Recovery and Accidental Manipulation

One of the things I did yesterday was BEG a fellow massage therapist friend to come give me a treatment today. Not only was she available, but she came to my house, which meant I was able to roll out of bed, get into my robe, answer the door, and get on the table.

When I'm rich, that is how I will start every day.

By time the massage was done, my husband and daughter had taken off to his soccer game. I decided I would go and look at bikes.

Because yesterday's bike fiasco was not fun, and if I'm going to keep doing this, I need equipment that works.

Okay, yes, yes, I need to keep any bike checked and working before starting on a course and even a new bike I could have similar issues with if I don't keep it maintained. However, the bike that I used (which I BEGGED my dad to let me use, and then let me keep using) was my mom's bike. They actually had it custom-built for her. It's a great bike, but it was designed for road touring (ie, carrying gear), and for someone 2 inches taller than me who also had longer limbs.

In other words, another example of good equipment, but not the right equipment for what I am doing. If you check out the post from my snowshoe event (January 23, 2011), you will notice that I learned that equipment that "will do" because "I have access to it" is not so bright--rental fees would even be wiser. Since I'd done one triathlon on my mom's bike, I figured I could do another.

True, but yesterday's ride was a reminder that if I can invest in more appropriate equipment, my training and competition will be better. And my body might not hurt as much (like my snowshoeing blisters).

Of course, I walked in on a day that was the last day of a 10% off everything in the store sale. I found an awesome saleslady (who also does triathlons and is sponsored) who was very helpful and suggested I "test ride" several bikes.

Don't think I've yet mentioned the level of OW that my hiney was experiencing. I really was on more of an informational visit--intentionally not transferring money so I couldn't spend anything. Test ride was NOT something I wanted to do because I did not, not, not want to sit on anything even remotely resembling a bicycle seat.

Since I still don't understand the word moderation, I signed the form to test ride anyway.

Bike 1: Gingerly eased myself into the saddle and...not nearly as uncomfortable as I'd expected. In fact, once I got into the right position, it didn't even hurt. I spent 5-10 minutes riding around, shifting, braking, adjusting my hand positions and decided this is MY bike.

Bike 2: Got on and the seat was WAY too high. Took it back in, had it adjusted, and when I got out, the saddle was okay, but I felt like I was reaching really far to get to the gear shift and brakes. It felt too big and awkward. It just felt wrong, so I did a much shorter ride--it wasn't right for me.

Bike 3: Actually the same as bike #1, but the 2009 model. Liked it pretty well, but the angle on my shoulders wasn't as comfortable. I was wondering if it was just because Bike 1 felt so good, or if it was getting hard to tell them apart.

I rode Bike 1 around one more time and the difference was just huge. I spent more time talking to the salesperson and finally ended up asking her to hold it for me.

The next step would be convincing my husband, so I called him and asked him to come and look at the bike with me. In the meanwhile, I also called my brother-in-law, who is pretty knowledgeable about bikes, and he looked it up online, found out what they were asking for it, and told me I'd be getting a really good bike at a really good price.

At home, I had a talk with my husband. My dad recently gave us a little bit of money; this has been an overall good thing, but it's been challenging for us too. We want to use it responsibly and our first thought was to make it our emergency savings fund, which hasn't been replenished since it was drained two years ago during my husband's last layoff. On the other hand, there have been some purchases we've postponed for a LONG time, waiting until we had some extra funds.

One of those is (for me) a lawnmower that I can start by myself. We've lived at our home for nearly 8 years and without fail, every summer, we get a notice from the city about our front yard. I would mow, but I can't start the dumb mower. My husband says he would start it FOR me, but the timeframe from "I have motivation to get the job done" and "Mower is running" is not a positive relationship.

So as we're talking about this bicycle that I want, the lawnmower discussion comes up, again.

Strangely, the lawn was mowed less than 15 minutes later.

I don't think manipulation is very nice, but there have been a couple of very slick moves on my part since my husband and I met. I'm adding "save money by not getting a new lawnmower and get out of mowing the lawn myself in one discussion" to that list.

We went to look at the bike afterwards and my husband approved of the bike. Then he looks at me and says, "Now what?"

"Well, I'd like your blessing, or at least approval, to get it."

Seeing the look on my husband's face, the salesman stepped in. "You could lock in the 10% discount if you do layaway. It does require 25% down today, but it's fully refundable within 90 days if you change your mind....I'll let you two talk about what you want to do."

We ended up doing the layaway.

Meanwhile, I returned the shoes I'd worn for the race and the saddle cushion I'd got. They gave me a FULL store credit, without receipts. Since I inherited my mom's overhonesty, I told the guy when he gave me the gift card, that I hadn't paid full price for the shoes, and there was $15 too much on the card.

His response? "Don't worry about it."

Still hearing my mom in my head, I said, "I'm TRYING to be honest!"

He said, "And THANK YOU for that. Have a great day and please shop here again."

When I got home, I put my mom's bike back on the trainer in the living room, and decided to sit on it again for comparison. My hiney hurt, obviously, but I thought I'd try the shifters again (after using nice new ones).

FAN(insertbadwordhere)TASTIC. The derailleur that was broken for all 12 miles of my triathlon?

Works fine.

I'm still hoping to bring that layaway bike home though. We'll see.