Travels with Ralph

I've decided to name my bike. I didn't think long or hard about the name. I knew one thing I wanted to avoid the cliché treatment of vehicles as female. Plus the placement of his frame pump is decidedly not female:

Ralph

That's right, his name is Ralph. It's simple. It's easy to remember. It's synonymous with vomiting.

My wife asked me, "Why Ralph"? My answer, "Why not"?

I've had Ralph since January, and we've traveled over 2600 miles together. A major chunk of that (1087 miles) was when I was competing in the MarchMiles competition over at mapmytracks.com. A competition I came very close to winning if it hadn't been for the sneaky exploits of my closest rival in the competition, Roystein. 

While Ralph and I did not emerge from that competition at the top of the podium, we did emerge very familiar with each other. And we had some serious fun along the way.

My New Obsession, realized.

I got one

Back in October I wrote an entry about my new obsession with a bike I thought was to expensive for me to buy. Well, no longer, I'm now the proud owner of a Surly Long Haul Trucker. I've had the bike for about three weeks now, and I've put over 200 miles on it since I brought it home three Fridays ago. I've been commuting on it since I got it, but have yet to take it out for a nice long weekend ride.

The beauty of North Carolina is that spring is here! We are already having sporadic 60-70° weather, so before long one of those warm days will coincide with a Saturday, and I'll be gone right after breakfast, Long Haul Trucker beneath me, no tights, no jacket, no wool socks.

I am really enjoying this bike. It's slower than my old bike, but it is much more comfortable than the old bike.