Racing on Springs

The Tallboy, then.

Like riding a sofa of fun.

Bases covered – 29er, 100mm of suspension either end, full xt drivetrain, fox RP23 shock with ProPedal platform damper on the back, RockShox Reba RL on the front, and, just to make sure that there was a low point, Avid Elixir brakes, which did the job, but, like most Avid brakes, weren’t set up fantastically well and didn’t have wonderful “lever feel.” The rest of the bike, though, put a smile on my face for the whole time I rode it.

I was allowed to take the black beauty out for an orientation spin around the course. My first blast around the skills loop demonstrated the sheer volume of grip now available at the back through the combination of larger wheel and supple suspension. Power could go down whenever the pedals were in a position to spin, and with the smoothness of the ride, my feet were almost always in place.

Though not exactly a racer’s bike, it didn’t feel lardy going uphill; the platform damping losing little energy when climbing seated, and the steepish head angle preventing the front wheel wandering too far. This is one of the obvious compromises SC decided to make in the Tallboy’s geometry sheet – a steep headtube angle to sharpen the steering, lowering the otherwise truck-like wheelbase and countering the gyroscopic tendency for the bike to plough through the corners. I feel that they might have taken things just a tiny bit too far, though, as once or twice the bike did feel a little divey through corners, but it’s a reasonable compromise to make.

The 700mm bar felt perfectly adequate leverage-wise for the short-ish cockpit, and I never felt cramped through my chest or wrists. Shifting weight back and forth was easy and effective, though at times a little more length on the front might have been useful.

My only major complaint was that, with rather wide, flat pedals, I was frequently striking rocks – particularly awkward on the one set of steps that I never managed to clear. Whether the bottom bracket is particularly low, or whether it was just inattentiveness on my part with worse-case-scenario pedals, I don’t know, but it was one of the few aggravations in the ride.

For everything else, it was fantastic fun. The VPP geometry never felt like it was buckling under pressure, never put too much feedback through the chain, and, despite obviously hitting its limits at some points, never bottomed-out harshly. The chain did derail at a couple of points, but a clutch-type derailleur could probably solve this. If anything, perhaps the bike was too detached, floating above the trail, encouraging speed where it might have been prudent to slow – especially when chasing after riders, post-race, I failed to lift-off over a rise which concealed a slight right-hander and, with my wheels unweighted, I carried straight on into the bushes, the pins on the platform pedals carving some deep parallel grooves into my shin.

I didn’t care. I was having too much fun.

The race itself went well, as I sat comfortably on Phil’s wheel, with him in second place, waiting for the final dash up the fire road. Sadly, with only a couple of miles to go, I hung up my rear wheel and pinch-flatted. Hands shaking with adrenaline, it took a couple of spectators to help me strip the tyre off, and almost ten minutes went by until I was back on the trail.

It was still the most fun I’d had in a race this year.

No mere binary decision making – push on, stay back, move up, sprint, draft…. – the race was a constant battle against the trail, myself and my fellow competitors, egging them on or following their wheels. Passing was a nightmare on single track, but the delight at clawing riders back on the climbs, and feeling no-one on your rear wheel as you pressed for home was a delight closer to running than bike racing, but infinitely more exciting.

My confidence boosted, I now cannot wait for Relentless. If I ride half the bike that the Santa Cruz is, I will be happy.

So, a Tallboy unicycle, then.

Big fun on big tyres

It has been a while.

For unentertaining and irrelevant reasons, keeping this blog has been a low priority for a while; I found that I was unable to write anything nice, so I preferred not to write anything at all until good humour returned. As with so many of the gaps in this repository’s record, I shall now make a claim that I shall go back and bridge that void.

Given my record, I would not blame you if you didn’t hold your breath.

Onwards, to the recent past, however, and we strike my inspiration - a neat parry to the blow that was landed when the inspiration struck me.  Over the next couple of posts, I shall tell you, oh benign but hopefully slightly curious reader, of a recent discovery of mine. Or, rather, re-discovery.

Mountain biking is jolly good fun.

To take you through to this conclusion, we must start with a disappointment. A few weeks ago, with the Cycle the World 24 hour cycling event coming up, it was finally discovered that we would be unable to field our team to defend our title. As something of a rebound, however, Andy immediately suggested that we switch our focus to another full-day event – Relentless 24.

