Pimp my Ride

When I started taking up this triathlon thing earlier this year I was smart enough to know that I would actually need a bike. 'What's a bike cost?' I thought $200? $300? I'll just go down to the local bike shop and see what I need to do. Now you may laugh (as I'm sure the proprietor of the store was, at least to himself) but I found that 'Road' bikes start around $700 and go up to, well they'll go as high as you want to pay for one. I'm sure that there are a number of racers out there who have bikes that cost more than your typical Harley-Davidson Motorcycle. In any case, being new to the sport and not knowing if I was going to pursue it very long (and knowing that neither my wife or I had a bike that was worth its weight in scrap metal), I went the practical (and more cost efficient) route. The result is the bike pictured here made by Giant. It is what they call a Hybrid, sort of a cross between a road bike and a Mountain bike. It is a bike that both my Wife and I can ride and if in the future (that would be the very distant future) I decide to get a 'real' road bike, this one will still be put to good use.

After riding this bike for a while (I've got about 250 miles on it now) it became apparent that sitting in the standard position while cruising along at 16-25+mph for any length of time was very uncomfortable not to mention un-aerodynamic. So, I decided I needed to get a set of Aerobars. Aerobars, I discovered as I brought my bike into the local bike shop again, also could be very expensive (you could spend as much as I did for my bike for a pair). So I said in my frugalness, "I'll take the cheapest pair you got"

The aerobars were installed (pictured here) and after making some adjustments to the handle bars and the seat, so that I could use the aerobars easily, I went out for my first ride with them. I was quite amazed how much better the ride went. It was a little 8 mile jaunt, but I cruised through it and even though it was quite windy out (which would have normally slowed me down to a crawl) I was still able to maintain a decent speed and easily made my best time on that route.

And while I am on it, my knee felt good during the ride as well. I could tell that I need to do a little more rehab work on it as the knee cap clicked a little (something that happened after the surgery and went away as I strengthen it), but I am making good progress on my mystery injury and hope to start running again this weekend.

One more picture just because Belle and Zach didn't want to be left out: