I recently read this interesting comment on a Slowtwitch.com:
"I have also started looking at tri equipment and how far it has actually come.
I have compared 2 races: IM Hawaii 1989 and 2007. In 1989 Mark Allen and Dave Scott rode road bikes with
road wheels and tribars in 4hr38, and ran 2h40.
In 2007, Macca rode 4H38 on a highly developed tribike with all the gizmos, and ran a 2H42. All 3 had similar race day conditions, all 3 are spectacular athletes, so the real question is does all this technology work? or is it just a way of extracting your hard earned cash, just to look good on race day. "
I guess the more things change the more they stay the same.
That's why I'm posting this set of stories about my not so distant great bike hunt. I really don't think that much has changed when it comes to the trial and tribulations of buying a new bike.
But you be the judge.
So I’m standing at the cash register the other day waiting to pay for my new bike when this short guy (wider than taller) gets off the same bike I’m about to buy (in a smaller size) and says I’ll take it. He had just spent a grand total of about 22 seconds test riding the bike. I had just spent three months of pain-staking work visiting every bike shop in Boulder and Denver plus countless hours on Google researching the perfect tri bike.
Let me take you back a few months to the beginning of this search for the Holy Grail of Triathlon: The perfect bike and the perfect bike fit. There is a kind of art to the perfect bike fit that is part science, part mysticism and part blind luck. I just hope that the details of my quest will make your quest that much easier.
I suppose my quest began at Boulder Peak Triathlon when on a particularly fast stretch of road the left aero bar made a dash for freedom and flew off my old Trek 2100 bike (which I had somewhat clumsily converted to tri bike duty) like it was shot out of a cannon. Or perhaps it began a few week earlier when on a group ride my front derailleur would not shift out of low gear leaving me sucking wind trying to spin, like the road runner runs, just to keep up.
But I suppose it really began when I almost ran over that bear.
A few months ago I saw my friend Luis and he says to me, “I'm going for a ride tomorrow morning in the mountains. Do you want to go?” I said sure if my run gets canceled...which it did...so at 5:00 a.m. I meet him and we're on our way. Did I mention that this was 5:00 bloody A.M. You all know that means getting up at like 4:30 a.m.
Luis says, "we'll have the roads to ourselves." and I'm think sure, us and all the drunks heading home after an all-nighter boozing it up with their buddies. Thank God for Bubba and Jeb. (Keep Reading)
So anyway, once I'm awake and moving, I'm thinking this is not so bad. Luis is pointing out various local birds flying overhead and I notice that for the first time in my life there are no other bikes coming back into town, even the prairie dogs are asleep.
We make a left and now we're in the canyon and it is cold and still darkish. I get to mile 9 up the canyon and my left leg has checked out. I look down and my left cleat has turned sideways. I'm now official hosed as I don't have an wrench to fix it. Not a good way to bike unless you are in a 3 Stooges movie. Luis is long gone. So I turn around and head back down and decide to go home the short way. The going is a bit doggy since I really can't clip in on the left side. So I'm always looking down trying to keep my foot on the backside of the clip.
About halfway up the last steep incline before the decent home the sun hits. I'm feeling pretty good because I know that it’s downhill in a few minutes. That's when I look up and see the biggest freakin' Bear I have ever seen looking right at me. You take them out of the zoo, remove the bars and the pit, and boy are they big. Image a furry VW Beetle. At least that's what it looked like to me. I freeze and almost poop my pants. My heart jumps into my throat and my left foot flies of the cleat. I stop and look at him. He's just kinda looking at me like a big hungry dog. His head cocks to one side and I image him licking his lips.
Now what? I've heard bears can accelerate to something like forty miles an hour in 5 feet or less. Plus I'm down hill from him That makes it even easier if he chooses to go for an early morning triathlete breakfast.Plus there's o denying it...there's plenty of meat on my Clydesdale bones.
Have you seen those scary/crappy/rusty deliverance pick-up trucks that seem to ply the back roads of America. You know the kinda of pick-up that's 40-years-old with booze buddies Bubba and Jeb in the front seat smoking just a little less than the truck. We'll thank God for Bubba and Jeb and their road burner.
Just as the Bear was deciding which part of me would make the best breakfast burrito, one of these pick-ups comes chugging up the road. As the hill is very steep, the road burner was howling and popping and smoking and chugging and scrapping, which spooked the bear, which ran across the road and up a hill, which saved my butt, which went totally unnoticed by Bubba and Jeb, even thought I was waving furiously at them, to get them to slow down, so I could use their truck as a bear shield.
Needless to say I flew up the rest of the hill in record speed. Had Lance been in front of me he would have been bear chow.
It was definitely then that I decided that I needed a new bike.
(Come Back for Part 2 Tomorrow)