“But wait,” you say. “Isn’t that a mountain bike event? I thought you were a roadie.”

I commend you on your knowledge of matters both public and personal, but also know this – I used to rather enjoy mountain biking. Not that I was ever very good at it, but, growing up in the valleys, it seemed to be the thing to do. With trails so abundant, and roads so forbidding, a day spent on rocky common paths was a thrilling adventure. Indeed, you could even use a mountain bike to take you places – not even just to the trail head, but also to college, across the Beacons to visit my father, or nearly anywhere that was on a Beeching line – i.e. nearly everywhere, full stop.

Then came Cornwall. Hilly, fieldy Cornwall, with no common ground, no trail centres, nothing but the coast-to-coast mining trail. For want of rent, the last mountain bike was sold, and I was committed to tarmac, for better or worse.

So I seized with both hands the opportunity to ride again, and, indeed, race again on loose surfaces. I had everything I needed… apart from the bike. And the skill.

The latter, I could work on.

It was with something like panic that I scanned through my schedule until the date in late October of the race. So few opportunities to train, but so much more confidence required... There were two weekends open to me. The first, I decided to spend at Newton Stewart, riding hire bikes around Kirroughtree. The second, I hope to visit Fort William and recce the course. I pray that will be enough.

So onto Kirroughtree.

Set deep in the border hinterland of Dumfries and Galloway, Kirroughtree is one of the quieter of the Seven Stanes trail centres. The bike shop at the trail head – BreakPad – hires out a variety of mountain bikes, from fairly basic hardtails through to high-end full-sussers. I had elected to spend my time on a Kona Fire Mountain, an entry-level, 26” hard tail with a fairly simple fork, but reasonable hydraulic brakes. This was more about skill than comfort, so I figured it would suit my purposes.

As soon as I got there, though, my priorities began to shift. Explaining my predicament with respect to skill and the imminence of Relentless, the shop hand Phil stopped me and informed me, with a glimmer in his eye, that there was a race on tomorrow. Open entry. Perfect for training.

Excuses flashed through my head. I only had shoes for flat pedals. I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to hurt myself. But, realistically, this was perfect – almost suspiciously so. If I wanted to feel confident in time for Relentless, I would have to race.

I agreed that I would give it some thought as I spun around the park.

Once around the Blue loop, once around the Red, it took a while to get back into the swing of things. On the positive side, the weight distribution on the Fire Mountain is wonderful – a trait shared with all Konas that I have ridden. A short, front-wheel liberating rear end paired with a high-leverage cockpit enabled me to get my weight where it needed to be, so long as I was smart enough to anticipate it.

Sadly, the rest of the spec was merely serviceable. Coming from SLX on my touring bike, the small triggers and lack of two-way release on the Acera shifters left me out of gear far too often. The weak spring on the Alivio rear derailleur made every descent a gamble as to whether the chain would still be on the same ring when you wanted to drive out of the bottom, and the shifting – whilst reliable, was nevertheless hesitant and uncertain. The non-series hydraulic brakes did their job with minimal fuss, and were probably the best part of the package, but were balanced by the fork, which was undoubtedly the worst.

Kona Fire Mountain - an adequate, if unexceptional, entry-level mountain bike

An entry-level RockShox XC28 Even with the preload as low as it could go, sag was practically non-existent with my 70kg frame, and I was reliant on the (by my standards) balloony 2.2” tyres to absorb any smaller impacts. With no rebound damping, and far too heavy a spring, the fork saved me in a few pinches but did absolutely nothing more. If I was to race, it wouldn’t be on this.

Maintaining traction was proving to be an issue at times, more so between my feet and the pedals than the tyres and the ground. Despite dropping my heels, the hits came thick and fast, at times only dislodging my feet slightly to one side, but enough to slightly change my line and prevent me from pushing on until I had corrected myself.

I feel like I am being too negative on the bike, here, so please take my faint praise in context, and not as damning. When I say the drivetrain was reliable – it was. It shifted into the correct gear (eventually) every time. The brakes worked well and even had a degree of modulation, which cannot be taken for granted at this level.  The wheels were fine, the tyres gripped well, the fork was never dangerously uncontrolled and the frame geometry itself was tremendous, if a little harsh on the rear end and, if you are being ridiculously petty, a little soft at the bottom bracket. At the price paid, the Fire Mountain is a good bike. However, knowing what else is out there does colour one’s opinion somewhat, especially when the else is worth more than all of my bicycles combined.

