I Can't Believe It

This is going to be a post about my bike. I can't believe I'm doing this. This is not a post about bike riding, which I feel qualified to talk about because, you know, I ride a bike. But it's about MY BIKE about which I know nothing except for the fact that it's pretty.

I have a Rocky Mountain RC-30 (blue, with streamers). I have valiantly tried to come up with a name for my bike, but he's (definitely male) a bit tricky to name. So I call him RC-30. RC for short. Which reminds me of RC Cola and sometimes I call him King (Royal Crown, right?), but most of the time he's just RC. Poor guy. He's blue AND he gets a boring name. HOWEVER, he does have kick ass streamers.

That's all. I don't know the specs on RC, so I'm not qualified to actually discuss the makeup of my lovely bike, but rest assured, RC likes to go fast. He's speedy. And because of this, I had to learn how to put air in the tires. See, I was under the impression that I could ignroe the tires of my bike altogether, much like I ignore the tires on my truck (but if my dad ever reads this - NO, I don't ignore Monster's tires - I rotate them every 3000 miles and check the air pressure every time I fill it up with gas). Alas, when I purchased my bike, Biker Boy strongly suggested I purchase an air pump for RC. My reaction was, "huh? I thought that basic maintenance was why I was dating you." His reaction, "Nope. Basic maintenance is all you. RC -30 has those crazy high air pressure tires. You need to be on top of it. I'll teach you."

Famous last words. I have never even checked the air pressure in the tires of my motor vehicle. Isn't that what the guys at the oil change place are for? (Dad, again, if you're reading this - it's not true, I check air pressure regularly).

So BB attempts to teach me how to put air in my tires. He goes through the whole drill. Great. I ride my bike for a couple of weeks. "Have you checked your air pressure recently?" "Of course." Hee. Then the guilt overwhelmed me and I decided I should actually check the air pressure.

Do you know what I did? I blew out a tube. My first bout with routine maintenance and I blew out a tube. I call BB, "um, I think I broke RC-30."

Okay, that was earlier this summer. I check my tires every four or five trips to school. I don't want to hear any comments about why I should do it more often. I won't.

Today, BB and I had serious business with RC. Biker Boy trued the wheels. Seriously. Who knew there was a machine with AN ENTIRE PURPOSE of truing? A truing machine. And then BB put me and RC on a trainer (a machine that allows you to pedal your bike WHILE STAYING STILL - again, who knew such a machine existed?). He made me pedal, walked around, looked at my butt, and fiddled with the saddle. I asked him if he looked at all the girls' butts and he didn't really have a good answer, except to say that most girls don't care about their saddles as much as guys, which I guess makes sense because of the whole what's down there thing. So we put the saddle higher and tipped it up. A good friend of mine had recommended that the saddle be tilted slightly downward, but that never worked for me. A while ago, BB adjusted it so it was level. I still wasn't happy, so we're now trying it tilted up just slightly. And it's a lot more comfortable.

Oh, yeah, and I got a new headlight because my other one kept falling off. So, goodbye headlight that looks like a rocket ship and hello headlight that looks like a cat eye.

That's all I have to say about RC-30. I promise there will be no more boring posts about my lovely bike until RC undergoes more maintentance OR I find the PERFECT saddle position.