After a bit of head scratching, I realized that I was going to have a lot of extra hardware, and the bars that attached the forward seat to the bike, had the same size holes as the bike racks used for attaching the feet.

So I was back in business. I attached the forward rack to the rear rack using the supplied hardware, and got down to the business of tightening everything down. As it turns out, this was the real work. Tight quarters, and odd angles combined with sprockets and bike frame, caused me no end of bruised and bloodied knuckles. In the end though, I was victorious!!

I took the bike for a spin around the block, just to see if it was going to be stable, and noticed that it had a bit of lateral flex. This, I worried, was not good. I decided to wait until we had it loaded to make my call.

Fast forward to today…..

I came home at lunch time and we started right in on the tests. Vick took it for a spin and felt that it was weird, but probably doable. Then we loaded up Ruby in the front seat, and Vick took her for a spin. She reported the it was a little wobbly around corners but she could get used to it.

Then we loaded Anika up, and I took them for a spin. I almost dumped the bike on takeoff, and after rounding my first corner, I was pretty certain that this was suicidal. Its not that the bike couldn’t carry the weight. Vertically, the bike is incredibly strong, but laterally, with weight behind the rear axle, its pretty sketchy when anything but forward pressure is exerted.

Coming around corners and fast breaks caused the tail of the bike to bow, laterally, and then slowly come back into alignment with the front of the bike. This could be mitigated in normal riding, but if Vick needed to swerve to avoid an obstacle or, heaven forbid, swerve and brake at the same time, the bike would definitely dump, and probably break in half.

I returned to the runway, and broke the bad news to the throwers. Lucky for all of us, I wasn’t out of ideas. I took the rear seat off and removed the rack. Then I hauled out the bike trailer, and hooked it up. It fit like a charm, and my test flight yielded very positive results. The bike still doesn’t like to be leaned way over at low speed, but handles the curves and shakes with something approaching grace. Its long, oh yes it is, but its not slow, and not completely unwieldy.

I can see many trips to the park and Whole Foods on this bad ass ride. I dub it, The Long Vehicle (after a fun song by Black Cat White Cat).

I was pretty sure from what I had read that the Trek (though a little pricey for me) was going to win out. How surprised was I when 4 hours (I went back after work) and 5 test rides later, I was in love with the Orbea? Pretty surprised, I’ll tell ya.

When I started my ride, I was so perfectly balanced that I felt like my hands were hovering over the handlebars. When I got into my first climb, I felt like the bike had just “got out to push”. The Trek and Bianchi were both great bikes, but this Orbea won the day.

I was a little worried about the double (two chainrings instead of three) and mentioned to Dave that, while I was fine on the hills of the test ride, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel after riding all day.

Dave’s response… “You said you were going for a ride on Saturday? Why don’t you stop by on your way and pick it up. There’s nothing better than a long ride to show you how the bike fits.” Boy was I surprised. So I’m taking him up on his offer.

Last Sunday I decided that I had better either go out and ride at least part of the course, or beg out and do the 50K. Since my ego couldn’t take the hit, I decided to ride Pulhemus Road. This is a mere 6 miles (out of ~50 for the full course) but its the most aggressive climb of the route. Vick drove me out, and leapfrogged me up the grade (just in case).
I started out hot, smoking everyone I saw (they had probably been riding all day) and quickly lost my steam. By the time I reached the Crystal Springs turnoff (no more than a mile in) I had the distinct feeling that my heart might explode. I forgot my heart rate monitor, but I’m guessing, based on past observations that I was probably at 185. Needless to say I backed off it a little and dropped from 14 mph to ~7mph.
After a 1/2 mile or so I was back to an estimated 175 and decided to slowly ramp back up. I managed to hold ~9mph for the rest of the climb.
Once I reached the top, I was supposed to find a bike trail to descend on. It must have taken me 30 minutes just to locate the trailhead, but when I did, I was rewarded with a sublime descent with a bucolic view of the reservoir and the Santa Cruz mountain range.

What did this experience teach me? I need a new bike. There is just no way that I want to be clawing my way up that hill while sending 5-10% of my energy down into my shocks. Furthermore, striping 5-10 lbs off of my frame is not likely, but getting 5 lbs off of my bike’s frame is. So now I’m looking at road bikes for the first time in over 10 years with an eye to buy.

I think I’ve narrowed my choices down to the Felt F4, or the Lemond Versailles. Financing for this purchase will come from the sale of my motorcycle.
This was a difficult decision to make until I realized that:

1. I haven’t ridden my motorcycle in 3 years (since Ruby was born)
2. I ride my bicycle nearly every day
3. I am fiercely proud of my carbon footprint
4. Its not a BMW

So please join me in bidding farewell to my youth (I’ll see it again someday), and hello to my healthful, carbon free (or is that carbon fiber), morally superior (wink) future.