Rolling back to the BreakPad, I knew I wanted to race. I knew I would rather not race on this. I wanted something a little more friendly grip-wise – probably a 29er. I wanted something that wouldn’t bounce me off flat pedals – probably a full-sus’. I wanted something with a positive drivetrain and good shocks.

What I wanted, as it turned out, was a Santa Cruz Tallboy.

Mavic R-SYS SLR

“Stealthy”

It’s an odd pick for what seems to be the word of the year for the bicycle industry (my critics would point out that the “stealth” trend has in fact been on the cards for the past few years, but bear with me). Seemingly in a backlash against the lurid neons of the eighties, and the boring blues and pastels of the turn of the millennium (which I’m going to mostly blame on a certain Trek bicycle company and their associated athletes and sponsors), bicycle fashion has been heading towards the black and highlighted, when necessary, with slightly blacker blacks. Some would liken the aesthetic to an F117. Others, to riding Darth Vader’s bicycle.

Whatever anyone’s personal opinion on the matter, our bicycles are getting darker, so get with it or join the counterculture.

Jumping onto the bandwagon with both wheels is Mavic, who has finally brought the stealth aesthetic to aluminium rims with their latest R-SYS SLR clinchers. Ostensibly a revision of their “exalith” super-hard braking surface treatment, these wheels couldn’t be any more bang-on-trend if they launched their own video-sharing social networking fourth-generation app on Google Glass. Billed as a lightweight but stiff wheelset for both going up and coming down mountains, the SLRs have more techny acronyms than can slot into a computer’s north bridge and sound, both in hyperbolic description and in road noise, like something from another planet.

By milling the heck out of the rims and reinforcing the thin braking surface with their pitch-dark anti-teflon, the French wheel geniuses have made a catch-me-if-you-can set of all-day wheels that rub shoulders with carbon wheels going uphill, and outbrake them going down.

Of all of Mavic’s wheels, the SLRs make most use of the (in)famous Tracomp hollow carbon spokes, spec’ing them on both sides of the front wheel and on the non-drive-side of the rear, complementing them with two-cross bladed spokes on the drive side to take drivetrain torque. The result is striking; on the front, at least.

For such a low spoke count, the front wheel is admirably solid laterally, and, in conjunction with a braking surface which at least equals (though I cannot say betters) the best performance of any alloy wheel, encourages attacking descending. If your front end isn’t tracking where it should be as you loop down mountain switchbacks, it certainly won’t be stiffness that is lacking.

That stiffness can bite back as sharply as the brakes bite deep, though. With little give in the wheel itself, you are entirely reliant on the tyre to grip. Whilst the spec’ed Griplink clinchers do a fine job here, their relatively narrow footprint made me wish for some floatier tyres to really match the performance of the wheel. Pressure and suppleness are equally vital to really get your money’s worth.

And then there are the brakes. Supplied with their own hard pads, the rims are virtually workshop files looking to strip of speed, and like industrial equipment, they do so loudly and roughly. I am assured that given time, the pads/rims come to an accord when they meet, but until then expect them to yell like there’s no tomorrow. Racing, I got a few rebukes for what was heard as panic-braking, but in fact was nothing but a slight scrubbing of speed.

Not that I would particularly want to panic-brake on these wheels. Modulation on the grippy rims is nigh-on discrete, and with very little mass out at the edge, lock-ups are a very real possibility, especially in wet conditions.

Out back, things aren’t quite so startling. With the pads making a pronounced “phvee” sound every time they contact the rim, you’re never in any doubt about whether you’re touching or not, and, disappointingly, like a beautiful senorita, the Mavics do sway.

I tend to set up my brakes pretty tightly, so the fact that I had to completely release the rear brake in O’er the Crow should be taken in context, but for a wheelset that sets its stall out to be a climber’s friend, this was an unpleasant surprise.

Make no mistake, these feel like light wheels, and never more so than when out of the saddle – spinning up hills whilst standing is a lag-free delight as the wheels take no effort to spin-up, either through inertia or torsion. It’s a shame, then, that every few strokes would be met by that attention-grabbing “phvee.” I am by no means a heavy rider, at 70kg, and have never had anything like this level of deflection before. Ok, so I haven’t ridden a wheelset within 450g of these before, but at more than five times the price of my normal race wheels, I was expecting better.

