Well, my road riding season is dying down. See, I am not a bicycle commuter like some of my other colleagues. I am all for it, mind you. But, in my current work position, where I live, where I work, plus the work schedule that is necessary to keep, it is not feasible. So…call me a recreational rider. I much enjoy riding away from the city anyway, since I don’t live in the city in the first place. But the season is changing. I have the Synapse on a trainer now (a new investment), and since the rubber is almost gone on my rear wheel, and the fluid trainer I am using puts a fair amount of wear and tear on a tire, I am reluctant to pull the bike off the trainer and take it on the road. What I want to do: Buy a new wheelset (I am considering these.), take the old 12-27 cassette I recently swapped out for an 11-28 and put on on my existing wheel, buy a training tire for the old wheel, get a new set of Continental Grand Prix 4000s’s for the new wheels, and then I would be a lot better off, because I would have a wheel specifically to use on the trainer. But money is hard to come by. Those things will have to wait. I will just keep the Synapse on the trainer and wear that old tire down to the tube over the winter, and come spring, if I don’t have the money to do the whole new wheelset thing, at least I can just get the tires, which I will need regardless.
Until then, I have the new Talon to take out and explore with. It’s kind of exciting, doing something new. I have lived all these years without doing any mountain biking, and today I take it out on a trail for the first time. About time, huh? It’s kind of like the feeling I had earlier in the year, in the summer, when a late afternoon thunderstorm was rolling in, and I took the Synapse out on the road, and headed straight into it. Kind of a stupid exhilaration. That describes the moment pretty well. I feel less stupid about taking the Talon out today than I did taking the Synapse into the storm earlier in the year, but the exhilaration part…the anticipation, the wonder…applicable.