The New Ride

For the past few months I have been bike commuting on my old Jamis Mountain bike.  I picked the Jamis up in Okinawa probably 10+ years ago.  I don't plan to part with it, in fact I may even put the fat tires back on it to have a good bike for trails and running around town.   The issue is that the drive train is getting close to worn out.  It does not shift very smoothly, and occasionally it will skip gears.  Also, even though I have put thinner tires on it, it still has a front shock and is not really suited for the bike trails. 

I used to have a nice trek road bike.  Unfortunately, I left it overnight in a train station and even with it locked up, it was stolen.  So, after much internet surfing and looking around, I have ordered this little beaut:

It's a Fuji Sportif 1.1c. It is set up to ride a little less aggressively than a pure racing bike and I can add a rack or fenders if necessary.  I should get it by the middle to end of next week, which is nice because it should be warm enough to ride then.

The only day I rode in this week was Monday, the rest of the week was too cold and snowy.  We may get a little thaw tomorrow, so perhaps I will ride home.  I will certainly be riding the following week though.  It will be interesting to see how the riding meshes with the running.  Speaking of the running ... but first an aside.

Sometime in the late 90s the load had us all over to his place for an impromptu party.  This is when a lot of us considered our life to revolve around climbing, particularly the load.  At the time, he was renting a room  above the garage of some lady.  I think he helped out with housework in exchange for a discount on rent.  I don't know whether he had permission to do it, but he built a climbing wall right in his little room.  Since he did not have a lot of vertical space, he made it extremely over-hanging, not quite horizontal, but a very difficult angle. 

As I remember it, the party started off with a meal from Boston Market, that took forever to make.  I think this was because the load had planned that we would go mountain biking first, but no-one brought their mountain bike with them.  At some point we returned to the load's place where we drank a few beers and watched some movies.  It was a bizarre selection of movies.  At some point we watched "Shakes the Clown"  and then an assortment of climbing movies.  These movies were basically shots of people climbing really difficult climbs interspersed with them clowning around or doing other climbing related activities.  At one point, this English climber is working out in a climbing gym doing some incredibly difficult set of one arm pull-ups and weighted rope climbs.  When he finishes he brings his face within inches of the camera and says in a very heavy English accent "Personal Best, That right there was a personal best"!  For whatever reason, perhaps the exuberance and absurdity of the way he said it, it made us all laugh and stuck with us.  Particularly the Weebs and I. So on many occasions, even years later, we would try to work in the expression "That right there was a personal best." 

Today's run was a personal best, 3 miles in 25 minutes flat, or an average pace of 8:20.  Not setting any records, but it is encouraging.  Tomorrow is a rest day, but Saturday I have the six miler.  The plan is to start out really easy, probably keep it around 10 minute miles to start with just so I have plenty left.  I will likely see how I am feeling at the 3 mile mark and hopefully turn it up a notch.