What is it that you ride?

Really its only fair to throw my cards on the table. What am I riding, this is a bike website, so therefore the author must ride, right?

Well, it is actually a little more complicated than that.

In August of 2007 I posted in excitement about a bike that I had been given for free. Since the bike photo at the other blog, I had replaced the brakes with some STI shifters that weren’t compatible with the groupset – so the Campag Mirage STI shifteres were used only for braking – and added some SpeedPlay pedals. And up until the 18th February it was going swell.

After doing 3,457km I'll take the pedals. Retired.

On the 18th I went for a ride. The down tube split, which wasn’t exactly a great thing to find out – riding into Geelong and the lower part of the bike starts to swing when I pedaled. Eerie, and I was glad it didn’t happen whilst decending at speed. It was welded up, and I was promised that it would be fine to take on the road. I wasn’t so sure, so I just kept using the trainer.

From the start of March till the start of July I had done plenty of rides on the trainer. Nice but not fun. And eventually after dreaming enough to get back on the road, I decided to try a nice ride on a sunny winters day to test the “It’ll be fine” theory.

I got less than 100 meters before the welding that was safe for the road gave out. Split frame once more.

Nice welding? I dunno. Worked on the trainer just fine.

I have now stopped wishing to get the bike back on the road. It is time for a new bike. And in a ‘Usual Suspects’ like twist the author of this little bike site rides nothing. Pretty adverage story too.