skeleton

I picked up Jake the Snake today. I'm going to pretend that's his last name. My nickname for him is skeleton because he's so much lighter than Max.

I took him out for a 40 mile ride today. It was fun, and I'm definitely a lot faster on him most of the time, but I haven't figured out the gears yet. Sadly, I'm used to the visual I get when I shift Max so I'm not always sure where I'm at. And it seems to take more clicks to get the pedals loose (I like to ride with the pedals loose when my legs cramp or when I'm warming up).

Also, I'm not sure where to put my hands. I'm so used to Max's straight out handle bars that I feel like something's...missing. And skel's handle bars are flat on top, so that was kind of strange. I tried looking at another guy on a similar bike to see where he was putting his hands but he was not holding onto the handlebars at all because he was scratching his balls.

I also almost killed myself because I forgot I was on skel and I hopped off of a curb. Then I forgot the brakes are in a different place and almost ended up in oncoming traffic.

Which is kind of funny because when I picked skel up today I was looking at him smiling, and the guy who put him together said "why are you smiling like that?" and I said "because it's been a long time since I've seen a bike that hasn't had a wreck". And then he laughed and said "I was thinking the same thing!" He put skel on the trainer to adjust him and the owner of the store walked by and said "ape arms" so I said "fuck you". Then the mechanic hung these weights off of him to make sure everything was aligned, and then he said "something doesn't seem right here" hanging it over my right knee and I was like "dude, it's not the bike, it's my knee". I showed him my bone plug and he said "cool, you should get a tat on that".

Or, not.

He gave me a free portable bike pump, and a second set of pedals. I have to take skel in for a check up after 150 miles. Hopefully by then I'll learn how to shift him.