The roughly 14 hours in between my receiving my new Felt F2 and actually having it fully assembled and dialed in by Alex at Alex's Bicycles felt like eternity. I have to admit I did enjoy the process of trial and error, tweaking the equipment, loosening the bolts and moving things around just to find that perfect position where the rider is the most efficient. It's a very scientific process.
For those who are thinking about getting into competitive cycling let me warn you: this hobby is not for the frugal types. It will cost you dearly. I did the math - almost every piece of cycling equipment be it cranksets, frames, aerobars, shoes, etc. costs on average $300 per pound. So, after spending the GDP of a small country on a bicycle I was ready to ride.
On Sunday morning I woke up at 6:45 AM to have a super light yogurt breakfast, load the bike in the car and arrive to the meet up place of the South Broward Wheelers, one of the local cycling groups. When I got there a bunch of people were already warming up, riding around, dialing in their bike computers, etc. Within minutes I was out and about, making sure my computer is reading the data from the wireless sensors, sat up my target heart rate at 155 BPM, added +/- 15 BPM traps so I know when I fall out of my "zone." Overall, ready to go. The group is getting ready for the ride, I ride towards the group, slow down to listen to the leader's instructions and ... holy hell I can't get out of my clip pedals! I literally tumbled over, still attached to my bike. Since I was completely stopped the fall was very soft I subconsciously decided to let my body take the fall instead of the bike, wasn't really looking forward on cracking a ridiculously expensive frame. So I put a nice scratch on a $200 pedal. Add one expensive lesson to the list.
So the ride took off. Since I am not an expert rider I stayed in the back of the group -- wouldn't want to fall and take a bunch of cyclists with me. That would definitely piss some people off. I've mentioned before that I've ridden with this group and the ride is pretty aggressive. Well, as expected, I didn't have a problem keeping up. I did feel like I was going to puke about any minute but I didn't lose the group during the entire 45 mile ride. I call that a success. I also figured out that the current peak of my performance is 150 BPM (heart rate) at 85 RPM cadence.
Can't wait for this Sunday!
