The adventures just keep coming

As I begin to explore the world of multi-sport events I knew that I would tire quickly of my very heavy mountain bike. I have never been interested in getting a road bike because it involves so much and is really a different type of riding. My husband loves to bike whether it's road or mountain, so when I started suggesting that it might be time for a road bike he was very supportive. I cam across Felt Bikes and decided I wanted to check these out. I didn't want a full carbon bike as I just didn't really find it necessary to spend that type of money at this point. Since I'm just exploring the idea of multi-sport events I felt I would do just fine with an aluminum bike. Felt makes some great bikes that are have an aluminum frame but use carbon for the seat stays and fork, which seemed like an interesting idea for me.

Of course being 5'2 and finding bike's in a specific brand to test ride is difficult. I stopped by Sports Basement because I knew they carried Felt and I had an item to exchange anyway. I was so disappointed to see that they had nothing in my size to even demo. I was really bummed because I had been looking forward all week to spending my rest day bike shopping! I remembered that there was a bike store that recently moved from Pleasant Hill to Lafayette and that they carried Felt as well, so I figured I would go check it out.

As soon as I walked into Traction Bikes I was warmly greeted and asked if I needed help. Which was great, because really, I have no idea what I am doing. I told them that I was interested in trying out some Felt Aluminum road bikes. Score, they had one in my size! It's actually an '09 ZW30. I nervously took the bike out. This was my first time ever on a road bike, so I waled it over to place that felt safe and less congested for vehicular traffic and hopped on. I did a lot of pulling in and out of empty driveways trying to get familiar with set-up the bike. Once I as comfortable I road it through some of the back roads of Lafayette and even found a nice hill to climb up and back down into the city. I was amazed at how comfortable the seat was and it just rode really nicely. To have something to compare it to I took at a Bianchi that was all aluminum. The minute I got on it, I  could tell it wasn't as comfortable. I road it through the same areas and just didn't feel as nice on it. I brought it back to the shop asked some questions about pedals and shoes etc. and went home to talk to the hubby about it. He was super supportive and that evening the entire family went back to look at it and agreed that it seemed like a great bike for me.

I went in this morning for my bike fit and intro to clip-less pedals! I had already made the decision that if I got the road bike I was going straight to clip-less pedals, there was no other way for me to learn. After picking out shoes and pedals and testing it out on the trainer we ended up raising the seat ever so slightly and I was good to go. Ack!

Leaving the Bike Shop

Ready to go!

My mother-in-law had taken the girls to see a morning play, so we didn't have much time for a ride but I needed to at least get out and practice clipping in and out. We headed to the Lafayette-Moraga Trail off of Olympic where I would have lots flat space and apparently lots of stop signs where I was made to unclip at each one for practice. I fell 1.5 times, not like hit the ground but tipped the bike and managed to unclip the second foot before totally hitting the ground. All in all, it was pretty successful and while it was only a 3 mile ride, I'm tired from just all of the effort of practicing with the new pedals. Today was a good confidence builder, I'll tip, it's okay I won't die and there was no blood shed, so that was helpful. My lower back is already sore, I guess riding the recumbent bike at the gym hasn't been too helpful to prep me for "real" riding.

Post Ride

Up next, swim lessons next week! I think I'm going to be feeling all new levels of soreness!