Red Rider

A few months ago I posted here about handing over our last '98 Specialized Hard Rock, the bike that got me back into riding and led to my first road bike in 20 yrs., to our son. He lives in San Francisco, working and going to SFCC, and needed a bike to get around, as well as to reduce wear & tear on his car. We got him some lights and other bling for Christmas, and everything appeared to be fine.

Last week he called and asked if he could borrow my Specialized Dolce Comp -- yeah, that one. I warned him that it's white with some pink and black accents and it's a WSD, but he was undeterred. He wanted to try it out.

He came out on Wed. and cooked us dinner (and cleaned up, too). Cgallagh changed the pedals back to toe clips. We put the bike on the trainer, changed the saddle, and let him spin on it a while as we checked the fit. We taught him how to use the brifters and explained how he was going to re-learn suffering up some of those steep hills he's recently conquered, although the bike has a triple and he's young and strong.

He said that one of his roommate's boyfriend is a CAT 2 road racer, has done spectacularly in cyclo-cross races, and has inspired our son to ride "farther...and longer." I recognized what I heard -- that's why I bought this bike in the first place. Our boy is a roadie at heart! I'm so proud of him, and happy that the Dolce will be ridden regularly again.

The Hard Rock will become our beater bike again, I guess.

If the boy wants any upgrades from here he'll have to finance them himself -- the Diva stays in the stable.

Retro Grouch 

I don't think that you fully understand the N+1 concept yet so I'll explain. Breaking even is like kissing your sister.

Red Rider

We took back a bike and sent another away. We still have the same number of bikes we had before the exchange.

I don't get the "kissing your sister" analogy, either...*shrugs shoulders*