Pink Lightning

The first thing I did after deciding I wanted to be an Ironman, was search for a road bike. OK fine, the first thing I did was try to convince my parents to buy me a road bike. A girl can dream, right? They said no. Luckily, my sister, who also runs, had met a triathlon coach at her gym, and she put me in contact with her. I shall call the triathlon coach "F". F had recently moved out of state, but I got her e-mail address and she agreed to give me some pointers. In January, after the Disneyworld marathon, she will start giving me triathlete training plans.

F told me that I didn't need a custom road bike to start off, which is a good thing, since custom bikes can cost several grand. She told me to look on Craigs List or ebay, and then take whatever bike I could find to a local bike shop for adjustments. I suck at using Craigs List, apparently. Every time I found a bike with potential I e-mailed right away, but man, there must be people out there with nothing better to do than lurk on Craigs List all day, because I was beaten to the punch every time. Plus, I'm super short and needed a really small bike, so there weren't a lot of options.

Then I found a seller on ebay that specialized in Dawes Sheila road bikes. She had "XS" frames, or 44 cm. And she had a PINK bike. I'm not very feminine, but I do love pink. I couldn't pass up the deal! My bike took 10 days to arrive and I was so excited when it got here!

My darling boyfriend, who imagines himself to be very handy, ripped the box open and started assembling the bike. Things went relatively smoothly until he couldn't figure out how to put the front brakes on. Brakes are pretty important, and not wanting to die, I decided I'd take the bike to a specialized shop.

The first shop I went to, which actually has a pretty good reputation in town, had employees that treated me like an idiot, and they ultimately lost my business. And the business of all the people I've talked to about bikes since then (take that mean bike shop people!) They basically reprimanded me for buying a bike online, and told me to send the bike back, and then come see them again so they could custom fit me for a bike. Um, yeah, I'll get right on that...

I looked up another shop online, and took the bike over there. They were really nice, and helpful, when I explained that I was a newbie and had gotten my bike online. They took all sorts of measurements with me sitting on the bike, and said they'd do a full "build", inspect everything to make sure it was safe, and cut the seat post down for me - yeah, I am really short.

It took ten more days to get the bike back, but that's totally worth it, because now it has front brakes, so I won't fall off my bike and hurt myself when I take it out for a ride. Rather, at least if I fall off my bike and hurt myself, it won't be because I didn't have brakes...

I think I shall call her Pink Lightning...