Monday, January 29, 2018

Riding the new bike...

Sunday, January 28, 2018
I managed some major hikes over the past week putting in over 167,000 steps in seven days – 2,000 more than my previous best.  I had backed off on riding and running because the nagging pain in my right hamstring remained throughout the week; I felt it on most of those steps.  On Friday, I received the call I’d been waiting for though – my bike was ready for pick-up.

I drove to Performance Bike on Saturday after a couple of hours of raking up sticks and leaves in Mimi’s yard only to find the bike wasn’t REALLY ready.  Well…the bike was, but we couldn’t seem to get the attention of the head mechanic long enough to hand over the final labor tabulations so I could pay the balance.  After waiting thirty minutes and becoming increasingly frustrated, I announced that I had somewhere to be and would return in a couple of hours.

“Will that leave you enough time to figure out the balance and let me pay for the bike?” I asked the manager.

She knew my frustration was hitting the explosive point.  “I think I have all the information,” she said, looking at some hand written notes she held as she began ringing things on the register.

“Okay…replaced the brakes.  That’s $180 a set…”

Which was the last thing I let her say.  “Hold it!  I agreed to $130 for the set and you’re saying $180?  Look…you need to stop the mechanic, get the order form with the prices I agreed to and paid for last week or I’m leaving without the bike,” I said.

“Oh…um…well I can see Masato was being aggressive with the discounts on the brakes.  I was quoting the normal retail,” she said, tossing the man who’d sold me my bike and whom I trusted implicitly, completely under the bus.

“That’s between you and him and I don’t care how you handle it.  I agreed to a price, which was written down on the order form.  I’m paying that price or I’m paying nothing at all,” I said.

Fortunately, Masato had stopped by the store – he wasn’t working – and saw me.  He approached the counter and took over.  He told the manager that, in fact, the pricing was correct since he didn’t need all of the parts normally included in the brake set since he was using ones from the bike I’d purchased.  We concluded the deal quickly and satisfactorily once the order form was produced.  The manager apologized profusely…I had no respect for her not apologizing to the mechanic she’d tried to blame her error on, but that is just a style some people flow with – find someone else to blame instead of looking in the mirror.

Sunday was perfect for riding with temperatures in the high 40’s.  I had returned to Performance and bought a bike for Miggie from Masato right off the shelf.  She’d been trying to ride a clunky beast of a bike and never really got into it.  The new, light weight one we’d purchased fit her perfectly, had drop bars – which put you in a much more comfortable position when riding long distances, and, like mine, was a gravel bike and designed for riding on trails like the Towpath.

We headed out late afternoon, riding over to Hale Farm and Village on a paved path before taking to the road.  The gear shifters were in the brake system, as are most bikes these days and something I’m familiar with, but Miggie was not.  There is a learning curve with these things and she would get it, but the initial miles are scary.  She also had rat traps on the pedals and she had never ridden a bike where her foot was attached to the pedals and this was trouble for her, as well.  She also struggled on the little hills we encountered because she did not know how to come up out of the saddle and ride standing up when climbing.  The additional power this adds to each stroke is invaluable on difficult climbs, which is anything uphill when you’re out of shape.  She struggled, got off the bike a couple of times, but in the end did well and completed a 30-minute ride exhausted, but pleased with her effort.

I continued on for another 45 minutes before getting home just under the dark wire.  Though I now have lights for the bike, I will be reluctant to ride in the dark.  That may change, but old habits die hard.

Tomorrow I will share some new ideas about hiking the North Country Trail instead of the Pacific Crest.  It interests me, at least.
Bike duration: 45 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 135 bpm.
Calories Burned: 640

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