12 months on the road… By Emma Richardson
Emma sent this to me over the weekend. Many thanks Emma!. Actually she sent me three of her rider stories to publish so here is her first one.... We always appricate riders stories so if you have any of your own send them in...
By Emma Richardson - 17/9/2009
My, how time flies when you’re having fun. It is 12 months today since I brought my red and black Specialized Roubaix Expert home. On that night, it sat in the lounge room and was admired from every angle, was touched and caressed with tenderness and even photographed in provocative poses, but nothing inappropriate of course.
The seeds of desire to have a road bike were planted while watching last year’s Tour de France. I had watched the multipart ’suspense/thriller/who is gunna do it’ for many years, but that year I was convinced I too could ride like Robbie, Stuart or Cadel if only I could have a bike with drop bars and skinny tyres. Ok ok, I’m a little more realistic now!!!
Surely I could find a reasonable bike for around $1000, and have my feet upon its pedals within a few days too. But quickly I was confronted with terms like sora, tiagra, 105, ultegra, Dura Ace, compact frame, compact crank, composite forks, aluminium frame and carbon fibre frame, and that was all before the question of which brand came into the equation. My head was spinning from the myriad of options, and me without any idea where to start to determine which option was going to be most suitable for a future champion as I was sure to be. I finally had to concede the decision might take a little longer than the one or two days I had originally planned.
As my steep technical learning curve ascended the ‘mont du cycling knowledge’, so too increased the amount I realised I would to need to spend. From the $1000 I had originally allocated, it grew to $1800, then to $2450, then to what seemed like an outrageous $3600. It was just a bicycle for heaven’s sake, but if I wanted to have a bike that satisfied me on aesthetic, technical, performance and that intangible ‘attraction’ level, then that is what it would take.
After many, many weeks of research and study, and changing of mind back and forth, I eventually arrived at the moment to test ride the bikes on my short list. As a new comer to the discipline of road riding, I had little idea of what ‘feeling right’ felt like, or how compliant a vertically compliant bike should be. After a number of test rides on various brands and models, I tentatively took the ‘not on my list’, but hot and fast looking Specialized for a spin. I was reluctant to even bother trying it as it was quite a few credit card repayments over and above my price limit. But silly me, I decided to have a test ride anyway, purely for comparison sake of course. Well as I’m sure you can guess, it was by far the best ride so far, and I just knew I wasn’t going to be satisfied with anything less spectacular. With amazing (and unusual) restraint though, and with difficulty, I left the shop without making a purchase.
Having slept and dreamt overnight on all the reason why I should or shouldn’t buy the bike, I rang the shop the next day and with a little coaxing on bike and accessories pricing, a deal was done. Later that day the bike was mine, but little did I know the bike was contaminated with an addictive substance that would come to control my life. From that moment, I was obsessed with an unrelenting urge to spend many thousands of dollars on lycra, lights, tools, tyres, shoes, glasses, gloves and gels. I felt compelled to rise before dawn to ride up hills with legs screaming in pain, and lungs and heart attempting to escape through my chest to avoid the torture.
I am not the only one though, who has been foolish enough to think they are strong enough to ‘just try it once’. I have found some solace in support groups where other similarly afflicted poor souls gather to try to defeat this insidious cycling addiction. We ride together, admit our weakness and strive to be strong in the face of such powerful forces. I have cruised with BUGs, felt faint in criteriums, suffered in road racing, endured multiple 100km rides and clocked up over 8000km in my first year, all in an effort to shake the cycling monkey off my back. But alas, I am hooked.
Just remember, 12 months ago I too was a normal person. It starts innocently enough, you try a community ride or just cycle down to the shops to get some milk, and you say to yourself “I can give this up anytime I want”, but before you know it you’re doing time trials or hanging around the velodrome trying to get a fix(ie)…and it’s all downhill from there.
So if you decide to try it, you will certainly get your money’s worth, but be warned, you might get more than you bargained for…
