Catalogue Shopping, Disposable People, and Pre-nuptials

We have these things to sort out

between us, furniture, cars, nest 

eggs and air purifiers, souvenirs

 of past lives, past loves. Your cool damp

basement, my unlit closet. Assumptions

about who I am and what I have

without you. And as for the wounds

and the weight of desire

they are nobody’s property

the debts are paid, the account is balanced.

Pre-Nuptial -- Laurie Block (2006)

Although I am not a poet, the verse I quote above is from one of my favourite poems. And I'll admit that is biased because Laurie was my writing mentor back in 2006, two years preceding my love of bikes, and the same year my seven year old marriage was quickly and quietly slipping into the dusty pages of marital history books. 

The poem is about starting a new relationship post divorce. I can still see Laurie standing at the microphone at McNally at his book launch, telling the story of what he referred to as "resorting" to the personal ads, after a certain amount of time being single, to look for love. What he found there was a recurring theme: No baggage, please.

He discovered quickly that “baggage” was a code word for “children” in personal ad lingo. This was a shock for Laurie, who has two daughters who would have been much younger at the time.

But of course, baggage, in relationship terms, and what became the inspiration for his poem, is also about everything you bring into a relationship from your past. And the conclusion Laurie came to was, Why would you want to reject someone else's baggage? It makes them the wonderful person that they are today.

Now I’m not sure if personal ads even exist anymore in that form. Do they? I’m sure they have been replaced by online dating. I’ve been separated/divorced for over 4 years now. Is that too long to go without having found the next love of my life? Is there a time limit on such things before society defines you as perpetually and irrefutably single?

I’ve had a couple significant relationships in that time and a lot of bad dates and false starts. I tried online dating and I, and most everyone else I’ve talked to who has done it, has found it a huge waste of time.

I’m jaded now though, you understand. But I walked into the process of meeting people online full of optimism. Anyone who was willing to put out that kind of money to meet people had to be serious about it. Instead I found a lot of unfinished profiles with pat, safe statements that could be true of everyone (I’m inspired by my grandfather and I'm passionate about my kids), but gave no hint about what made them who they are. 

It wasn't long, and after a couple of weird dates with people who seemed normal, and even awesome, in writing and on the phone, before I began to suspect that most people in the online environment only thought they were ready to date. Some of them are just trying to replace something and fill voids as quickly as possible. I see a lot of anger and bitterness reflected in many men’s profiles; the only word many men can come up with to describe what they are looking for in a relationship is, "honesty." Nothing wrong with wanting honesty, I want that too, but that one single word sitting in the large space they give us to describe our hopes and dreams for a relationship, to me implies that dishonesty burned him in the past and he is still obsessing about it. I've also seen pleas from men for women with "issues" to please stay away. As someone who is often too honest and definitely has baggage and definitely is still scarred and conditioned from a traumatic and toxic past "relationship," I find it sad. I'm not looking for someone to be my therapist (nor do I want to be your therapist), I'm looking for a partner. 

It made me quickly start to wonder: Was I catalogue shopping for a mate? Felt that way. Flipping through profiles and pictures rejecting people based on nuances and photographs. Most of the time I read profiles and thought, "I don't know."  I could muster up no more enthusiasm than that without the aura of the real person in front of me. I made a pact with myself that if someone contacted me I would always answer. And, for the most part, I stuck to that.

The problem is that when someone is an object in a catalogue, they become disposable. I can be brushed off without even being tried on. And I can do the same to them. And people shouldn’t be disposable. A paradoxical trend seemed to emerge in my online pandering: If I did find some guy's profile interesting and having depth, I would often come back to look again at a future date after I contemplated making a move, and found myself "archived." Really? You didn’t even say hello.


One guy had "sex" identified on his list of "things you can't live without." I thought this was amusing and honest and, beyond bikes and coffee and writing, I was having difficulty coming up with two more, so I stole his idea. I left it up for about a week and then decided to succumb to society's stereotypes and removed it, because as a woman, I knew men would take my intentions the wrong way. Why can't I want a deep relationship and like sex too? But my experience in life has told me that as soon as I admit I like sex, the odds of me getting a relationship with someone with depth post that admission decreases significantly, while the number of shallow approaches increases exponentially.

By the way, I had two guys approach me during that week. It took another 3 months before there were 2 more after I removed it. Nothing like playing on a cliche.

Another guy told me that on another dating site he was in, a free dating site, one woman told him he was the first man who had contacted her who hadn't immediately asked her what colour her underwear was. Touché.

