That is what I felt like…a king in his kingdom! Let me explain…I picked up my new baby on Friday! That is right the fat man is on the road with a true road bike. She is a beauty too. The reason behind the whole king and kingdom statement is because that is the way the people at Capitol Cyclery made me feel.
I set up the appointment with Evan to come in and pick up Lucy and get fitted. It was all set for Friday. I know what you are all thinking…he was there when they opened. No I wasn’t …I was there three minutes after they opened. When I got there I was greeted with my usual…”Hey Mr. Richard”. I absolutely love that they know me by name and are always there to answer my questions, no matter how goofy the question is. When I got to the counter, Evan had everything set up and ready for me to make my final payment and Sarah (I think she has to be the happiest lady on the planet…she is always bouncing around with a smile on her face) went got my girl.
When I tell you I was treated like royalty, I felt like I was the most important person there. Now you may be thinking that it is because I was buy a new road bike. Trust me, the bike I bought is not one of the high-end bikes, it is closer to the entry level. Still they made it like I was buying one of the $10,000 bikes.
The bike fit process was awesome. They did not rush any of it, made sure that my seat was correct, my stem and saddle was adjusted properly, and when I was having trouble with the shifting, it was like I had my own personal mechanic right there…I didn’t even have to get off my bike. This guy (and you can recognize him…he is the one with the Tom Selleck Mustache) knew exactly how to fix everything and showed me things with my shifters I did not know anything about.
As I sat there waiting for them to finish putting the final touches to my baby, Mrs. Lisa comes out and talks with me. Now I will tell you, if I felt like a king in this kingdom, Mrs. Lisa is definitely the Queen in her kingdom. She walks out and you know that she is the one running the show. Unlike most Queens, she is so wonderful to talk too. (Not like I have meet many queens in my time…may be a few drag queens but…) A friend of mine came over to the shop to pick himself up some supplies and Mrs. Lisa walked us around and made us feel like there was nothing more important than making sure we were happy and that we got everything we needed.
These guys and gals at Capitol went the extra mile…they even replaced the silver cable ends with green ones to match the color scheme of my bike. That may seem small, and it is, but that is service when the small stuff doesn’t go untouched.
Now to other matters…the fat man is going into training for the Rouge Roubaix. I am going to train over the winter and into spring for this wonderful (and completely grueling) race. There are a lot of things that need to happen. First is get my weight down. As of right now, I am 226 lbs and 30 BMI (according to the WII Fit plus). I would like to be down to 190 lbs and into a large/med kit. Next is getting use to riding in a paceline with much stronger riders. That will happen with my Thursday and Saturday rides with the group at work and the race team. Then when I feel confident enough I will ask to join the team. Finally, it is getting us to the torture of training on an indoor trainer.
I am telling this all of you to keep me accountable…I figured the way cyclist are they would not let it down if I drop off my goal…we are a sadistic bunch.