My First Brick

After the episode with the bike mechanic who called putting an aerobar on a hybrid "retarded," I thought I'd try elsewhere. So yesterday, after spending the morning cleaning -- serious cleaning -- I decided to wander up to Cycle Solutions on Parliament, with aerobar in hand, and ask if they thought I was retarded. (On the way up Parliament, I bumped into a protest march several hundred people strong. Jeez, I thought, they really don't want me to put on aerobar on this bike. Turned out it was the No One Is Illegal May Day March.) The bike fitter at Cycle Solutions did not call the idea retarded. Sure, he said, we'll put a straight bar in, and whatever compatibility issues there are, we'll work something out.


But I realized this morning that I shouldn't be getting my hardware tweaked if I'm not riding it in the first place. So after the rain stopped, I saddled up. The plan was out to Woodbine Park, lock the bike, run a kilometre, then ride back -- a brick workout of sorts.

For a change, things went pretty much to plan. I cut a pretty brisk pace out to Woodbine. It also gave me a chance to practice passing without drafting. In a triathlon, you can't draft off another rider, letting him cheat the wind for you; you have to maintain a three bike-length distance. Once you creep into that three-bike-length zone, you've got 15 seconds to execute your pass. The riders I passed weren't exactly traveling at race pace, but it was a useful exercise.

Off the bike, I'm pretty sure I didn't make it a kilometre. But I didn't feel uncomfortable switching from bike to run. It wasn't the classic T2 transition -- nobody stops to lock his bike and helmet to a stand at Kona, I'm pretty sure -- but it was ... well, fun. And good practice. And I'm marking the run down as a kilometre in my log anyway.

BTW ... Been checking my weight and body fat percentage per my log book. After remaining pretty much exactly the same for three weeks, I discovered this week I'd gained three pounds and my BF percentage had gone up a full point. In the absence of any other suspects, I'm blaming the Bacon-Infused Angus Burger at the Jersey Giant. Darryl actually grinds two pounds of bacon into the ground beef, and tops each patty with Cajun-battered onion rings. As I felt my left arm go numb ...