It's here! Our bike arrived in the mail the other week and I was super excited. I patiently waited at the FedEx counter while the man at the counter shuffled some small boxes around until he finally realized I was picking up the enormous box looming over him. He called a co-worker over to ask what he was supposed to do in such a situation. The older employee helped him bring it over and they comically passed it over the counter.
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| Strange Passenger. |
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| Just fits! |
They helped me carry it outside and asked me where my car was. I said it was a mile down Hillsborough St. and headed off leading the employee through the parking lot. When I looked back at his face, he looked equal parts confused and concerned. I told him I was joking as we got to my car 10 feet away and he looked very relieved.
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| VP doing a concern. |
I had to put all the seats down to cram it in the Golf, but I got it in there. When I got home, I had to do quite a lot of box-cutting and unwrapping to get all the parts out. It kind of reminded me of Christmas morning. A couple components had actually been upgraded which I hadn't seen in the original posting so yay.
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| I made a mental note how it was packaged as we'll have to ship it to Banff then back home when we're done. |
Emma and I got lucky this past Saturday with some good weather and headed to the Neuse River Greenway. It's about a 30 mile paved path on the other side of Raleigh. We decided to do about 15 miles to Deep River Brewery in Clayton and 15 miles back. There was some light rain at one point but we enjoyed views of the river, some beef cattle, and the Raleigh dump. Ok, the dump wasn't that great.
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| All ready no thanks to the shadow wolf. |
We drank some nice light beers at Deep River, reheated some leftover soy nug tikka masala I had made the previous night, and got quite a few questions about the bike. I imagine this is going to be quite common as the bike and trailer are pretty conspicuous at about 15 feet long! We felt a bit like we were on the trail squatting a picnic table and making food on the camp stove while people wondered what exactly we were up to.
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| Heavy lifting. |
I thought the bike handled wonderfully. While we were definitely slower on knobbly tires, I thought the ride was much better compared to our road bike tandem. I've never had disc brakes before and really liked them. I didn't realize how squishy the brakes on the road tandem were until I pulled the discs for the first time. There's no going back now. I purchased a slightly swept handlebar, which racing me would have laughed at, but it was much more comfortable putting my hands at a more natural angle. The length of the rig wasn't very noticeable and Emma and I were able to get out of the saddle a bit.
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| Ready to ride! |
We splurged weight-wise and got a kickstand. Seems so common, but ask any serious cyclist if they've ever had a kickstand and they will flatly reply: No..... I've never had one either but for a giant rig like this, it seems like a necessity. I've also read a couple blogs now where people don't want to lay their bike down because its so heavy but also can't find anything to lean it on. We'll avoid that problem for a pound.
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| Medical gloves are important for quaffing. |
Even with the new handlebar and disc brakes, I still suffered from some hand fatigue. It's one of those things you have to build up some strength for. 30 miles with no chamois went well if you were wondering. In other preparation news, Emma and I worked a bit on a lightweight double quilt tonight for the warmer nights and I sewed up a cycling hat on Monday. Plane tickets were also bought this weekend. I have 15 more weeks of school and while it seems so slow now, I'm sure it will fly by! Or at least I hope so.
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| Mid-ride hydration. |
All in all, a good day. We're looking forward to more training trips if we can get another lucky warm day.
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