Semper Fly

When biking through Camp Pendleton, home to America's fiercest fighting force, it's always best to be on the lookout for high grade military vehicles.  

If you take on an MI Generation 3 Abrams Tank, coming in at an astounding cost of 6.21 million dollars, chance are you're gonna lose. Even you're atop a Cannondale SuperSix Evo CRB 3 costing less than $6.21 million, though not much less, like the one pictured below.

Who is riding that sophisticated machinery boasting a featherweight carbon frame, electronic gear shifting, hydraulic disc brakes and the legendary Shimano 105 derailleur, you may ask. In my ongoing quest to spend my kid's inheritance, I did the unthinkable and bought something selfish for myself. 

This is no small feat. 

After a lifetime of providing for my family it takes the creation of new neural pathway in order to cross that psychological chasm that says it's OK to spend money on myself. But, I figured, since Ms. Muse and I have been logging triple digit weekly mileage numbers, it was high time I upgraded my cycling gear. 

I hadn't purchased a new bike since I did triathlons back in 1984. If a year of a dog's life equals 7 of that for a human, a year in life of the road bike equals twice that, meaning that 39 years times 14...carry the 3...add the columns...it's an old frikkin bike. 

I test rode a bunch of bikes from In-Cycle (that's right I'm giving them a plug) in Pasadena. The salesman wisely put me on a 14 lbs. Aethos Pro bike, knowing full well this amateur cyclist would get spoiled by this amazing machine. Then he showed me the price tag which almost necessitated the use of a defribrillator, an amazing machine in its own right.

Then I rode some "nice" bikes at the lower end of the spectrum. 

They were sturdy, well-designed, and  efficient in every sense of the word. But I was suddenly hit by a flashback of useless status meetings, stupid client presentations and the many bowls of humiliating shit I had to slop up over the course of my less-than-stellar career and thought, "No, I didn't come this far to settle for 'nice'."

And so I didn't.

Earlier this week, I took the maiden voyage aboard the new Cannondale SuperSix Evo CRB 3 in San Clemente. Let's just say my formerly fat cycling ass will never be the same again. The Strava cycling app says we covered about 30 miles, but it felt more like 10. 

I was climbing hills like a gazelle. Maybe not a gazelle, but one of those hoven animals that can perch itself on the side of cliff and taunt Sir Isaac Newton and his weak laws of gravity. 

And fast? I had no idea I could go so fast on a bike. And that was just the using the first 11 gears. I would've engaged the second 11 gears to go even faster, but I hadn't got that far in the owner's manual.

Is there a Senior's Group for the Tour De France?