Love your bike, part II

I have already written about how much I love my bike, but this post is about tough love. On March 7, 2010 I went to San Diego to once more take part of the Gran Fondo Colnago San Diego, on his second presentation.

Of course, I registered for the century, 101 miles with about 4157 ft of ascent on a beautiful course around San Diego, outstanding organization, and this year offering a 53mile and a 32mile courses. And, of course, it was raining the whole course. Sorry, no pictures this time, the Iphone was in a plastic bag.

Instead of skipping to the shorter courses, I tried to complete the century, as it was the only one to offer a challenging KOM segment that killed my body last year. Unnecessary to say I paid for my audacity. The ride started under pouring rain, with 10 minutes delay waiting for the Amtrak train to pass, with all riders soaked to their underware. The extent of the damage was just felt at the first stop at mile 15: my computer had died, and I was uncontrollably shivering at lower efforts. I even took a wrong turn going into the shortest ride, when I decided to continue the daring enterprise.

I happilly did the KOM segment: 6.75 miles, grade 3%-12% (averaging 5.2%), total vertical of 1,858 feet, in 1:10:37, still very slow for a real ciclist, but about 20 min faster than last year (of course because of multiple rest stops...). But right after the KOM I noticed that my breaks weren't working properly, and when I had to stop with a flat rear tire, I saw my break pads were almost complete worn down, probably because of the sandy wet course.

At mile 67 I had to stop, as I was going to face more downhills, and I couldn't trust my breaks. That, and I had to wait for an hour in the rain for my wife to come to pick me up. At least I was able to complete a metric century, and do the KOM once more.

Now I know why, even if it is fun, the pros don't like to ride in the rain. And my love for biking killed my computer (now working again after drying for a week), my break pads (switched to higher quality ones) and my drivetrain (now switched to a real Shimano Ultegra).

My tough love to myself upgraded my bike, and taught me new lessons. Waiting for the next year's new lessons...