New Bike

My amazing parents bought me a bike for christmas. It was a Trek 7.3 FX, great bike overall but not that great for doing distance ridding (it's a hybrid bike so the ride position is more like a mountain bike but it has more gears and smaller tires). So this past weekend while I was home I took it to the shop that sold it to them and convinced them that they should let me turn it in for full credit because it had not been ridden outside yet, which they let me. I tried out a bunch of different road bikes and could immediately feel a speed and handling difference. I ended up getting a Scott bike it was a little more expensive then the Trek bike but was a much better design.

I also ended up getting clip in pedals and shoes, something i've never used before and was a little scared to try (even the guy that sold them to me said you will fall down at least 4 times so just be ready for that). When we were going over the shoe options he was talking about the starter shoe and then the shoe that I should grow into and then the shoe that he has which is a high performance shoe with a carbon fiber sole. Well as he is saying this I notice that the shoe he has is on sale for only $10 more then the shoe he said I should start with (starter $108 carbon fiber shoe $118 normally $270). I asked why they were so cheap and he said it was because they were the last two they had in house and he didn't think they were going to order any more, lucky for me I have small feet and the two pairs they had left were the two sizes I was looking between. So in the end I got the super high end shoe.

My first few rids have been scary. Now I have yet to fall but let me tell you I have never been going that fast in my life on a bike and at one point I even past a car. A road bike has such a different feel then any mountain bike I have owned, you feel the road more and at least for me I feel less stable on the road bike because the handle bars are so much closer to the stem.

All in all I love my new bike and am very happy that I got it but so far my rides have felt very different then when I was on the trainer. I don't know if its because I feel like i need to go really fast or that I'm doing tons of hills now but the short rides I've been doing have tired me out just as much as the long rides I was doing on the trainer. I fear that I'm not as far along in my training for the bike as I thought. I'll keep you posted.