Accessorizing

Well, I've been spending a lot more time riding than blogging. Almost 700 miles on the new bike now. Last week I had a spell of bad luck with flat tires - the roads haven't been swept yet this spring so there's still a lot of glass and metal shards in the bike lanes. But it was good practice.

One small problem I discovered early on when I was equipping the bike with all those necessary little accessories: I couldn't fit two regular bottle cages on my 51cm frame. Luckily, the geniuses at Cannondale think of everything. They designed special cages which hold the bottles up a little higher so they don't knock together at the bottom, and open to the side so you don't need space to pull the bottle upwards. I found these in REI Co-op's online catalog, and spent the rest of my dividend and year-end clearance discounts on a new frame pump, and a set of new head- and tail-lights.


I'm definitely riding faster on the lighter, better-fitting frame, and hill-climbing is easier, too. I'm still experimenting with the seat height, but the stock saddle feels fine.

But I can't resist pointing out a couple of little quibbles. The bottle cage packaging specifies they are "right side" cages, but of course if you mount one on the seat tube and one on the down tube, one opens to the left and one to the right.

Also, note the typo. I really shouldn't snicker about that, since the package is bi-lingual in English and French, and my spelling in French is full of random errors. But, speaking as an under-employed English major, who has been called obsolete, worthless and useless more than once, I feel I have to demonstrate my value to bike-geeky, techie, engineer types. For whatever that's worth.