Project $ Drain

Since everyone knows that spending dollars is a perfectly valid way to make up for a lack of training time, I'm shopping around for a new bike. Aside from the above untruth, there's also the general male love of gadgetry and toys. I'm lucky in that I really don't get bit by that bug too often anymore, and even when I do, I usually manage to snap out of the consumer-trance in time to stop before I choose a shipping option, but I'm probably going to pull the trigger on the bike.

Doing fast bricks (combination workouts, no one knows where the 'word' brick comes from) has been giving me some leg trouble just when I'm getting my stride sorted out. That and I can get this new one fitted to my lanky body. Also, the new one really should be faster. People, especially beginners, get good time reductions on these things.

I've got some options...

First, I've got a line on a new bike that's on closeout because it's last years model. The price is good (though none of these damn things are cheap) . This bike is aluminum with carbon in a few spots. It's got good components, is slightly faster than a speeding locomotive, and is moderately attractive to women. Because this one is so cheap compared to the other options, I could conceivably buy a ridiculously overpriced set of racing wheels for it...which is super.







Second, is a sexy little red and white number. This little thing is all carbon, good components and faster than a high school kid on prom night. Annnnnd it's expensive. Also, because they don't make too many of these, they always sell out, so no luck finding a closeout deal on this. This is a solid, fast bike, but it eats up any $s I would be able to spend on more upgrades.








Third, and most expensive of the ones I'm looking at. Kestrel makes such delicious bikes, but the bastards charge so much for them. This is an all carbon frame, decent components (not outstanding), and this thing is probably faster than current laws of physics would really allow. So, I'd be paying for speed that wouldn't exactly exist in this or any known dimension, and that seems wasteful.










Per Ning's request, below is a picture of a bike that I'm not considering buying. For one thing, it costs about $15,000. More importantly however, it would be the most embarrassing thing in the world to be riding this and get passed by a 60 year old woman on a Schwinn. Ning thinks this bike is comical, but that's just her opinion, her wrong opinion. Here are the facts:

• There is no stock of this bike, they're all custom built... by fairies. Sexy Swedish fairies.
• The picture below is not of the real bike, it's just a mock up. The bike is so fast that it cannot be photographed.
• This bike will actually capture speed from other racers and use that to accelerate. If you're not careful, it will trap the other racer's souls as well. That is considered cheating and you will be disqualified from sanctioned races.
• This bike sprang whole from the mind of Zeus. It wasn't a headache that caused it though...it was the opposite if you catch my drift ;)