The Premonition

Today was a roller coaster of emotions. One moment i'm excited that certain things happened and then the next i'm disappointed.

THE GOOD...

Yesterday Ry and I went to a local bike shop to check out our new bikes. His a Trek 1.2 and mine a Trek 2.1. I was pleasantly impressed with the comfort and lightness of my new bike, however I think anything beats the previous bike that I had. After we got sized up for our bikes and Ry put his bike on hold, the salesmen attempted to sell me a more expensive bike. In my mind I said "no thanks" but decided to be entertained by this salesmen's pitch. In the end the price wasn't worth the bang...more so I didn't want to spend more money on a bike that I didn't necessarily NEED at the moment. Eventually Ry and I left excited to be getting our new matching bikes in the near future. The next day (today, the 29th of January) I was surfing the web for articles on good foods for bikers. I came across a few magazines and splurged on a few biker magazines. One on nutrition for bikers, one on general news about biking, and the last one instructing how to maintain your bike. An overall great investment since I know very little of all three.

THE BAD...

I was informed that Ry was going through the hoops with his insurance company on regards to his stolen bike claim. To make a long story short he isn't going to be getting his new bike as soon as expected. On the positive side I feel as it is just a delay and eventually things will get off the ground...plus it gives me more time to get mine and by chance perhaps we can ride out as a team together when we put the very first few miles on.

I'm excited for the year and i'm excited about getting going. We have a huge goal to accomplish (10,000 miles as a team in one year) and a few amazing trips planned (The big one being Seattle to San Fran via hwy 1). I'm looking forward to it getting warmer out and for the Seattle rain to go away. I am excited to hear the sound of my tires running against the pavement.

-Jason

Today was a bit of a setback for my plans on getting a new bike. Apparently the claim process at my insurance company is like jumping through hoops while blindfolded and your ankles tied. First I was told I would just have to buy the items stolen then bring in the receipts then they would take their sun, minus my deductible then cut me a check. Nope. I instead have to fill out this form of all the items I lost, the model number, the price, how much "cash value" it has now (how do I even guess that??) as well has were I got them and how long I had them. I don't even know precisely where I got my backpack, and there is not enough room to put "some general store in the little town near the Grand Canyon" in the box they provide. After some research I finished it and faxed off today. Being a Friday they can ignore it until Monday and then begin there research.

The expensive items they may want to get some proof that I owned them. then once that is done they may try to go through some magic purchasing place they have at their agency to replace it. I'm worried they will call and and say "We have a comparable bike here, where do you want it sent?" "Ummmm, what kind of bike is it?" "One with two wheels.. now let me verify your zip code." No good. I want my Trek bike. I also don't want to wait two months. Arg!

Luckily Jennifer was awesome and was there today to help me stay calm. She even brought me a Blueberry Crisp Clif Bar! How awesome is that! She also fixed my horribly illegible handwriting so the people on the other side of the fax machine would know what came though rather then think they had received alien transmissions.

Now all I have to do is sit back and wait. And walk places.

-Ry

Team Defiance's New Begining

They say, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step," but this journey does not have steps. It is one of accumulated miles. Miles added on in the possibility of good weather, or that which would make me want to stay inside. Who knows - this journey may never ever be completed.

Today I had the crazy idea of riding my bike 5,000 miles in one year time. That is about 13.69 miles a day. Or for my own ease of math - 14 miles day. Every day. For a year. By why do this alone? So I asked my best friend Jason to try to do it as well, making a combined mileage of 10,000 miles.

The hard part is the fact that at this very moment I do not own a bike. I did, but it was stolen from my car on New Years Day. Not exactly the best way to ring in a new year, but hey, it's how my year began.

Luckily my insurance will cover the replacement and soon I'll be on the road again. In fact, I went out with Jason to look at bikes today. We ended up at Gregg's Bikes near Greenlake. They had the Trek 1.2 I was looking at. (well I originally was going to replace my bike with the same Novara Divano I had, but Jason talked me into this one). The bike is sleek black and red (same colors as my old bike). And that is the key here - the colors. Jason and I have a bike team called, "Team Defiance". And our team colors are red and blue. I get the red, Jason is in blue. And luckily Trek has two similar bikes, mine in red and the next bike up is blue.

So here we are at the store looking at our amazing new bikes and the sales guy ends up coming to talk us through all the things about these bikes as well as try to up-sell Jason on a better bike. Jason's first concern is "do they have it in blue". But in reality Jason never actually said that out loud. We followed our chatty salesman around to the high end part of the store were he went off on all things bike related. He stared using odd acronyms I've never heard of and talking about bike components that I have never heard of. Jason just keeps nodding like he understand completely but I could tell all he was thinking inside was "This fancy expensive bike you are showing me is not blue!" He goes on so long I find I have time to go on my phone and Google some of the buzz words he keeps referring to. Apparently "OCLV" is a fancy type of carbon fiber. New thing learned today.

At the end of it all I put down $20 to get my nice, but not over the top bike placed on hold so I could pick it up tomorrow with the cash I'd be using from my insurance. My bike is black and red.

But we can't start counting the mileage until Jason gets his (blue) bike and his odometer attached. Once that is done the true "Journey of 10,000" miles will commence.

-Ry