For the past several weeks I've been contemplating picking up a road bike. My good friend and coworker, Josh, has been track racing for years and is always telling me I should give it a shot. My brother, Scott, is relatively new to the sport, having received a gently used road bike from some family friends about a year ago. He has nothing but praise for the sport, as well. It didn't take much pressure or manipulation on their part to get me very interested in the sport.
For months now I've been trying to get myself to exercise on a regular schedule and I've been moderately and intermittantly successful with doing so. I've been pretty good about being consistent with lifting, but cardio is a different story. My gym has solid facilities for lifting, running and biking but the hardest part for me about working out inside is that it's just so dang boring. Running on a treadmill is far from interesting... running on the street is more fun, but slow... and i'm just a bad runner in all respects. Not only that, but it's hard on your knees and just not fast enough. I wanted to do something fun... and fast.
The result of a couple of weeks worth of research and mulling over the idea of spending over a thousand dollars on something recreational is my brand new Scattante R650. It's only a day old for me so the honeymoon isn't quite over yet, but so far I'm having a blast with it. If you've never had the pleasure of riding a "serious" road bike, it's an indescribable experience. Compared to other styles of bikes, you get a much better transfer of energy from your legs, through the bike, into the tires and down to the road. As my hero, Rick Bobby, would say, "I wanna go fast!"
I'll continue to post up stories of my experience with the bike, but in the meantime here's my gear:
