I have a new bike.
Everything is new except for the frame and fork. The rest are high performance components (Ask me privately for more specific details). It is wholly delightful to ride a bike so light, fast, solid, and quiet.
Ever since I was a teenager, I wanted to be one of those fast cyclists in spandex. Like almost everyone else who wants to be one of them, I started somewhere, not exactly sure how to go about it. The best I could do was a crappy big-box-store bike and some generic spandex shorts I happened to have.
In college, I had a better bike to get around. It was a casual mountain-style bike with some name-brand components, along with quick-release on the wheels and seatpost. As far as I was concerned, this was a REAL bike.
Halfway through college, I decided it was time for my first quarter-life crisis and that’s how I ended up with my first road bike. That was one of the best $500 I ever spent. It only bought the most basic road bike, but it was the real thing that allowed me to pursue the hobby and get some practical use out of spandex.
Ever since I have only had a series of used bikes, in part because I thought that any old road bike was good enough for me, as long they were in working condition. Like the spandex I was wearing, I was not aware of how much better the newer things were.
More recently, I have gotten some very nice stuff, and I will be a rather serious cyclist. It’s at a point where it’s not so much about the spandex anymore. Instead, whatever I’m wearing is just part of the fusion between my body and a machine. But if I did not have that initial fetish, today I would probably be without the recreation to keep my body in better shape.
