limpet

On Saturday I take the Red Star on its inaugural outing on the Mullum Mullum Trail. One kilometre tells me the frame is too big. But what can you do? No other shop stocks the Charge Filter and the importer is pulling the pin on this model. Getting a medium frame is never an option.

I stop in a side street and lower the seat about a centimetre. My legs feel the right length now but still I feel like I’m perched on the bike. In every other way I like it. It’s no lightweight racing machine, but no heavier than the Rocket. The three-by-eight gearing fits my riding style more than clusters of nine and ten sprockets.

The dropped bars are shallow and raked back—more hand positions. The treaded tyres grab the wet gritty gravel path. The brakes need hard pulling but will seat themselves in time. The mudguards keep my feet dry as I whip through a few puddles. Nice.

I buy three books at Eastland, including Robbie McEwen’s autobiography, One way road, stow them in my new rack-sack and pedal home.

This morning I’m primed for my first Red Star ride to work. It’s cold, grey as; I’m rugged up. I’m sluggish, not fit, but the machine runs like a charm. The frame that seemed too big on Saturday seems fine now; I feel like I’m in it, not on it.

      

Twenty kilometres along the chain won’t shift to the big chainring. When I jump out of the saddle to pump up to the Belford Road crossing the chain slips, then seizes, and the back wheel freezes. Only the cyclone wire fence holds me upright, separates me from the Eastern Freeway roaring below, keeps me from kissing the bitumen.

I struggle out of the clips and push the Red Star to the top. This is not good. I can’t see anything obviously out of place but when I lift the rear and turn the cranks the back wheel simply falls out of the drop-outs. I snug it back, screw it in tight and close the quick-release. How it undid itself must remain a mystery. Everything works perfectly again.

The ride home is better than the ride to work. I feel strong even though it’s uphill into the dark. Perhaps a happy and productive day at work does this to me. The alternative to riding home would be nodding off on the train.

The bike is a workhorse, sound and solid. It hikes along but sits on the path like a limpet. I’m chuffed.

Rock on.