Newest addition to the fleet

As of last night, I am now the proud owner of an authentic track bike. And why do I need another bike? Well, it is true that the track rents bikes and they are generally of good quality. But often times one or another of my favorite bikes would be out of commission (or plain broken). And every time I rode I had to change pedals around and fiddle with saddle height and position and it was turning into a giant pain. I knew I didn't want to buy new so I very patiently waited on Craig's list. My nearly perfect bike was listed last week and last night I drove all the way to South Denver in rush hour to pick it up (yes, there's a story there, no, it wasn't fun).

And why do you need a track bike at all to ride on the track? Well, track bikes have several special features, like they don't have brakes. This is really a safety issue, you ride really close together on the track and if one person suddenly brakes, chances are a lot of people will go down. You can stop though, the bike is what is called a fixed gear bike, meaning that as long as the wheel is moving, the pedals are too (you can't coast) and you could ride backwards. To slow down, you push backwards on the pedals and you can stop gradually.

Since it's a fixed gear bike, it also has just one gear, so no shifters, either. This bike came with a bit too large of a gear ratio, so today we got a new cog on the back, going from 15 to 16. This will take my gear ratio from 88" to 82".

And of course, I had to try it out today. Jeremy and I took the kids to Rally and then went to the track. The bike handled really nice and smooth. It was a near perfect track day, except when I screwed up a drill and crossed my front wheel with Jeremy's back wheel and nearly pulled a Governor Ritter. Thankfully I did not go down and all my ribs and collarbones are as they should be. And I'm mighty glad I did that to Jeremy and not one of the other 4 guys on the track because I felt like a giant ass for not paying attention.