Stereotypes's exist with the athletic thing as well. Especially endurance athleticism. Especially female endurance athleticism. Lots of people are active but, nope, they're not really active. Endurance athletes get each other. We go for 3 hour bike rides in lousy weather and up steep hills because it is therapeutic and soothing and more than a little addictive but, let's face it, the rest of the world thinks we are nuts. As one guy I met online said to me: “I like that fact that you are athletic. It's very rare, you know.”

I snickered when I read this in his message. He was "athletic" too. One of his things he couldn't live without was "a gym." Rare? Not in my circles. In my circles, I don’t know anyone who isn’t like me. In fact, I have a rather low weekly output for someone who considers herself an endurance athlete. I have "baggage" (i.e. children) remember. 

All the men I've connected with online have only been conservatively active, and they don't get it. And I’ve sensed a threatened attitude often, ("I don't know if I could keep up with you." "I'm not interested in doing that much"), I can’t help but notice, looking around the athletic community, that it doesn’t work in reverse. Women aren’t threatened by men who are endurance athletes. Most women are quite content to support their guy and stand on the sidelines and cheer if they aren't interested in doing that much. Because it is OK, via the stereotype, for women to do less than their man athletically. 

And what about that whole evolution of attraction thing? I have a (guy) friend who teaches evolutionary psychology at various educational institutions around the city and when he is trying to get my goat, he shows me charts about how smart women with high incomes are not what guys want -- from an evolutionary stand point. Well... what does one do with this knowledge?  I'm smart and educated, I have a good job, and I have children (i.e. baggage). I'm doomed. But apparently we can't fight evolution. Making choices based on evolutionary factors and social stereotypes is unconscious.

I suppose those unconscious "evolutionary instincts" were all fine and dandy when we only lived to be 40 or 50 years old. But they are pretty useless and outdated now that we are living to be 80. I can't imagine living the rest of my life with someone who didn't challenge my thinking or wasn't my intellectual equal as discussed in one of my other favourite literary outputs, You Should Date an Illiterate Girl.

And while we are at it, here is my other controversial opinion, I think "Till death do us part" is also an outdated concept. Who we are as people is constantly changing and evolving, who says we are meant to be with the same person for 50 years? But society still looks at divorce as a personal failure.

Don't worry. I won't make you agree with me if you don't agree. Related to that opinion, I also think it is far too easy too get married and far too difficult to get divorced. And yes, I am a little bit left winged.

But there are a lot of evolutionary theories about physical attraction too. How our pheromones draw others to us. In fact, regardless of appearance, we will be most attracted to someone who is as genetically diverse from us as possible because natural selection dictates that couples who are genetically diverse will produce stronger children with "fitter" traits. Ever been addicted to how someone smells? It is kinda like that. That isn’t possible to detect when you are only looking at a picture on a website. Attraction is about how someone moves, talks, expresses themselves. It is about connecting with someone and feeling, I like having this person in my presence. And you can't even explain why this person and not another. All the psychological profiling and matching in the world will not find you that. 

In the online environment, there are no pretences about why you are making your approach. This is helpful, but it makes all your interactions, relationship-like from the very start. Unlike when you meet someone in person and see them in group functions on a regular basis and you go for as long as possible without making your intentions known. Things are more subtle in the real world.

But I've met guys online and I don't even know their kids names or where they live or where they work (you are deliberately protective about that information online, while it is the first thing you talk about when face to face) but we are already, to use the words of my mentor Laurie's poem, talking about the things to sort out between us. Those nest eggs. You dig to find each others’ wounds and find out if debts are paid and accounts  balanced.

And that's emotional wounds and balanced accounts and debts. Not the literal kind. 

And when one person decides "this is not the thing for me," even if it has only been a handful of emails, it requires a mini break-up speech (assuming you are gracious). And we each say thanks and we go our separate ways back into our separate circles never to cross paths again. And, God forbid, NO facebook friendship. This person could still be an axe murderer for cripes sake, even though he might now know more about the pain of my marriage ending than my next door neighbour.

Catalogue shopping, false intimacy, wipe the slate clean. Done.  

I went online to get out of my circles. To expose myself to people other than athletes, people I might not normally come in contact with in my day to day life, because there is far more to who I am than the fact I ride a bike. But it ain’t working. And I hate how it operates. And, to be honest, I would rather have fewer quality dates with people I've gotten to know in person first, who came out of nowhere like God-sends and took me by surprise who love the same things I love, than many false starts and awkward dates with people a computer has told me is "my match."

