anthem

yesterday i bought a bike.

i'd been putting off the bike shopping, a thing i would usually jump at, but it's been hard for me lately and when you buy a bike you have to look at a lot of them a ride a lot of them and try to remember what you liked about each one and what you didn't and that is a PROJECT.

i found one i like a lot, which surprised me because the last time i shopped for a bike i didn't find one i loved as much as the one i'd been riding and i wasn't so hopeful because i knew i needed to change from the brand i had loved to something else, and you never know if you will find a something else you love.

but a couple hours into the trying, i kept coming back to the one bike over and over. it was hard for me to make the adjustment; the shifters are different and i do not as a rule like change.

and it's a twenty-niner, which means that instead of the usual 26 inch tire, it has 29 inch tires, which have a lot of advantages in a mountain bike, but also some liabilities. it's kind of a big change and will take some getting used to.

but the thing i kept noticing is how much more power i felt i had, how much more stable and confident. it is a snappy, sharp ride, stiff enough to feel control but not so stiff as to lose quickness. i ket thinking that it made me feel like a BEAST on it, which is a good feeling.

it'a big bike for a little middle aged lady, and i will have to learn how to ride it. i will have to learn how far i can lay it over in a corner, how to stick it on a turn, how to get to over things.

but it MOVES. i rode it for a lap of tomorrow's race course tonight before the run because i wouldn't dare race it without riding it once on the course and i was surprised to just tootle up some things that were a little too much work before. i had to brake soem places where i've never had to brake before, but i realized it was because i simply wasn't ever going that fast in those places.

a few weeks from now i will have figured out where it will grip and where it won't, and what it will do when it slips, because that's really the key. when you miss a thing or you take a risk on a corner you have to know what it will do so you can compensate.

i guess maybe you could not take any risks, but then you wouldn't be learning.