Finally, there’s the aerodynamics. I’ve heard strange things either way about Tracomp spokes – about how their thicker girth means that the air passing over the trailing edge of the wheel is already so disturbed that there’s no net increase in drag, and how having less spokes is more important than having lots of aero ones.

I’m not buying it.

Regardless of whether it’s down to the spokes or the rims these do not feel aerodynamic in the slightest. And that’s fine. They’re not meant to be. But bear that in mind if you want an all-purpose wheelset.

What’s more, the centre of drag on the front is in a peculiar position, leaving the forks unstable when subject to gusts from the side. It’s not powerful – there’s not enough area to feel like you’re sailing like on aero rims – but it introduces a small-amplitude oscillation that you have to damp out with your own controls. Like a fly-by-wire fighter, the bike feels like it wants to show off its nimbleness to such an extent that you have to reign it back to keep it in a straight line. It’s not much, and not all of the time, but it’s fair to say that these aren’t great cruising wheels.

Make no mistake, these are “good” wheels by any measure. If you want lightweight wheels that are going to last more than a thousand miles, that are as comfortable going downhill as they are going uphill, that have consistent braking surfaces and the go-anywhere convenience of a clincher, you aren’t going to find many better than these. Switch from a £300 pair of wheels to these, and your bike will suddenly gain that lift-with-your-little-finger wow factor and you will be able to climb faster, and that’s a fact. However, they are not perfect, and aren’t necessarily £1300 better than that £300 pair. They aren’t aerodynamic, the brakes can be grabby and very noisy, the rear wheel is nowhere near as stiff as it could be and the tyres are merely ok (on the front, anyway. The rear seems to be ok, though I have lost traction a couple of times, but couldn’t honestly say whether that was down to the tyre or me not being used to such a lightweight wheel when standing uphill). Only you can make the decision as to whether they’re worth what they cost to you.

That being said, if you’re desperate for a black, aluminium braking track, the decision has been made for you.

Vive le mode.

Square One

It was bound to happen some day.

Today was the "O'er the Crow 'n' Doon" race, put on by GJS Cruise racing. A national B, E123 race, it'd be my first chance to play with the "big boys", including Evan Oliphant and the whole Herbalife team. Twice over the famous Crow Road climb, we would complete two 26 mile laps before finishing with a flat sprint into the wind.

These are my training roads, and I was as confident as I could possibly be on them. I had sessioned the descent, memorising every bit of rough surface, and a friend had very kindly let me borrow his £1600 lightweight Mavic SLRs, bringing the total weight of the bike down to about 7.2kg. Conditions could hardly be more ideal.

My first indication that things weren't quite right was before we even started. Having ridden out to the race at a leisurely pace, I hadn't really warmed up, and had no element of my normal pre-race sharpness as I lounged around the strip. Perhaps, knowing that I had no chance in the overall, I wasn't coming into it seriously.

The race started well enough. I positioned myself near the head of the bunch, and allowed myself to drop back as the cross-winds lined us out. Too far. I realized far too late what a sterling job the wind had done of stretching out the bunch, and without intention I found myself too far back to cover the race properly without a huge stretch of exposure.

Coming up the hill to Killearn, I clawed back some time, but we were then into a headwind, and the line grew even longer. I told myself that I would make an effort on the flats between Strathblane and Lennoxtown, with the wind behind us.

I didn't.

Whether because of fear of oncoming, or simple laziness, I put off the attack. I figured my climbing would be good enough to get me up there when the Crow came.

Here, alarm bells should have been ringing. Cattle prods should have been zapping my ankles. This is racing 101 - you need to be at the front before you get to the obstacle that might split the bunch. I wasn't.

As we climbed the first time, an oil tanker met an oncoming car where the road narrowed. It was anarchy. With barely enough room for two riders to pass at a time - one either side of the oncoming car - the bunch split, and I was left on the wrong side.

Moving up steadily past the stragglers, I was unable to put much time into the bunch, and they dangled twenty seconds or so in front of me as we entered the fast, tailwind-assisted faux plat at the top. I figured I would be able to catch such a large group on the descent.

I wasn't able to.

In fact, other riders started coming back. Admittedly, on aerodynamic bikes with deep-section wheels, but I have always maintained that they don't make that much of a difference. I couldn't understand it. Why was I having to sprint downhill to keep up with these guys?