And at the very least, if you don't love bikes the way I love bikes, you must respect that I do, and you must love that I can do things like I do in this blog and I can write from my soul,  because this is who I am. 

So what next?

Patience, I guess.

Not So Gut-less

Fall 2010 -- But a shadow of myself

What's with all the fear of change, these days? Facebook made a couple little alterations and my news feed was inundated for days with, "The new Facebook SUCKS." Just wait folks. The changes so far, are just the calm before the storm. But if the change is coming anyway and if you're like me and you prefer not to wait for the other shoe to drop but would rather force it to drop at a time of your choosing, you have the option to change Facebook now.

Change is hard though. We get comfortable with the familiar. Less willing to take risks with something new. And given all the changes that have happened in my life over the last 4 years -- most of which happened at my own choosing -- I often have trouble understanding people's reluctance to change things in their lives. Although I still have a couple things I could stand to change and all I can say about that is, "I'm working on it." Change is also about timing and readiness. Nobody is perfect.

But I'm not in this to preach enlightenment and existentialism or carpe diem so I stop there.

But change can also be good. For example a catalyst of things have happened since I wrote this post nearly a year ago that have made me happier. Having that "nightmare" or anxiety attack (whatever you would like to call it, because it was both) that woke me up that morning was the impetus for a lot of mini-awakenings.

And, I'll be honest, when I wrote that post, I had no idea what I was saying. I can't, even to this day, explain what I was going through any better than I wrote it there, but the meaning behind my words, at the time I wrote them, eluded me.

Unfortunately happier has also made me Fatter. Where this has become most obvious is on my bike. Painfully obvious. Getting dropped on the first big climb in road provincials was the first painful piece of objective evidence. A year ago that wouldn't have happened.  Struggling through two races in the B Cyclocross category and feeling but a shadow of myself from a year ago was the second. 



Me racing cross last year in Altona. Thinner and faster.

 (I had a great time racing C this past weekend. I wanted to puke the whole time. I've never raced so hard in my life and that is how cross is supposed to be. I'm still on cloud nine about how good that felt).

I am easily 10-12 pounds heavier than I was a year ago when I was racing cross.  Life circumstances in spring of 2010 threw me into a state of rapid weight loss. I lost I think about 8 pounds in about 6 weeks that spring and it wasn't for good reasons. I was ensured to gain it back (and to be honest, gain back and then some).



Me racing cross this past weekend at Labarrier a little pudgier but still strong. (Thanks to Bill Gendron for the picture.)

 I can't explain what was going on in my body then that caused that weight loss any more than I can explain how I gained the weight I did this year. There hasn't been one smidgen of change to my activity levels. I'm just as fit as I ever was. I'm just heavier. And I've always ate like crap and not much worried about my food choices -- bad habits instilled in the teenage version of me back at a time when I could eat whatever I wanted and still be 99 pounds are hard to break. I could stand to do better there and "I'm working on it."

And everyone who is with me on facebook is aware of my recent "no beer" "no bread" diet. I'm back on bread in moderation and beer only on special occasions. I haven't lost much weight. It'll be slow.

But here is the irony of being happier and getting fatter: For the first time in my life I look in the mirror and I don't see it. I try to put on pants that were loose on me a year ago and struggle to button them up and I think, "Really? They are that tight? Really?" I'm baffled. I can barely believe it. I like and am comfortable with my body in a way I have never been before.

And I'm never giving up happy for super-thin. Never. Although, I do want to find a better race weight.

Not to mention there are a few added benefits of extra weight. My kids have been repeatedly watching a movie lately. There is a line they keep rewinding and replaying over and over (especially the boy) and giggling through. It is at about 1:27 in the video trailer.

Frankly, it makes me giggle too. Tee Hee. I'm 40 and flirty and thriving and still mostly perky too.

I haven't blogged much lately. I've started on a few and they've felt all wrong and inappropriate so I've left them. I've wanted to write more about my experience but it's not working yet. A major part of my awakening has been coming to the realization that what I went through was hell.

And it wasn't my fault. 

There was a very specific trigger to all that and I'm still dealing with figuring out how to stop blaming me for how things unfolded. And as open a person as I am, and as much as I'm willing to talk about it all to anyone who hits upon the right subject, the few times I've tried in the last year has left me shaking in that state of "flight or fight" -- the same state I try and kill by doing idiotic things like riding my bike for 391 km in one weekend.

