Stronger than steel
So this week marks the fourth anniversary of my purchase of the Devinci Monaco that has been my faithful ride. When I first got it, I was someone who was basically sedentary but inline skated or biked to work every so often, but I aspired to maybe do a long bike tour or something. With the new bike, I commuted a lot more, even through the harshness of winter, and began training for my first Pan-Mass. The Monaco served that purpose well.
However, today I’m a very different rider. I’ve become an athlete, riding over 200 miles per week and mixing it up in pacelines and sprints on regular club rides. I’ll soon be signing up for my fifth PMC, which now seems less of a challenge, and today’s dream goals include riding the world-class Mount Washington Hill Climb and early-season brevets of 300 to 600k. For those purposes, my steel, straight-bar hybrid is like an anchor. It’s heavy, getting decrepit with age, and has all the aerodynamic attributes of a dumpster.
I’ve been looking at new bikes for more than three years, and there are plenty of fine rides to choose from. Finding the money has really been the only thing holding me back. But one of these days I’ll take the plunge, and the benefit to my riding should be pretty immediate.
But on this anniversary, I should note what I’ve accomplished to date. There have been only ten weeks when I haven’t ridden: seven due to sickness or injury, and one each due to mechanicals, travel, and weather, but I haven’t missed a single week in the past two years. In four years I’ve put 12,267 miles on that bike, with this year’s total being a record 3,800 miles. My annual average is 3,015 miles, which is about 8.4 miles every single day. I’ve spent 855 hours on the bike, which amounts to over 35 minutes every day. I’ve done four PMC rides, one century and three metric doubles (124 miles), and raised over $12,000 for cancer research. In all, I think it’s a pretty impressive set of accomplishments.
However, as I said, the Devinci has been showing signs of age lately. Last year I replaced my rear wheel because my spokes kept breaking or loosening up on me. That worked for a while, but I’m once again having problems. However, this year I tried a new tactic: Loctite! I used a mild adhesive that is designed to hold nuts in place so that they aren’t loosened by vibration. A couple weeks ago, I identified the three non-drive side spokes that were giving me trouble and sealed them down. You’d think that’d be the end of that!
Well, no. While those spokes held fine, suddenly about four other spokes went loose to compensate, including some on the drive side! So now I’m at a loss for what to do. Is there something about the way I ride that just tears up rear wheels? Dunno, but at least I have the winter to figure it out.
Yesterday’s ride featured another unfortunate sign of aging equipment, too. At one of our rest stops I left my bike in a French stand, and a gust of wind came by and knocked it over. Not a big deal, except that my helmet was on the handlebars and the styrofoam body of the helmet cracked straight through in three places! I have been planning on replacing it anyways, but I really didn’t need another expense right now. I’ll continue using it through this winter, because it’s still functional and I’m rough on helmets during the winter anyways, but come spring I’ll have to replace it with something more stylish.
So overall it’s been a good year, although it’s about time to buy a new road bike and admit that the Devinci has become a beater suitable only for commuting and winter riding. Still, as a $925 bike with more than 12,000 miles on the odo, its 7.5 cents/mile is darned near unbeatable value, even for a bicycle!