimes it works fine and other times it says it has uploaded the picture and nothing ever shows. So no funny Monster Lobster pictures today. Sorry.