Into the headwind at the bottom, and I was on my own. Again. After three or four miles, a pursuant group caught me and I started working with them, and for a while we stood a chance. Of the group of more than a dozen, though, only 8 of us worked at all, and frequently the hangers-on would come up alongside the last chainganger, completely disrupting the rhythm and causing big gaps to grow.

Needless to say, I didn't miss a turn unnecessarily.

We were within 5 seconds of the main bunch when we turned into the wind, and the order was destroyed. Unable to work in a standard chain-gang formation, riders would sprint up the outside and hold momentum, driving the front of the bunch faster and faster and harder and harder into the wind. With only four of us now working to claw back these final few seconds, it was becoming brutally hard work.

Gasping, grabbing, wringing my bars, I was unable to keep the pace. As I burst, I waved riders around me, but they seemed to take forever to take up the chase. Within a minute, though, I was on the back of the group. A minute of whiplashing and concertinaing later, I was off it.

Two minutes of recovery was enough, but the gap had grown out to thirty seconds. I chased hard onto the back of the service car, but couldn't get past it. The hill to Blanefield was enough to finish me off, as the cars surged and sagged up the steep incline, and there was nothing more to do but swear at myself for letting go.

Furious that I was letting everyone and everything down - not least Simon's wheels - I got my act together in the tailwind between Strathblane and Lennoxtown and pushed hard. It was far, far too late though, and on a flat section, I stood no chance at all.

Back into the Crow, I thought the bunch was in sight, but it turned out to be Sterling BC out for a Saturday ride. I span past them all, but couldn't make out the racers from the club runners.

There were only a couple of burst souls to pass on the never-say-die descent, and it was then over.

45th. My lowest ever finish in an unhindered race.

To finish so far off the back, with no mechanical or physical reason to be, is simply unacceptable. My only hope is that this will turn out to be the kick-up-the-rear-end that I so clearly need.

Next week is my target - Brenig.

Let's hope I've learned something.

God rides

If there's a god, he probably cycles.

The more you think about it, the more it makes sense. Why else make cycles the apotheosis of human movement? Any greater technology requires use of energy not our own. Many older technologies require the exploitation of others (arguably symbiotic, but when I imagine a full-grown Jesus riding a petite donkey, I can't help but feel he would have rather been on a velocipede.)

It informs us why this God never answers your prayers when you want him to - he's usually out riding, and you need to leave a message. He'll get back to you at the next natural pause.

While He's riding, He's a part of the world, which must get rather existential. There's no barrier around a rider; He's just on his way somewhere, being a part of the lives of everyone he passes.

Of course, He knows the value of hard work. Someone who could make an entire universe would do repeats of the Tourmalet just for kicks; if he lives in Heaven, that's a heck of a hill to attack at the end of a day's work.

The wonderful thing about theism is that none of these conjectures can be proven wrong, and the only real "truth" is that which "feels right." In which case, I need to change my opening sentence.

God rides a bicycle.

Amen.

A bigger break

Almost a year of waiting was at an end last week. Not for a win, or a particular race, or any other type of result - but for a race in good weather. Short sleeves and mitts were finally the order of the day at the Dunfermline Road Race - ten and a half laps of a triangular up-across-and-down course with 60 other 3rd and 4th category riders.

Basking for a good hour on a wall outside the library, I could hardly have been more relaxed or content. It had been a rough week, recovering from some sort of low-level virus that had kept me mostly off the bike. Many of the riders had been at Gifford, so idle banter rather than laser-like-focus was the preparation, and a spinning lap was the warm-up.

I had overheard that the race was going to go hard from the off, so I was mindful of gaps as we ascended for the first time. For once, it felt like I was doing some work, and I was glad of it - what was tough for me would be unbearable for others, and once fatigue started to set in, a break could go.

Purely on the basis of pace, I expected the fight to go out of the bunch and the break to get away with somewhere between 5 and 3 laps to go, but I wasn't rigid with how I interpreted this. On lap 3, almost a dozen riders were away off the front as we came across the flat, a stiff breeze slightly behind us. It was enough to encourage me to bridge, but the gap was closed almost as soon as I got across. Not a wasted foray, as I now knew that the top road was far from a good place to attack.

With six to go, I pushed the pace up the hill, for the dual reasons to clawing back another break going nowhere and to start tiring the bunch, in preparation for the final selection.

