Story 2: Loving my new toy...

Since being bitten by the cycling bug, I've only been on three jaunts: 56 miles round the perimeter of Arran over the course of two days taking in some lovely lunch and beer stops; a 20 mile round trip for breakfast in Bridge of Allan the following Sunday morning; and a 10 mile round trip for lunch in Kippen last Sunday. There clearly seems to be a theme involving food and beer which is, I'm sure, a contributing factor to how much pleasure I'm getting out of this cycling lark. But, tonight's 10 mile jaunt didn't involve any food or beer and I still really enjoyed it. Probably because I cycled out the way on this:

My old Specialized hybird bike. A big heavy beast!

  And back the way on this!!!:

My shiny new Merida road bike. An elegant little number!

I'm so excited!! My first road bike! And what a difference! It's so much lighter; I felt like I was flying along the road (though, I'm sure all the car, bus and lorry drivers trying to get home during rush hour weren't thinking that when they were sitting behind me...). I keep thinking about how difficult I found the hills on the cycle around Arran - no bloody wonder!! My old Specialized hybrid weighs an absolute ton compared to my new toy. I can't wait to get back to Arran some time and try cycling round the island again - maybe Alex won't need to help push me up any of the hills next time!

I've only been on one wee trip on it, but so far I've only found one drawback to my new bike in comparison to my old one. On the way out tonight I was sitting on this:

And on the way back I was sitting on this:

 It won't take much stretching of the imagination to guess which of my body parts was most painful when I arrived home... When I pointed out to Kenny, the owner of Rock and Road Cycles (where we bought the new bike from), that the saddle was a bit pointy and a bit hard he said 'Ocht, you just need to toughen up!' Hm, I think he needs to wisen up to the fact that us middle aged wifeys have had plenty of opportunities to toughen up over the years and that this particular middle aged wifey needs a little bit more padding where it counts...