#12

Second year of road riding: time for a new ride. The Allez was fun, but I couldn't even dream of being competitive. After a few more mechanical disasters Ginna decided to just get a new bike for me. She did the research and found a used Giant OCR for me. Now really, that's a great wife who not only finds a bike for you, but buys it too.

It's hard to complain about the Giant because I really liked it. In fact, I liked it so much that it stoked my cycling fire and things began to escalate out of control. Before I had the Giant my idea of a long ride was 25 miles. And for all my casual rides under 25 miles, the Giant was perfect. What I realized soon however, was that 25 is just a warm up and bikes are completely different beasts before and after the 50 mile mark. Post 50 the Giant struggled.

Additionally, racing really taxes a bike mechanically. The Giant was a great entry level bike, but it couldn't handle the work load I putting into it. It started to struggle and crackle and pop. I was again getting tired of the same old story--my bike in constant malfunction.

The frustration peaked at a race in Kansas, when I couldn't get into the pedals at the beginning of the criterium, which caused me to fall behind from the start. Once I was in a position to catch up, the derailluers gave up and so did I.

My next move had to be a pro level bike, one that could respond during the intensity of a race situation. It wasn't going to be easy, that's for sure--or cheap.

Gear Bane Part 2

Bike #11 was a black specialized Allez, pronounced al-ey, but I called it an al-ez for at least 6 months. It had a big gel seat and the tires were all dry and cracked apart. It had STI shifters (shifters integrated with brake levers) and 700c wheels, which made it good enough. I did what I could to clean it up and get it ready to ride, but I knew so little about road bikes I only created a greater monster.

I took the bike to Zac Doyle's shop in St. Louis, where we tried to fix some of the most obvious problems. First, the bottom bracket was bent. I don't know how that is possible, but it was. In fact, the crank was hardly turning. Zac didn't know anything about removing a bottom bracket although he was technically a mechanic at the shop. Since the threading on a BB isn't super obvious, we broke several tools and got the cup hopelessly stuck. Zac "hooked me up" with an new-old-stock eliptical chain ring which looked cool, but was actually designed for use with toe cages and was super out dated. It made the bike ride and shift much worse, but I believed it made me fast--for a while.

Later, I found about 10 yards of brown thread in the rear hub. I also didn't own a functional pump, so I could only pump up the tires with a crappy hand pump from Wal-mart. Road tires are supposed to run at 100+ psi and I probably never had mine above 60!

I took the Allez to club rides in Waldo, where I always got pounded by a really weak field. On my first ride, I was relieved to find a rider who I could keep up with, only to find out that she was about 40 years old and overweight. As a 25 year old male, I was embarrassed.

Ultimately, I took the Allez to a legit shop. They almost died when I showed it to them. It was dubbed the Frankenbike because as I found it, the shifters and derailleurs weren't made to cooperate. Nonetheless, the shop made it rideable.

I decided to race in the Tour of Kansas City. I bought the cheapest padded bike shorts I could find and wore a t-shirt to the race. The Allez and I got dropped in the first lap of just 4. I remember vividly as I was struggling up a hill and a kid from the junior's heat was beating me up it. I was standing with my hands in the drops, so was the kid. I heard his dad yell, "get your hands out of the drops, hold up high!" I just kept in the drops, so I didn't look like I didn't know what I was doing.

As soon as I could afford it, the Allez had to go.