But when I didn't know what I was talking about. I babbled about it freely all the time.

But I'm sure I could help a lot of people by telling my story. It has to be done with grace and tact though (both qualities I lack -- if you know me, you know I'm not exaggerating.). One day I'll find the courage to try.

Looking Outside that Pre-Defined Box

Photo credit: Team Radioshack

I'm getting tired of writing about biking. Maybe I've just hit that point of saturation with the biking written word. It's not like I'm not thinking about biking. I'm thinking about it all the time. I found the biking enthusiasts heaven in my cottage neighbour's back yard a couple of weekends ago.

Bicycle Purgatory? A "collector's" stash

I made 8 trips to this pile. And NO, there was no Italian. There was this really comfortable big-ass saddle though that made me think of this scene (unfortunately dubbed over but if you listen closely you'll catch it) from The Road to Wellville.

I am as obsessed with the Tour de France as I ever was. I'm reading a lot of other people's writing about the race. I'm learning how it works. Why guys like Fabian Cancellara are hanging out at the back, or at the front and dropping off before the finish or attacking and then fading away as he did in stage one where, I'm sure, he could have won. Easily. If that had been his job. I didn't know superstar cyclists sometimes played bodyguard for other racers. But it shows me why I made bad pool picks this year. I have at least 5 guys who have done nothing for my points situation because it isn't their job to win or even place top 20. They are there to serve and protect.

Photo credit: Team Radioshack

I'm obsessed with the images. Radioshack's artsy fartsy take on product placement, while obvious, is somehow also beautiful in the mechanics of it all. There is nothing more beautiful in its geometry than the bicycle.

Photo Credit: Team Radioshack

I'm obsessed with muscles and scars and bandages and 5 o'clock shadow and white sunglasses and how rain soaked kits "enhance" to the point of distraction. The male body can be beautiful too.

Klodi was definitely working for me before he abandoned (Photo Credit: Team Radioshack)

But then again, Cav has provided his own moments of excitement. (Photo credit: Tour de France)

I'm just not obsessing over my own cycling. Maybe because since I've been back from California nothing has even come close to the magic of that.

Floating down the river channel in Penticton, BC... 

Penticton was gorgeous. I made a couple videos. They say it all.

I'd thought if I survived Penticton, I'd give the Falcon Lake 8 hour a try, solo. Survived that too. Barely. I succumbed to heat stroke and dehydration over time, but the agony didn't really hit until the next day. But I'm a much better and more confident mountain biker now than I was when I went into that race. And that really was the objective wasn't it? And I can't say enough about the FGBC and RRR boys and girls and their race planning commitment. They truly go above and beyond.

But I am thinking about words even if not necessarily biking words. I'm thinking about this blog. I've actually been in a rather serious love-hate relationship with this blog for the last 7 months. I haven't much liked most of what I've written here for quite some time.

Except maybe the California stuff. There were moments of genuineness in there.

And all my blog stats tell me is that there are an awful lot of people looking at volleyball ass on google images because that has been the primary blog traffic I've had in the last few months. That blog entry alone has had over 1000 hits since I posted it in January. False hits, of course, because I'm certain only about 2% of them were from people who actually read my intelligent feminist ramblings. My fault for using the words butt cleavage and beer in the same blog title. Damn my facetiousness. But I'll be honest. That stat kinda pisses me off.

I just want to write other things, now. I'll think about biking. I just don't want it to be the central focus of what I write about. I never did.

So I have plan.

I have this book I wrote. I wrote it nearly 6 years ago now. It is a good book and it's too good to sit dangling from a USB drive on my key chain -- where it presently resides. How do I know it is good? Well people with a little cred have told me so. I think the worst thing anyone has said about that book was that it was very good but it wouldn't have been something she picked up to buy. And I was OK with that because I didn't write it for 37 year olds, I wrote it for 15 year olds. I wrote the book that I would have wanted to read at 15.

Well, I would have wanted to read it at 12. But that's a whole other story.

It should have got published but shit happens and agents and publishers can only imagine promoting something that has a clear and obvious audience, not one that straddles that zone between young adult and adult. Nobody wants to take a risk on anything that falls outside some pre-defined box.

And I don't get that, because that it seems everything about me falls outside some pre-defined box.

I guess that one publisher that still has it and was so excited about it 4 years ago and has never rejected it got distracted by, oh I don't know... maybe it fell from the slush pile on somebody's desk and is languishing in dust bunnies behind a filing cabinet. I got tired of emailing to ask if they had any news.

