The first bike I tried was the fastest. I didn't plan it that way. It was just an unfortunate coincidence.
I had walked into a shop in Manchester, Connecticut, not far from where I live, knowing almost nothing about road bikes--just that I needed to upgrade if I wanted to have any hope of keeping up with the cool kids, which is what I call my cycling friends.
The bike-shop guy introduced himself as Nate. When I told him what I was looking for, he began to speak in what sounded like a kind of free verse: "BB30 bottom bracket/Shimano compact/wheelset composite shifters/Specialized carbon fork."
Eventually, I broke in. "I didn't understand any of that," I said.
"I do have something that's a great deal," he countered.
I waited while he rolled out a speedy-looking carbon-fiber model from a major brand, left over from last year. I don't know much about bikes, but I know a few things about shopping. I test-drove the great deal around the neighborhood and felt completely miserable. This was the first time I'd ever sat on such a bike before, and I was unaccustomed to the slender seat. When I put my hands in the drops, they were so low and far away that the position threatened to put me in traction. The shifters were Martian technology. Mostly, though, I was freaked out by how fast the bike wanted to go and how vaporously light it felt. I've owned kites that weighed more.
I'm nursing a partial rotator-cuff tear, trying to bring my shoulder back through physical therapy. It feels as fragile as a teacup, and on that bike I felt like a man fighting the Battle of Britain in a warplane made of eggshells.
I skittered apprehensively around the streets of Manchester, feeling uncomfortable and on the verge of crashing. The bike seemed a little contemptuous. Please don't let this inept person buy me, I imagined it thinking. I will never realize my full potential.
So I kept shopping, kept talking to people. I made notes of things I didn't understand and looked them up. I talked to the cool kids, one of whom had recently-built a bamboo bike in Brooklyn. I learned things. "What if I wanted to be in the drops in a less aggressive position?" I heard myself asking. "Could you do something with a different stem?"
After test-riding a few more bikes, I realized that the speedy great deal was a bad idea. If you've been celibate until age 30, you probably couldn't handle a first date with Megan Fox. When I told my girlfriend, Maude, I'd decided against the really fast bike, she said, "That gladdens my heart, honey. There are so many wonderful things I want us to do and many of them are difficult in a full-body cast."
Still, carbon interested me. At Central Wheel in West Hartford, I asked Al the Shop Guy about it.
"One thing carbon does is smooth out the jolt from a bump," he said. "On an aluminum frame, the bump might feel more like the equivalent of this."
And then he punched me…in my damaged shoulder. I knew cycling can be a risky sport, but it hadn't occurred to me that I might get hurt just talking about bikes. "On the carbon frame, it would feel like this." Al whacked me more gently.
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