I can't believe it. Tracey bought me a brand new bike! It's the 2008 Trek Madone 5.5. Here is Trek's website page about it. Our bike shop offered the bike at a price much lower than listed on Trek's site. And, since Tracey also bought a bike for herself, the bike shop gave us a two bike discount. Tracey got the Trek Madone 5.2, but it's not built yet and doesn't have the gears set up the way she'd like just yet. She may pick it up later in the coming week.

NO, I didn't expect that Tacey was going to pay for my bike. I put my credit card out there first, but Tracey insisted and put hers out there. Damn. That was SO nice of her. (It's good to be a kept man!) But especially since I love bicycling so much and have been a gear head about it for the last four years, it feels weird to have someone else buy me something like this. I've been wanting it for so long too. It will go to very good use, however, right away. We're training hard for the AIDS/Lifecycle 7 Ride right now. The new carbon frame and lighter weight will make that training and ride better. Right off, my new bike sheds 3 pounds!! Tracey's new bike sheds about 3 pounds too (compared to our old bikes.) Carbon frames also ride less rigid like our older aluminum frames. They absorb road shock and rough road and the engineering of the frame makes it stiff for maximum power transfer from the cranks but yields enough give in the ride quality. You can really feel it on rough roads. Acceleration is also quick from a dead stop.. which indicates a stiff/good power transfer frame.

Today, Tracey and I rode a 60 mile AIDS/LifeCycle training ride around the South Bay, from Mtn. View, over the Dumbarton Bridge, over to Freemont, and back over to Mtn. View again via San Jose for a big loop. During the ride, our bike shop called to tell me the new Madone was in. We have been waiting a month for it. We went straight from Mnt. View to Lafayette to the shop to check it out. We got it fitted out, and I rode it home. (Well, I took Bart to Oakland -- Rockridge -- and then up the hill to home.) AND boy, after 60 miles, riding just 4 more but all of it UP hill, hurt really bad. Still, the new bike was nice. But I'm so tired. I can't really compose a good blog post right now... I'm so tired.

But heck... I had to tell you all about it. My dream bike!