And the world has evolved in 6 years and there is this little thing called e-publishing. You load it up and sell it dirt cheap -- a couple bucks a download -- and work the laws of supply and demand and hopefully I can sell enough copies to make back what I am about to spend to have a very talented graphic artist I know and love do her thing and design me a cover image.

But first, before all that, I gotta read it again. And that could be the hardest part of all as, same with everything in life, I am my own worst critic.

And I wrote that book in another lifetime.  And I should really be writing another one and not blogging about my bike races.

Oh, and go online and buy my book when I download it. Or if it isn't your thing, find a kid 15-25 (give or take) who might want to read it. It's good. If you don't think its worth the couple bucks I charge you, I'll hand over my royalties for your copy.

The Human Canvas... Phase I

Those of you with me on Facebook have seen this. Many of you have now seen this in person. But as you may recall, on the list of things to do the year I turned 40 was a little body ink. So the art was created by Andy at Metamorphosis on McDermot (although, I think that link must be outdated) and the outlining is done.

Andy was a good sport and has the steadiest hand ever. I was twitching so bad by the end I feared I would have made him go out of the lines, if I didn't kick him in the head first. Wow.. this was far more painful than the one on my back.

But it is in that phase now where I have to constantly resist the urge to scratch the shit out of my leg.

At the end of July I go back for the colour. I will leave you in suspense until then. I'm kinda liking it though.

River Road TT and Circuit Race: And on Taking Back Ignorant Shit I Never Should Have Said

Race day on the the most beautiful road in the Province. 

I wish I could find where I said it. I am pretty sure I have said it in this blog but I couldn't find it in the quick look I did. I know I've said it outloud many times:

If I am ever to survive a crit, I'll need to do 50km before I even start the race.

There is something rather humbling about doing two races in one day. Beyond the teenage Provincial kids, I was only one of a handful of us old folk who attempted such a feat. And I haven't figured out how to handle the pacing and the effort yet to survive two races in one day and feel strong in both.


It wasn't a ramp start this time, but here I was praying I wouldn't fall over when he let go. (Stefan Isfeld, photo)


The time trial took place along what I suspect is the most beautiful road in all of Southern Manitoba. I am, still, despite my best efforts to get my power up, much more of an endurance person than a short distance person. I can hold a strong threshold pace for a very long time, but a 16km TT  is pretty damn short. So, wisely or not, I did about a 17 km warm up to help me along.

Focus? or Fear? (Stefan Isfeld, photo)

And I had a great TT. My right leg/calf/soleus, which has been cramping on me during big efforts, held me back a bit but I still managed to hold an average speed higher than I ever have before. I have to thank Phil, who along with his lovely wife is quickly worming his way onto my favorite-persons-in-the-universe list as well as into my heart,  for lending me a rear aero wheel.  But I am also pretty sure, leg pain aside, that I could have held that pace for 40 km and not just 16.

The wheel looks pretty sexy on Kermit. 

So I had done 33 km by the end of that race. Then because I had 4 hours to kill before the circuit race, I went for a nice easy spin up River Road from Larter's Golf Club all the way up to the St. Andrew's Locks. I did this mostly to test out the theory that my leg issue is related to the new shoes. So I wore my old shoes and sure enough, no pain. But I wanted to see the sites.

I then proceeded to do unhealthy things.

Like have lunch with Don Cherry and the ghosts of NHL past. 

A little visit with Teemu Selanne 

I remember going to restaurants like this and HAVING to play the Jukebox. Avril Lavigne's "Complicated" right beside, "I fought the Law and the Law Won." Classic. 

The old red Booths. 

The best pre-second race meal ever that was guaranteed to be just as bad for me coming up as it was going down. 

And of course, locals know where I was. What I didn't realize is that there are two of them right around the corner from each other. The first thing I thought when I went into this one is, "Where's the water slide?" Then when I got back on the road to head to the next race site, I saw the second one on highway 44 with the slide right behind it.  All this time and thought there was only one Skinner's.

