New Bike - I need an intervention!

[TrekTheKaty]

I have N+1! Maybe we should have a bike swap--then everyone gets a "new" bike!

My sis and her DH just informed me they are down to 4! (They are antique dealers who frequent estate sales. Most of the bikes came the day after the sale when the bike was sitting on the curb! I keep telling them their retirement plan should be a bike rental shop!)

[Maxxxie]

Congrats on the new steed, Pinkbikes!!!

Max

[pinkbikes]

Congrats on the new steed, Pinkbikes!!!

Max

Thanks Max! I'm still lusting for a new full carbon roadie but that child of mine needs to grow a bit faster for that to happen. But this will be fun for now.

I took it for its first ride this morning - did the Bike Week Women's Ride at Sandgate (thought I might see you out there somewhere Max!) this morning and rode to and from Sandgate from home to pad it out to a nice 55km. The bike was lovely - rode really well and didn't even seem too much slower than my real roadie!

Unfortunately I got my first flat tyre at 40km! On my first ride! Does that seem fair? Nooooo!

Fortunately this was just as they had finished the ride bit and were having the riding for women seminar at the Bowls Club, so I just parked my butt down the back of he room and changed the flat while the speakers were speaking, and then borrowed the track pump from the bike mechanic who came to teach them all to change a flat, and was back on my merry way. Could hardly have been more convenient really.

Are you doing the Great Brisbane Bike Ride next Sunday at all Max?

[Maxxxie]

I took it for its first ride this morning - did the Bike Week Women's Ride at Sandgate (thought I might see you out there somewhere Max!)this morning and rode to and from Sandgate from home to pad it out to a nice 55km.

Awww, crap! I had every intention of going on that ride, but after a tough ride home last night, I slept in until 0600. No way I was going to make it. I was very unhappy with myself. I'd been looking forward to it for aaaaaaages!

The bike was lovely - rode really well and didn't even seem too much slower than my real roadie!

Awesome!

Unfortunately I got my first flat tyre at 40km! On my first ride! Does that seem fair? Nooooo!

Not so awesome. But hey, at least you know you can fix a flat on that sucker! When my mum replaced her bike last year, it was much to her dismay that she discovered the combination of her tyres with new rims was completely impossible for her to get on/off without help from her hubby.

Are you doing the Great Brisbane Bike Ride next Sunday at all Max?

Yes, and there's no way I'm sleeping in! I wanna go through the new Clem7 tunnel and see what all the fuss is about! I presume you're going? DD too?

Max

[pinkbikes]

You betcha I'll be there. I got a freebie from work for the 45km so I entered DH as well. We "ran" through Clem7 the other week (in a mostly walking kind of way) and it was pretty cool, so I'm definitely NOT going to miss riding through it. Lucky for us DD has a birthday party sleepover the night before, so I get to NOT ride the tandem (she's 6 days too young to pilot her own bike dammit) and will ride the roadie instead. Yay!

I'll be hanging around the Smart Travel tent at the start - I think as sponsors we may get to start somewhere near the front. Give me a yell if you are coming past and see me. I'll be in Smart Travel clobber of course! Red helmet, no tiara this time!

You missed a nice ride today too. The weather was pretty kind considering how it has been the last few weeks - barely even a couple of raindrops! Oh - and you missed quite a spectacle too - and I was just a bit too slow to get it on camera....

Picture a group of women riding along the foreshore at Woody Point. The path runs right at the water's edge with about a 1.5m drop over a retaining wall down to the water and a nice timber edge beam on top. We are battling a headwind and some of the crowd are looking forward to coffee just ahead. One of my girlfriends (commutes to town from Greenslopes for work pretty regularly) has come along for the ride and I have got a bit ahead of her when I hear a bit of a yelp and a tyre scraping across concrete.

I immediately think she is in trouble and turn to look behind, just in time to see one of the ride leaders flying through the air into the water with her bike still attached. Bugger!

It turns out that my friend has looked across the park to the coffee shop and not seen the parkbench looming that sticks out into the path (masterful bit of design that) realises at the last minute, hooks her pedal on it and comes to a savage halt. The ride leader, seeing what has happened as she was about to pass, takes a wider line and somehow goes too wide, winds up facing the drink and launches over the raised timber edge, landing in the water and on the rocks below.

Somehow both she and the bike escape with only minor issues - a few small scrapes for her and brifters pushed out of line and chain all topsy turvy for the bike! Amazing really.

So we all hoisted her and bike out of the drink and sorted out her chain and straightened up her brifters and off she rode! Daresay she'll have a few sore and achy spots tomorrow, but she's very fortunate not to have broken anything.

So you definitely shouldn't have slept in!

[Maxxxie]

That sounds incredibly dramatic, acrobatic and traumatic, all in one! I'm double-plus peeved I didn't go now.

Never mind. I'll keep an eye out for you at the ride on Sunday

Max