it was a beautiful afternoon. yesterday i broke out of the shackles of work and went for a short ride.
back story, i got a gift card to a local running shop as part of a bonus from work. i had gone a couple times and spent some money on the card, not much though as there wasn't much in the store that caters to my taste. no big deal. one of the owners of the bike shop i used to work at was getting back into running with his kids and such, so i offered the card in trade for some goods from the bike shop. ended up with a nice set of specialized burrough armadillo elite tires and a campy headset on order for the fuji. got a call yesterday afternoon saying the campy headset was out of stock and that i needed to go to the shop and pick a different one.
so after this phone call i could not help but be compelled to immediately deliver on my need to get this headset business squared away. so i bolted from work and headed for the shop.
once there we were chattering about bike related nonsense and bike rides. one of the owners there is extremely roadie and was egging me on about coming on some rides with him and i told him that i just didn't have the equipment. these guys are doing something like 70 miles at an average of about 29mph. no way in hell i can pull that on my track bike for that long, same for the jamis. it is a tourer, a two wheeled cadillac. (am i just making excuses?) so upon further discussion and more heckling we move to the computer to look at what specialized has to offer on their blem site. basically the blem site has all of their bikes that are demos, or the paint is goofy, or they are missing some pieces and parts, etc. the notes on the site tell you exactly what is wrong with each one. and they offer these steeds at a greatly reduced price for their dealers to benefit from.
after further investigation i was sold. i should be the proud owner of a carbon tarmac expert shortly. we'll see.
when i got home in the evening i started to think about this purchase as i was switching tires on my track bike. i looked around the room and i see my khs solo-one, a converted single speed jamis explorer, and my track bike in the stand. i walk into the other room and there sits shea's jamis aurora right next to my jamis aurora. i go out to the shed and upside down with no tires lies a neglected single speed convert of a specialized rock hopper and a crappy piece of a wal-mart bike right behind it.
then i start to think how wasteful i am. about how wasteful some of the decisions i make are. do i really need another bike? do i really need this many bikes? the answer to both of those questions is probably "no." but alas, i have made my decision and i will try to use it to my benefit. i will try to learn from it. maybe i will donate the rockhopper to some kid who is just getting in to trail riding? anyone know that kid? maybe i will donate the explorer to someone who just needs something to ride around on? and so on and so forth.
the potential is endless really. but the thing about potential is that it is only good if you use it.
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