Rocinante

Rocinante

The last few days of March of 2009 was the beginning of spring break for my teacher-wife. We planned to spend a few days in La Quinta, California, just outside of Palm Springs. That’s when it hit me. A road bike! When I mentioned it to my wife, I could see the doubt; yeah, but he’ll tire of it. The mountain bike will have a buddy in the garage. Nevertheless, she dutifully accompanied me to a few bike shops around La Quinta and Palm Desert. In one shop, the young sales associate told me he had lost 80 pounds in a couple of years of riding bicycles. That was encouraging. Of course I knew practically nothing about modern road bikes. The brands that I was familiar with no longer existed. You now shifted through the gears using the same levers as the brakes. Bikes now had up to thirty speeds! It was all very confusing. I really should have done some basic research, but what the heck, I had just had the idea, after all. Then I walked into a little bike shop on Highway 111 and I saw this beautiful bicycle.

I haggled a bit with the shop owner, and about twenty minutes later, I walked out of the shop with my brand new-old bike. I didn’t even test ride it. The shop owner assured me that it was my size. I was really ignorant about bike buying! But it didn’t matter, I had my new baby to try out.

I named my new bike Rocinante. Kind of fitting that I thought of Don Quixote and his quest for Dulcinea.  My quest may just turn out to be just as impossible.

My Rocinante is a 61cm Klein Reve X road bike painted in what they call "Silver Thunder".

The workmanship on this bike is superb. Typical of Klein bikes, the welds are so smooth, it looks like a monocoque carbon frame costing thousands more. Even the branding is painted on, they're not decals that are clear-coated. The cables are all routed inside the tubes and although not a lightweight, it's not bad at all for an aluminum bike.

Rocinante sports a full Ultegra drivetrain, ten speed triple. I think I need a triple for all the climbing I'm hoping to be able to do.

The rear cassette is an 11-27.

The seat tube also has this little elastomer insert that is supposed to reduce shock and vibration, making the bike more comfortable to ride.

I didn't really get fitted for this bike. At this point, I don't know too much about road bikes. It's been nearly 40 years since I rode a 10 speed. This one has 30! I probably don't need all of them or even most of them. I read something about real road cyclists not using triples (three chainrings up front) but then again, I'm not a real road cyclist... yet.

But I'm gonna take the next step to becoming one... I'm gonna dress like one!

270 pounds, 85 to go.