And what can I say about the circuit race? It was 4 km long and I did a lap of it to warm up which put me at 54 km of riding for the day even prior to starting the circuit race. And of course you have to know I died during the race. And I made a gazillion mistakes. Followed a break I shouldn't have. Killed myself on the chase. I'm cornering better, thanks to Rick and Alter Ego's crit workshop. I nearly allowed myself to get squeezed off the road and instead of getting aggressive back, I backed off and ended up at the back of the group, even though I had pulled where I did purely to put myself near the front for the run in to the finish. I simply don't have it in me to get mean. Then at the run in to the finish, I was at the back at the final corner and lost the group. I was cooked. Then, from a distance, I mistook some pylons at an early road at the finish line and backed off too early. I still managed to not come in last. And Jesse from AE won the race. Young Oliver at the ripe old age of 12 was second. Oliver flattened the whole Cat 5 field in the TT in the morning and was impressive the whole circuit race, at or near the front the whole three laps.

So it was a great race day. A beautiful day. I'm learning a lot. On to the next one, whatever that may be.

I love how iPhone disembodies moving riders. This was the Cat 4 race. All the kids I raced with in Portage (except for the girls and young Ollie), moved up to Cat 4 which makes me even happier with how well I hung on in Portage.

And this is Phil in the Cat 4 Circuit race. Gotta love Phil. He lends me a wheel and I get my one second of fame over him in the TT. I'll be milking that one all summer. Another terrific iPhone photo.

And there's Phil cornering like a pro, in a photo Carolyn must have snapped. This was the last and most difficult corner of the race before the run to the finish.  And I believe that's Aaron, and Willem and national level triathlete Stevie Moore with him.

Falcon "Down to the Wire" Video

I have this new toy and the reason why I got to use it today at the Falcon race was because I am a wuss. I did one trial lap of the Falcon course and immediately decided I was bailing. Injury prevention you know. I could certainly admire the course and see its challenges and merits but it shows nothing if you have to walk half of it.

Sigh.... I perhaps will never learn to mountain bike well, but it also probably won't stop me from continuing to try. I did however learn from watching my own video that it might help to get out of my saddle more often.

I've never seen so many flat tires in one race in my life, by the way. Shredded tires too.

So because my still camera battery was dead when I pulled it out of my bag, I pulled out the Flip Video camera, a similar toy as my buddy Don used in California.  This is a compilation of the best frames, meaning the ones that were not long boring shots of grass with no riders on it, or, as with one frame, a nice long look at Adam's legs as I videoed the ground instead of the race by mistake.

No, really, that was an accident.

I would have liked better music but I couldn't figure out how to plagiarize iTunes as it wouldn't let me steal -- I mean upload -- iTunes songs for the video. I briefly considered resorting to an old 80s trick similar to "taping songs off the radio" using my voice memo component of my iPhone and just taping from my computer. This time instead of my mother screwing it up by poking her head in the door and calling me for supper it would be some act of sibling rivalry or someone screaming: MOMMMMMM!! (which has also happened about 4 times while typing this short entry).

So you get stock Flip Video guitar lick instead, repeated over and over and.......

But I'm sure you care about none of that, so hopefully you've just skimmed all that rambling to get to the meat of the issue. Here's the video:

My Love Affair with Steel

I'm not sure what it is: Nostalgia, looks, or riding a bike that just feels right but every time I hop on a steel bike it has the same comfort as an old worn in pair of jeans. I had a steel bike as a teenager, that could be part of it.  I wish I could find a picture of it. And every time I get on the single speed Masi I commute with, it feels like home. So what you see above is my new Cyclocross bike.

(Stefan Isfeld: photo)

As you know, I raced cyclocross on a borrowed bike last fall. It was a lovely bike too which was slightly too big for me and given how hard and fast that I fell for the addiction of cross racing, I knew I had to get my own.

But here's the problem with finding me bikes. I'm short even by girl-standards. And it proves to be very difficult to find extra small bikes, new or used, and I have this particular buyer loyalty that I adhere too which limited me to Specialized or Trek and neither manufacturer had a bike in my size that could be special ordered at the time that I had the money to lay down for one and I was asked to be patient.

The Masi that I love too

So I went to California because I live in the present and am all about instant gratification and quickly found myself in a spot where putting out $3000 for a bike, if and when they came into stock, was looking to be out of the question. And finding used bikes in my size is even more difficult than buying new. When short girls buy bikes, they don't tend to upgrade very often.

And then a miracle happened, without even looking, I got an email one day telling me about a bike and that it would fit me, and thus brought into my life the Steel Lemond Poprad. And I'm truly in love.

Oh and my favorite bike boy forgives me for cheating on him, yet again, which is the best part. Besides, one of my kids is sure to fit my Mountainbike next summer and Mom will need an upgrade.

Thoughtfully and specially adorned with pink donuts by Dan P. I may not much care for pink but it was the thought that counts.