My Bike

I have a pretty smokin' hot bike! In honor of my very positive 165 km ride this past week, I would like to write about my bike. It's a Cervelo P2C, some of it's features include: Shimano Dura-Ace components, constant-width seat tube cutout, aero head tube, constant cross section seat tube, integrated accessory attachment seatpost, integrated seat tube collar, ICS internal cablestops, UCI legal, frameset. I do not have a single clue what all these things mean or do (please do not report me for plagerism from the Cervelo website!), but I do know that this is a bike that I am EXTREMELY blessed to have!




I saved my pennies to buy my first road bike back in 2004 when I thought I was interested in doing triathlons. I bought a Trek 1000 road bike (entry level road bike), which was my most prized possession (first love), I slept with it in my bedroom and I treated it like it was my first born (clearly... Bedford has replaced it). Now, it feels like it weighs 5 bizillion pounds and quite frankly, its ugly (I'm only human... I've moved on to bigger and better things). I did however use my road bike (which I pet named, Lance, after my second love) for my first half ironman in 2006. I placed 3rd in my age category at that race, something very special to me that only Lance I will ever share. Shortly after that race, I decided that I would sign up for Ironman Canada for 2007, Lance and I would complete it together. A few weeks after I made this decision, and also a few days before I was moving home to Calgary from Victoria, Uncle Bruce and Auntie Rosie took me out for lunch. It was a nice visit that we had, but nothing out of the ordinary, we saw each other fairly often, so I wasn't really expecting anything special that day. At that lunch, Uncle Bruce said that he was really proud of me for pursuing my ironman goal, and really wanted to support me. By supporting me, I was under the impression that he would be joining Team Alison and would be donning his pink (from head to toe) cheer uniform (as issued from Alison) at Ironman Canada in 2007 to cheer for me. I was thrilled that he would be apart of it with me. However... I was wrong. Very wrong. What Uncle Bruce meant by supporting me, was that he wanted to help me upgrade my bike. Obviously I was shocked, and thrilled and then shocked again (however, he did also join Team Alison for race day to cheer as well). We went directly to Fort Street Cycle after our lunch to check out the bikes. I was thinking that maybe we would upgrade some of the components on my bike, or perhaps get an entry level triathlon bike. I was wrong again. Long story short, I left the bike shop as the proud owner of an extremely high end triathlon bike (upgraded components), race wheels (zipp 404's), a wind-trainer, and a travelling case for my bike. I can't even imagine what the final bill was, but certainly more money than I've ever had in my bank account! That was one of those days that will go down in my personal history book!

I definately loved my new bike from day one (clearly, as I haven't so much as pumped up Lance's tires since getting the new bike). Carrying on with my naming tradition, this bike goes by Excalibur (Uncle Bruce got a matching P2C and named it Braveheart). Unfortunately, as training ramped up for IMC 2007, I faced quite a few diffuculties when it came to the bike. I never really felt like I got strong or comfortable in that sport, my back was extremely irritated by being in the aero position for any period of time, and I had so many digestive upsets (something very new to my iron-stomach) which I guessed was because of the extremely aeordynamic position of the frame. It sucked, I was discouraged and I was happy to retire the bike upon completion of IMC 07. However.... this year, things have seriously changed!!! Aside from the natural disturbances (wind, rain, hail, etc), my biking has been so fantastic this year! I feel great, I feel so strong, I have man-quads, I haven't had one cramp or upset stomach, my back or neck hasn't been irritated at all, and I actually look forward to my bike rides! It's weird, I don't know what changed, but it's great, I have no complaints! I think this will be very beneficial for the race, as obviously the bike portion greatly affects the run portion. And let's be honest... I'll be ticked off if I don't beat my time from IMC 07.

So, let me introduce you now to my THIRD love (or at least until something better comes along), Excalibur (too bad I don't have the race wheel's on, the bike looks so much flashier, but the race wheels and the Calgary wind do not agree with each other):



If I may (and... I may... because it's my blog), I will give a shameless plug to all the great people at Fort Street Cycle for all of the amazing service that they provided to me (well... Uncle Bruce really). I will also, once again, give the credit to my dad for taking care of this bike (it requires A LOT of upkeep!), as I am incapable of such things (like getting oil on my hands or dirt under my finger nails... gross). Lastly, Craig deserves some thanks for putting up with having a bike in the living room (much much much too precious to go outside!).