First time on a road bike after 40 years of other bicycling

Sometime in the mid 1980s, in Red Square at The Evergreen State College, I took my first terrified pedal on a bike with no training wheels. I think my dad held the seat at first, and then let go once I got going. Some crying and mild injuries were involved and it took some more time before I decided I liked biking. So, same story as learning to windsurf. Once I was big enough my parents bought me a mountain bike with gear shifters and hand brakes, and I made good use of it for play and early transportation independence. For example, when I did sailing day camp I would ride 2.3 km to the nearest bus stop (at Evergreen), lock up the bike, then ride the bus to the marina downtown. There was also a phase where I was riding it to high school (7 km), riding it to work at McDonalds (7.7 km), or riding it to the gym to lift weights (8.8 km). Those "long" rides had an element of self-paced athletic challenge that was confidence-building for me as someone who remained deathly afraid of school sports and other competitive stuff.

I'm not sure how it happened (maybe suggested by parents?), but in 1997 my Seattle friend Josh and I signed up for the 330 km (very long) "Seattle to Portland" bicycle ride. Racers do it in one day but normal riders do it in two, staying overnight in a gymasium or fairgrounds or something near the halfway point. The STP required some preparation because neither Josh nor I had ever ridden close to that distance previously. I prepped by getting some less-knobby tires for the mountain bike, putting little toe-baskets on the pedals, and finding some spandex shorts with paddling in the "seat" area. I did some longish rides around Olympia leading up to the race and figured I'd be fine. I was so confident I didn't even wear the padded shorts the first day (mistake). By the end of the second day I had identifed SEVEN different types of excruciating malady affecting my butt and private areas. I don't remember all seven now, but some were chafing, bruising, and blocked circulation. My legs were also so tired I could barely walk up stairs. So even though it was a neat to have done, the extreme butt-torture aspect of it effectively turned off any nascent interest in long distance bike riding / racing. Once I recovered I got back to using the bike for commuting and stuff, but never signed up for another long ride or race.

Anyway, there were no major changes to my bike situation for the next 29 years. The one I used for commuting in college was a mountain bike. I don't think I had a bike in grad school or in my postdoc jobs after that. Shortly after I moved to Florida in 2012 I got a silver Schwinn at Walmart that suited me well. I'm not sure what you'd call it- maybe a city-bike or a touring bike? It had 29 inch tires with fairly smooth tread, and it seemed efficient. The original handlebars curved back towards the seat which put you in an upright posture like the wicked witch of the west. I didn't like that but I traded to the straight handlebars of my wife's mountain bike so we both got the kind of handlebars and riding posture we like. I didn't use it regularly until 2022 when we moved close enough to FGCU that I could easily bike to work every day. A couple years of daily use and outdoor storage (I put a tarp over it but it still gets wet) degraded it to the point where each time I took it for a tune-up they lectured me that it would be cheaper to just get a new one. It's not my style to get rid of things that still work, but when I learned that my windsurfing buddy Max is a bike afficionado / refurbished bike dealer I got curious about what he might have for me.

For all my encyclopedic knowledge of wind and paddleboards equipment, I really don't know shit about bicycles. I wasn't even sure what kind of bicycle I would want if I could have any kind. But I'll admit to being a little road-bike-curious from seeing all the fit retiree road bikers zooming along Florida's straight, flat roads; often zooming past me even when I felt like I was riding fairly fast on my Walmart Schwinn. I also watched that Netflix series about the Tour de France and related to it because of its similarities to SUP racing (drafting, etc.). And even going WAY back to when I was a kid, I was curious about those ram's horns handlebars on my dad's ancient road bike in the garage that I never saw anyone ride. So when Max said he had various road bike variations I could try and maybe buy, I rode over there as fast as my Schwinn would take me.

Max and his wife Marissa are new parents, so an even-more-interesting-than-bicycles thing at their place was checking out their very cute baby and getting the rundown on all his precocious achievements, dietary experimentation, allergen exposure regime, etc. The first time I saw the baby (during a windsurfing session at the quarry lake Max lives on), he was very new and behaving like a bread loaf in a bread box. However, this time he was crawling around, pulling the dog's tail, making and imitating facial expressions, and generally indicating rapid progression towards being a delightful handful for his parents.

At some point we moved to the garage / bicycle laboratory and checked out Max' impressive hoard of bikes and parts. He had one "beater" bike that was sort of a road bike but with straight handlebars and simpler gearing, so I tried that first to build confidence. I didn't immediately crash, so it was on to the real road bike that Max had in mind for me.

This is the bike:

It seemed super fancy and high-performance, with carbon fiber components and clever aerodynamic and shock-absorbing details of frame, seat post, etc. Would I be able to ride it, though? The narrow, low handlebars and very leaned-forward posture were an awkward adjustment, but I tentatively rolled down the avenue. Even with hands on top of the handlebars I was way more aerodynamically positioned than on my old bike, and with hands on the dropped down part of the bars I felt extremely speed-crouched like a downhill skier. I don't know which aspects of a road bike are most important for making it faster than a normal bike, but the ducked posture and narrow/hard tires obviously contribute. The scariest road bike adjustment, where I felt most at risk of crashing, was switching hands between the upper and lower handle bar positions. Getting more confident with my weight distribution and balance is making that easier, though. The racey seat was uncomfortable at first, but slightly adjusting the height and angle helped a lot. Max and Marissa talked about humans' "sit bones" and the importance of getting them lined up with the supportive parts of the seat. I'm not sure I have the personal anatomical awareness to detect when I'm seated right, but I'll work on it.

At the end of the testing and tuning rides in Max's neighborhood I left my Schwinn with Max and rode home with what was now MY road bike. I tracked the ride with my GPS watch so I can start getting an idea of how fast the bike goes with different levels of effort. I got home a few minutes faster than I got to Max' house, but I was also riding harder and didn't hit the traffic lights and stuff the same so it's not a fair comparison. Maybe I'll do some more testing over the weekend. In the meantime I'm riding the bike to work and getting more tuned to it.