Spurred by a strong Northward wind the last couple of days, both Sally and I played what he refers to as the “Seattle Gamble” and rode into work without fenders yesterday. This may not be all that exceptional to those of you at home, but when you work in Kent and Auburn, you learn to live with a stiff headwind on nearly every 20 mile ride back into the city. A tailwind is like coming across a unicorn holding a 4 leaf clover in between its rabbit feet.
We’ve both got relatively new Militises (Militii? Militisees? What’s the plural on that, Sally?) and haven’t had a ton of chances to ride ’em with all of the rain and off-season, illegal cross races.
This is the first carbon road bike I’ve ever had and it seemed like a good excuse to finally mount the rad ’10 SSCXWC CatEye Strada that’s been collecting dust for over a year now.
I haven’t used a bike computer in probably 6 years, so I’m looking forward to the time when I run directly into a curb because I’m fiddling with the buttons and staring at my embarrassingly slow average speed.
I know that I’m a total “homer” when it comes to all things Raleigh, but I fucking love the Militis. The only thing that I can compare it to is the first time I rode the Hodala carbon SS ‘cross bike. It feels responsive in a way that none of my other bikes do. If you’ve got the means and the wherewithal, I highly recommend it. If nothing else, I believe that Joey is driving a van full of them around to some races and events that you can test ride. My best guess is that he’ll be at some crits this season, though I don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about. Seattle Bike Expo, maybe?
Yada yada yada, Sally and I each made our way home from the dirty South and stopped into Schooner Exact for a pint of their Schoon White. Check it out while it is still on draft.
I’m running out of steam so this is probably a good time to tell you that this entire post was mostly just so that I could make that dumb unicorn at the top of the page. I’ll do better next time.
Cheers,
Update: At some point yesterday someone found this site by searching for “loser has to wash the winner’s car in a bikini.” I couldn’t be more proud of all of us.