getting into it

day 1: recovery, athletics, and spreadsheets

I finished my longest ride, the 2022 Twin Lights Tour, yesterday around 3pm. It was 55 miles and about 2k feet in elevation gain in New Jersey. But adding on getting to the ferry at South Street Seaport and going home to collapse on the floor, it’s more like 69.24 (nice) miles distance with 2459 feet in elevation gain.

Which takes me to my current location: In bed, next to the cat, my poor left hamstring on and off ice packs, and a coffee that both feels not strong enough and also too much given how tired I am. But none of this is stopping me from starting my next project of finding a new bike.

The Twin Lights Ride was my “proof of concept” ride, as I explained to a number of fellow cyclists on the course yesterday. If I could do 55 miles and 2k feet elevation gain on a 1986 steel frame Panasonic Sport DX with six “speeds,” imagine what I could do on a bike that isn’t lovingly named the Frankenbike. In starting to do my research this morning, I came across a catalogue listing for the Frankenbike in its original form (apologies to the nice man who I told that the bike was from 1986 and not ‘87).

Mine is the one on the top. No longer 12 speeds, and no longer with drops. Photo credit to the Panasonic Virtual Bike Museum.

“You’re so strong,” one of the various cycling friends I made yesterday told me when I was on line for the ferry back to the city. I have my doubts but they’re self-inflicted—she’s right, after all, because cycling on a route like the one I did yesterday on a steel frame bike, “six” speeds, and in Chacos isn’t exactly a setup meant to get you a record time, or even be in a semblance of a peloton. Wearing the sandals, as I was told by a few older men cyclists, was the mark of a true cycling pro, just enjoying themselves without being clipped in. Who am I to say anything to contradict that?

I’ve never been athletic, to the extent that refusing to do anything sports-related became a point of contrarian pride for myself. Walking was good, running was a torture device, both for the body and mind. I was great at school as a kid, but gym was the one time where I came in last no matter how much I tried. I wasn’t built for running, for basketball (I got hurt a lot), soccer (the girls were mean and I also got hurt), or softball (running bad and also having a ball come at you… scary!). Horse riding was fun but expensive and something I couldn’t continue after the Recession hit in 2008. I wasn’t particularly strong enough as a little gangly thing to control a pony anyway.

I loved riding bikes back in my childhood, doing climbs on the hills of my town with my various Schwinn and Trek and other bikes over the years. The smell of a bike shop is still comforting to me after all that time. But cycling never felt like a sport to me as much as it felt like recreation. Thinking of it like a sport would make me afraid of it, and also it wasn’t something I had the time or interest in doing from ages 11-18, and frankly from 18-23, too. But getting back in the saddle (ha) in the past few years has made me realize that the cycling I can and want to do can be a sport. I can be athletic, and I can be good at it. I have two medals now, and it’s unbelievable to me that I was good enough to be a finisher and do something and be good at it and not be last. To have my first pre race jitters and be told by a friend that that’s normal, and not just my own anxieties (let’s be real though, my regular anxieties definitely fed into that).

That brings me to today, and bike shopping. This was my proof of concept ride, and I proved the concept, and now it’s time for me to put the money where my mouth is. Thanks to insurance reimbursements and an impending ratification bonus (delayed edition) from signing our last VICE Union contract, I have a chunk of change with which to buy a new bike. And by new I mean NEW, not another Craigslist bike. So I’m making a spreadsheet, am feeling confident and equipped enough to go into my local bike shop (or various locals honestly, looking at you Bicycle Habitat Chelsea) to talk specs and what I may or may not want.

This is a work in progress.

I was going to wait until the winter to get a new bike, but I’m now realizing that I’m an idiot and am gnashing at the bit to get a new bike that’ll make me only want to use the Frankenbike for local tasks like groceries and commuting to work. Not looking for recommendations here, but I’m excited for this journey and can’t wait to make my choice and get out on the road.