{"id":50,"date":"2006-07-24T19:00:12","date_gmt":"2006-07-24T18:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/?p=50"},"modified":"2010-09-19T10:31:24","modified_gmt":"2010-09-19T16:31:24","slug":"50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/50\/","title":{"rendered":"Mid-life mountain-biking crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

This weekend I treated myself to a new mountain bike.\u00c2\u00a0 My old one has been slowly dying on me and I finally decided I’d had enough when it shed a pedal 5km out from home, forcing me to walk all the way back.\u00c2\u00a0When I visited my local bicycle emporium (Robeet BikeStyle, in Tervuren) I was surprised by how much bike technology has changed since I bought my last one (a Specialized Rockhopper<\/em>, bought ten years ago).\u00c2\u00a0 It’s now almost impossible to buy a mountain bike without front suspension, and disc brakes are common on all mid- to high-end bikes.\u00c2\u00a0 Naturally my new one\u00c2\u00a0 – a Scott Scale 40<\/em> has both of these\u00c2\u00a0(I resisted the temptation to go for full suspension though – not strictly necessary for my use).\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It’s also\u00c2\u00a0significantly lighter than my old one, and has these bizarre\u00c2\u00a0combined\u00c2\u00a0brake\/gear levers that take some getting used to.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0But overall, I’m\u00c2\u00a0pretty pleased with it.<\/p>\n

I turn 40 in a couple of weeks, so I’m writing off this slightly extravagant purchase (it was far, far from the most expensive bike in the shop, but still more than I’m in the habit of shelling out on\u00c2\u00a0the average weekend) as a mid-life-crisis thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Most men probably get a new sportscar or take another lover.\u00c2\u00a0 I get a mountain bike.\u00c2\u00a0 Woo-hoo.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, it’s probably safer this way.\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe not.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve already had\u00c2\u00a0my first\u00c2\u00a0tumble – and not even off-road.\u00c2\u00a0 I was test-riding it outside the shop, and checking out the suspension by bouncing up and down the kerb,\u00c2\u00a0but took it at too slight an angle, resulting in me leaving the bike in the gutter, and my skin along the sidewalk (serves me right for laughing at Dave<\/a>).\u00c2\u00a0 But having been suitably ‘blooded’, I knew this was the bike for me.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the weather is great<\/span> at the moment (averaging 30degC most days) and being able to race along the many dirt tracks round our way, with the wind in what’s left of my hair, almost makes me feel young again.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m also determined to cycle into work (a round trip of 25km) at least once a week, to combat the middle-aged-spread that’s encroaching on my waistline at an alarming rate.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve been threatening to do so for the past year but haven’t quite made it yet – the last attempt being the ‘pedal incident’ above.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe this week.<\/p>\n

Eager to get some use out of my new bike, we\u00c2\u00a0all went out for a family bike ride around Tervuren Park on Sunday (I know I said I’d never make that mistake again<\/a>, but I was keen to get the new bike out). Sadly it wasn’t the dirt\/speed frenzy I was hoping for as I got saddled with accompanying Freya, who’s still pottering along on her stabilizers, singing a merry old song as she cycles along with no sense of urgency (or direction) whatsoever.\u00c2\u00a0 Bless her.\u00c2\u00a0 According to my speedometer I managed to reach a top speed of 7kph!\u00c2\u00a0 Well, that was definitely worth getting a bike with 27 gears for.\u00c2\u00a0 Never mind; soon I’m going to get all five of us matching spandex outfits so we can claim to be a cycling team and then we can start terrorizing pedestrians and infuriating drivers with the rest of them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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This weekend I treated myself to a new mountain bike.\u00c2\u00a0 My old one has been slowly dying on me and I finally decided […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-cycling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.planetmanuel.com\/dirk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}