So a few years ago I bought my first real road bike. I bought into the hype and purchased a carbon framed Specialized Ruby, a bike marketed not for racers but for the rest of us. The bike is fast and amazingly light, maybe too light. It feels like it could blow away in a 15 mile an hour breeze. Maybe it could. It certainly feels like it is going to fly out from underneath me when I catch a cross wind. And it is not a comfortable ride. It soaks up vibrations well but puts a lot of pressure on my hands and neck. I really hurt after riding it but kept at it thinking I would just get used to it.
The other "thing" about it is how careful I feel like I have to be with it. Once, when I crashed slow-mo in a cross walk I was so worried about the bike that as I fell I rolled on to my back and held the bike off the ground. I crashed because my new clip-less pedals were too tight and I couldn't get my foot out. I held the bike off the pavement by the same too-tight pedals. Not the bike's fault, of course. Here it is all shiny and new; note the handle bars are lower than the seat:
I can take my other bike, my main ride, off road with no fear. It's also a Specialized, Tri-Cross Sport, an aluminum-framed carbon-forked mile eating tough muddy machine. I have liked/loved this bike since my bottom first landed in the seat. I remember showing up for a trail ride with my buddy for the first time and him saying "you can't ride that skinny tire bike here." And a different time my bike was leaning against a tree while I practiced some yoga poses far enough away to maybe not seem associated with the bike. A couple of older fellows on "mountain bikes" rode up, dismounted and they both stared at my muddy machine. The one says to the other "I'd never ride those skinny tires here." The other fellow agreed.
And yet I could, and did, and have put at least 10,000 miles on it. Many, most, of those miles were on rutted dirt trails. Deep mud is not my friend, nor baby head sized rocks, but mostly this bike works great for what I do. Here it is, relatively clean before a 40 miles C & O Canal Tow Path ride:
I broke my neck last year. Crushed the 6th vertebrae into a pyramid and ruptured the disc above and below it. No great story to go with it, just moderate embarrassment involving a light, a cat, and my bed. I have predictably had some health set backs since. Especially in the biking department. I took my Tri-Cross in early this year for a professional fitting to try and make it more comfortable. Between a stem change and some tweeks it is a bit more comfy now. But the Ruby, I don't think I want to go changing enough of the bike to make it comfortable. It is a pure machine, why adulterate it?
Recently I picked up "Just Ride" by Grant Petersen. I am struggling to get in just a few rides a week, the health thing and pain make it hard. So I constantly consider how I can get back to my biking life. So I get the guy's book, read it, and just feel dumb. Dumb, like, why didn't I understand that carbon was so fragile? (lack of research, listening to bike salesman, and did I mention Bicycling Magazine?) Why didn't I realize that my race-inspired Ruby was uncomfortable before I broke my neck? Why aren't reliable steel bikes available in my LBS (local bike store)? And should I change my carbon fork out for a steel fork on my Tri-Cross?
There is no bike guru sitting around taking bike questions from dummies such as myself. Any time I walk into my old LBS and ask probing questions I am met with a sneer. I moved and have a new LBS. They mostly don't sneer at me. But I still have the lingering embarrassment of being a grom or whatever they call the uninitiated. And they sell carbon bikes, so they won't diss carbon. I don't even know who would give me a straight answer. Do I order a steel fork, and from which manufacturer? Will my carbon bike sit on my trainer forever because that's the only place it's comfortable to ride? I know only I can answer these questions. And that I am whining. I know, get over it.
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