Four to go, and it was time. A group of 3 got just enough of a gap off the front of the bunch to make it worth it, so I slipped out of the back of the peloton and repositioned myself in the middle of the road to attack on the steepest part of the course.

Almost inevitably, just as we got there, a BMW came the other way, and for once I was praying for the car to accelerate. It seemed to take forever to get past the bunch, and as soon as its tail-light passed my bar, I was away.

Carrying momentum through up the hill, I flew off of the front of the bunch. With no chase left in them, I knocked the pace back slightly and chased onto the leaders by the top of the hill, joined by a few others to make a break of nine, which swiftly became eight.

A lap of sustained pushing was all it took to get safely clear, but it was enough to warn me that I couldn't take the finish for granted. I wasn't the only one working hard, but others did seem to be finding it easier. Nevertheless, I had too much pride to ever skip a turn. It would be good training anyway.

We worked with a good rhythm through the next two laps - not too difficult, but confident that we could stay away and all get points for our troubles. It wasn't until the last third of the last lap that the games started.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't know how to play this. The run-in was along the flat section, with the finish line on top of a small rise which I knew from experience was tough to lead up from the front. Nevertheless, I couldn't seem to soft-pedal enough to fall back. Second wheel as we came into the base of the climb, I was fully off the pedals waiting for the attack. Bad move.

When it came, it was far enough and fast enough that I couldn't catch it, having robbed myself of all momentum. The riders on my wheel were able to continue the jump, but I was out of it, finishing in seventh.

I can't be unhappy with the outcome, today. A great race, in good conditions. Properly difficult. Tactically, I was aware enough, and physically I was fit enough, to bridge to the correct break and guarantee myself some points. Crucially, though, I gained more experience. My failure from the ending set-piece was clear and unambiguous - and regardless of whether I know how to win from a similar situation now, I certainly know one play to avoid if I don't want to lose.

Here's hoping I get many more chances to practice.

Awkwardness

The bike's running more smoothly than ever, and yet it feels wrong. Awkward. The low front end screams "aerodynamics" - tuck in and hide from the wind - and yet I am propped up, a rucksack bulging off my spine, loose trousers rolled up over my calves. It isn't how this bike was meant to be ridden, but this is the ride to get to the event where I can ride it as it was meant to be ridden.

It's like walking to a festival, or navigating a foreign airport; that frisson of excitement tempered by the slightly uncomfortable awkwardness of it all.

My trainers are in fluttering plastic bags strapped to the side of my rucksack, obstructing my view over my shoulder and making me feel even more vulnerable as I roll with calm determination down the A-road.

It is a sad fact that if I lived somewhere with more predictable weather, I wouldn't need to take half so much kit, but I am racing here because this is the country where I live, and there is no race better than the one you can get to.

That being said, it isn't easy. Thanks to how early the start is, and it being on a Sunday, and since none of my clubmates are racing as well, I needed to catch a train down to Dumfries on Saturday, to stay in a B&B a few miles from the start line, to get up on a sleety, gusty morning and roll across to line up with a few dozen gents and ladies who have travelled from as far afield as Fife for just over an hour of pace and stress with only the most fleeting chance of glory.

There is undoubtedly a better compromise that this unstable, tumourous configuration of rider, bike and bag, but I would not dare (even if it were possible) to desecrate my race bike by attaching anything to its frame or seat post.

A few years ago, I would never have forseen this situation, the apotheosis of a "first-world problem." If a bicycle is primarily for transportation, then surely I should abandon my shallow aesthetics and attach a seatpost rack. With a carbon pin and lightweight wheels comes responsibility, however. To gouge the lacquer; to allow a pannier to swing into the wheel - could be catastrophic.

It is possible that I have found my "n+1" - a steel-framed beauty that can take the loads of a beast of burden, yet still be ridden hard hard for those races where the racing is more critical than the winning (which should, of course, be all races).

It is difficult but to feel that bicycle racing is a technological arms race, and the "zing" that one gets from a properly race-optimized frame is as astonishing as it is welcome. Now that I have access to it, I do not wish to lose it, but can I bring an element of it into something more practical?

Is there one bike that can do it all? I will search, but I also know this: The feeling of release can only come after being pent-up. Things can only feel truly right after you have seen wrong. The most most amazing bike in the world will feel like a tool if it is used as one. So, in a strange way, I can find happiness in my awkwardness.

After winter, comes the spring.