Sunday, April 22, 2012

Guerciotti's big florida adventure

Spring breeeeeeaaaaaak!

It's great to be back in Palm Beach for a week with the family. Again, I'm trying to make the most of the weather and beautiful roads (okay, road). But this year, I've decided to forgo my usual rented racing bike and bring my Guerciotti from Boston.

I used a borrowed flight case and, I must say, it worked pretty well. It was a bit of a chore to disassemble my bike (stem/bars out, pedals off, wheels off, skewers out, seat/post out) because I'd never done it before and some parts were pretty stubborn. But once it was done, it was done.

JetBlue's policy is to charge $50 for a bike, but, remarkably, I wasn't charged at all - that could have been because my person didn't want to bother about it, but it was my only checked bag and I think it came in under the 50lb weight limit.

The thing I was most worried about was actually pre- & post-flight, but the bag did fit perfectly fine into the back of our Subaru and into Papa's trunk on this end. Whew!

And everything made the journey just fine.... almost. The points where the frame was supposed to attach to the bag came undone, so everything was rattling around in there and I got a couple little chips in the paint. Grrrr. (I'm planning to do a trip to Sephora later for some touch-up nail polish.)

 I also discovered that I'd forgotten my old flea-bitten helmet, so I needed another. So I went to Relentless Bicycles in Lake Worth to and got a new Giro for $40...  I also got a basic Cateye cyclometer (which I have yet to install, already more than half way through our holiday). The dude there is really friendly and we had a nice time chatting about this and that. I love bike people. Mostly.

I've had a couple great rides so far down the island - one to Boca and back, another just to Delray. Nothing epic, but nice and quick and perfectly pleasant.

I've been enjoying using Strava to track my rides - more basic than MapMyWhatevers, but also less battery-hungry.

Hoping for another good ride today! Better get out there....


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