Cycling: Hobby, Sport, or Obsession?

Dork.

Newbie.

Fred.

All words that I’ve learned during my recent research that, to an experienced rider, would probably describe me right now. Well, at least when outfitted for my new hobbie: cycling. The world of carbon fiber, lycra, helmets, and getting honked at while going half the speed limit in a regular traffic lane. The world that, to me, has always been populated by geeks sitting on tiny, atomic-wedgy-producing bike seats, crouching over their itty bitty bike computers trying to pound out two-tenths of a mile per hour faster while speeding down their favorite hill. The world of derailleurs, bottom brackets, down tubes, top tubes, chainstays, headsets, dual-pivot cantilever brakes, presta valves, and a billion other terms made up for bike shop gear heads that, when used out of context or with mispronunciation, make a person new to the sport stand out like an argyle sweater in Sturgis. All of this foreign to me…until last fall.

I’ve had a burning desire for some time to purge money from my checking account into the recreational vehicle called a road bicycle. My last true experience with cycling (if you can really call it that) was roaming my hometown streets back in junior high with the neighbor boys on my 9-speed mountain bike from the discount department store. I loved that bike, and went through a few sets of tires every summer. Whether they popped due to skidding out after bombing big hills, hard landings off of the neighborhood homemade ramp, or just because they were the cheapest bike tire I could find was beyond me, but at the end of the summer, I could tell how much fun I had by how far my rear rim was bent out of place (my new word for bent is now “untrue”).

My summer days typically consisted of waking up, checking off the list of basic household chores that my mom set out for my sisters and I as early as I could, and heading outside to ride up and down the street until my friend next door finished his chores. We usually looted the ashtrays in our parents’ cars for change before starting our rides. Our town had some very nice bike trails surrounding the lakes. Each day we tried to find a new path to get to them, with hopes that by end of the summer we would have ridden every street in town. Some days we’d use the change to buy hotdogs at the ice cream shop. Other days we’d have to take a detour on one of the “laps” to head home to eat lunch because we used all the spare change we could find the day before. Some trips concluded at the dam with fishing poles. Some at the beach to go swimming. Some at the baseball field to have homerun derbies with tennis balls. But no matter what we did, we’d usually be gone from the house for least five hours a day. At night, we’d try to do all of our own repairs and modifications using our dad’s tools. We’d take our bikes apart for fun then try to get them back together AND in working condition without our dads’ help. One summer we even sanded them down to the bare frame and did our own custom paint jobs. They looked horrible, but they were our own and we thought we were the coolest kids in the county. But, once high school came and I got my driver’s license, the bike was sold for $20 at our neighbors’ garage sale. Looking back, $20 was way more than the bike was worth monetarily, but no price could have paid for the memories, the scars, and the fitness that that bike gave me.

Since then, the only other times I have ridden a bike were when I borrowed my roommate’s commuter / mountain bike to ride around our college campus, (usually with a moderate blood alcohol level while heading to the campus cafeteria to load up on tacos and french fries) and during my very first triathlon on another borrowed mountain bike. My roommate and I signed up for the triathlon on sort of an “I’ll-do-it-if-you-do-it” basis as we walked by the painted sign in the commons building. I had sent a mass email to a bunch of friends asking if anyone had a bike I could borrow for the event. Luckily, I had a response and picked up the bike the night before the race, in exchange for a 12-pack of beer. The bike was another generic department store mountain bike. It had a slow leak in the front tire which I didn’t notice until the three mile mark of the race the next morning. At mile eight, I heard the infamous and smugly pronounced “Nice bike!” insult from a spandex warrior as he whooshed by me with ease on his carbon fiber skinny-tired steed up a slow-rolling hill. Humbled and, quite frankly, embarrassed, I simply looked down to the road directly in front of my sagging front tire and took the insult as truth.

Who was I kidding? I was no more of a triathlete, let alone a cyclist, than Subway Jared was 10 years ago. But alas, I finished the triathlon (in a very sub-par time, but finished nonetheless). I accomplished my goal…which really was only to complete the dare with my roommate. But that day, a spark was lit inside me. I was going to stay fit. I was going to get better at triathlons. I wasn’t going to be laughed at during the bike leg again.

