Presta valve

I can easily lift the Novara with one hand. My beloved mountain bike, an old Diamondback Sorrento, can be picked up awkwardly and requires a grunt or two if lifted with one hand. I had a feeling from the first time I picked up the new bike and felt that it was no heavier than my beagle that I would be able to fly on it, and probably crash pretty bad, too. I thought about what my instructor said when I went through Emergency Medical Technician school (although he was referring to motorcyclists): “there are two kinds of bikers. Those who’ve crashed their bikes, and those who will.”

I like my teeth, and I’d rather not bust them out, so I put some serious thought into wearing a motorcycle helmet with a faceguard while riding the Novara, but decided that that was not only ridiculous, but impractical. I stuck with my years-old gray and black Giro that has seen me through zero crashes on my Rollerblades, Diamondback, and ancient Natas skateboard. If I crash the Novara, I’ll try to aim for the ground with something other than my mouth.

The first time I rode it, I felt like I needed my dad to firmly grip the back of the seat and safely guide me forward like he had when I rode the Schwinn I got for my 5th birthday. The forefoot straps on the Novara were intimidating even on the loosest setting, and I couldn’t figure out how to up-shift. After some awkward stopping, starting, and cursing, I got going pretty good. Stopping was scary, because I wasn’t used to the vertical brake position.

Then I discovered the real problem: hitting tiny bumps that I never knew existed in my neighborhood was like turning the Novara seat into a genital jackhammer. Holy hell. I tried standing on the pedals for relief, but that was hard unless I was going uphill. I took the pain and eked out 30 minutes of practice. The bike will definitely fly, but I’m not ready to lift off just yet. I have two missions before I ride it next anyway—figure out a solution to the crotch ramming, and buy a pump that will inflate what I think, thanks to that handy Internet research recommended by the salesman, are called Presta valves. My generic, standard pump is useless to the fancy valves on my new machine. I really wish the bike came with a manual.

Tags: bicycle, bike, Diamondback, mountain bike, Novara, Presta, road bike, Schwinn, Sorrento

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 2:32 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.