A farewell to bianchi

I was looking for a picture of my first road bike - the Bianchi Brava and did a search in my mail and realized that I've been offering to sell this bike for the last 2 years to various people. Looks like I mentioned it to two different people summer of 2010 but then backed out after realizing I still really liked my bike.

So come this summer, C said he found me the perfect commuter bike and this time I couldn't come up with any reasons to keep it so I found a buyer in SMateoA who had borrowed it for her triathlon earlier in the year. I was kind of sad to see it go - I bought it in 2000 from Mike's Bikes in Palo Alto after going in and asking to see the cheapest road bike they had (I needed a bike for a sprint triathlon). I'm an easy sell. I then rode it home to Mountain View and somehow punctured the tire in the process. I remember not knowing how to change gears or how gearing even worked with this bike. I had to go back to Mike's bikes to ask them how it worked (now I know that they are supposed to give you a manual!). Very first lesson they gave me was to make sure not to cross gear (and of course that was the gear ratio I was in when I showed up). For 2 years, I stayed in the middle chain ring in front because I deemed it too difficult to shift the front gear. I did my first tour de peninsula ride on this bike without ever having learned how to use the granny gear. Knowing that now, I am amazed I was able to make it up Ralston. Once I learned about granny gear, the world opened up and I did my first and only century down highway 1 to hearst castle. I can't even imagine how much easier that would have been on a lighter bike. Steel is real and it will last forever with its new owner.

And I now say welcome to the fanciest commuter bike I will ever own: the Spot Acme. Now I don't have to roll up my pant leg for fear of getting caught in the chain ring (which is the scariest thing ever) - though I had solved that problem by wearing only capri pants. Thank you C for giving me the best reason to be excited about returning to work and a good way to fit in exercise post baby.



On a random note: Someone had told me the problem with not working is that you end up shopping too much. I can attest to that with the daily shipment from amazon that seems to be going on and this new bike is also a result of C not being busy at work...