It sucks

I have been riding my bike quite a bit lately. 

I don't mean my Peloton, which I purchased two years ago, a review on that is to come shortly. I mean my road bike. A 1989 Cinelli Mens Sana In Corpore Sano, meaning a healthy mind in a healthy body.

I purchased the bike when I was still competing in triathlons and decided all my hard work merited an expensive bicycle, the most expensive bicycle I'd ever layed my half finger gloves on. 

It's easy enough to hop on the Peloton and knock out 25-25 miles a day -- I average about 30. It's quite another to join Ms. Muse who lives in Sierra Madre, which I previously thought was in Arizona. That requires effort and the transport of my cult classic Cinelli to the outer reaches of Pasadena.

Enter the Sea Sucker.

I didn't want to put roof racks ($$$) on my Audi and suffer the incumbent wind noise. Nor did I want to disassemble the bike and jam it into the trunk like a fat guy squeezing into a too-tight blazer (see Chris Farley in Tommy.) My neighbor Aaron, a triathlete in his own right, suggested I pick up the Sea Sucker.

Having undergone the life changing event of widowhood 14 months ago, I decided I'd adapt a new, less-frugal perspective on life and stop denying myself the finer things unlimited credit cards have to offer. I bought this new fangled contraption and then I shelved this new fangled contraption in my garage because, of all things, I was afraid to use it.

Allow me to explain.

The Sea Sucker, as its name would suggest, operates on the notion of sucking. The idea is to remove the front wheel of the bike (much easier than the rear) and attach it via the front forks (the thing that holds the wheel on) to the three-cup mount seen above. From there one need only hoist the bike+mount, about 21 lbs. in all, and sit it atop my Audi S5. 

Then the sucking begins.

Each cup is cleverly designed with an internal pump that when pushed several times with the thumb, extracts air between the rubber cup and the clean metal on the roof of the vehicle. As a result an airtight vacuum is formed. If you've ever shot a toy pistol with rubber cup ammo against a bathtub wall, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

If however, you're a born cynic who still doesn't understand how 747 jets, loaded with overstuffed Samsonites, can hurl themselves into the air and stay aloft, like me, you know the whole thing looks sketchy. I was convinced that while tooling up the windy Arroyo Seco Parkway, my Cinelli would come untethered, fall off the car and impale the brother or sister-in-law of Jacoby and or Meyers, Southern California's leading personal injury attorneys. Thus wiping out my nest egg in one fell and messy, litigious swoop.

Hence the Sea Sucker sat in my garage and went unused for more than 7 months. That is until last weekend, when Ms. Muse suggested we ride with the PAA, Pasadena Athletic Association (I'm hoping this plug will earn me a free jersey) on their 50 mile ride from Whittier to Seal Beach.

I decided to set aside my cognitive dissonance and harken back to my 10th grade knowledge of elementary physics. 

"Let's see if this sea sucker works," I said to myself.

Guess what? It worked. It worked like a charm. Having completed the 29 mile trip to Sierra Madre, that's 83 minutes in LA drive time) I emerged from the car and checked it out. The bond was rock solid. If you didn't know better you'd have thought a team of persnicketty German engineers had bolted the device into the Audi with legendary Teutonic precision.

I'm now a Sea Sucker sucker...convert, and determined to use it as often as I can. Even if I'm just going to the dry cleaners or the supermarket. I have 7 months of collecting dust to make up for.

I give the Sea Sucker, 12 Gears Up, the same number of gears found on my precious Cinelli.