After graduation, my focus drifted solely towards getting a job and running, then aspects of my personal life began to change and become more serious, placing many other things, specifically the fun boy toys, on the back burner.

I completed a couple 5k’s, 10k’s, 30k’s, and two marathons in the years to follow. A few friends also got into the endurance sports, and a select few of them into the multi-sport arenas as of late. Then, while flipping channels two years ago, I came across the documentary / replay of the Ford Ironman World Championship in Hawaii. The show highlighted people of significance and others with just plain interesting stories and followed them through the grueling race in the tropics: swimming 2.4 miles in the open salty ocean, biking 112 miles around active volcanoes and vast beaches, and then finishing it off with a 26.2-mile marathon. Hearing their stories of why they’re there, how they trained, and their feelings while crossing the finish line added fuel to the spark in my chest, causing me to tell my now wife that I’m going to do an Ironman. Maybe not this year, or in 5 years, or in 10 years…but I’m going to finish an Ironman someday. Being the supportive wife of my monthly random aspirations, she replied with her usual sarcastic, “Mmmmkaayy!”

Nevertheless, I was determined to start ramping up my physical activity. I was going to start by whittling down my running pace and start viewing races as more than just something to do, but an actual competition. I was going to start swimming laps and learning proper techniques…and wearing something other than baggy swim trunks while doing so. I was going to start biking…

Ah. The dilemma.

I started researching bicycles, mainly online. I’d find a bike a liked, really only by judging the color, and as soon as I scrolled down to the price, my mouse would head straight for the X at the top of the screen and close the window. I tried to find “the best bargain” out there, but after running a few too-good-to-be-true-deals by a few friends and reading their respective reviews, I learned that with bicycles, you really do get what you pay for, and finding a deal is nearly impossible without proper connections. So, I took it upon myself to start saving. The search continued for perfect bicycle: one that would allow me to ride recreationally, on a budget, and also allow me to show up on race day and actually appear like I know what I’m doing.

During the next few months, I learned the difference between Shimano and Campagnolo (they’re the two “main” brands of bicycle components that are completely incompatible with each other). I learned that for what I wanted my bike to do for me, I needed to get what they call a road racing bike, and that I probably shouldn’t jump on a triathlon specific bike just yet, and that my days of making fun of those curly handle bars were over (they’re called drop handle bars, or simply “drops”). I learned that there are different geometries for each bike, and sometimes they’re different just between brands of bikes and that every person requires a different geometry for their body build and for their primary activity on the bike.

Most importantly, I learned that no matter which way I looked at it, I was going to have to drop a lot of money up front to get into this sport. And as time wears on, I keep learning that bikers never really stop spending the money. In fact, they just spend more. Parts wear out. You “need” to upgrade to that new component group. You find a new color. You want to shave off a few grams of total weight by upgrading to a carbon fiber water bottle holder. You’re just plain bored and feel like heading to the bike shop. There’s always an excuse to add on to your hobby. And there’s always the perfect justification that you’re “investing in a lifestyle change” or “contributing to your health and well-being.” While there’s something to be said for both of those arguments, really, you’re just feeding that junior high kid trapped in your adult’s body trying to pimp your bike to make it the coolest bike in the neighborhood. I decided I was going to do it once and for all, and set a goal to have a bike in my garage by the end of the summer.

So, after riding about 10 different bikes, I found the one I wanted. The bike told me that I needed it, and vice versa. It had a red and white color scheme that screamed my favorite colors. It gave me the biggest rush as I climbed the road nearly effortlessly behind the bike shop. And, it was on sale. I caught it at the end of last season. A 2007 Specialized Allez Elite.

I’ll get into the components (and what and how I learned about them) in later posts, but the bike itself is a beauty. The bike guy described the bike as a “mid-entry level” bike. That sounded good to me, and my research proved him to be honest. Forty-five minutes later, I’m taking off the front wheel and shoving the bike into my back seat to bring it home. Was I going to talk about the price with my wife: of course. Would I be the one to bring it up: absolutely not. Would I make it seem like everything just comes with it and it was a one time money drop and do everything I could to hide receipts and new parts: absolutely.