Reunited (And It Feels So Good)

My endurance road bike is awesome. It’s a 2013 BMC granfondo GF02 that I purchased as “new, old stock” in early March 2014. And since then I have ridden 24,014 miles on it: 3,142 miles in the months before I began tracking on Garmin Connect, and 20,872 since December 26, 2014. It’s so lightweight, efficient, and reliable. I have had to replace only a few parts over the years. The bike was a steal at $1,600. I have more than gotten my money’s worth.

But I hadn’t reached for the BMC in a while. In 2021, my last ride on the BMC came on September 30. On October 1, I took my Trek Boone up to Eden and back on the Eisenbahn State Trail. Then I left the BMC at home when I went to Pennsylvania on vacation. My crash on October 7 stopped me from riding until October 30. I did only 8 rides for the remainder of the year, split between the Boone and my new mountain bike.

So, it was really nice to dust off the BMC on Tuesday and Wednesday for my first proper road rides of 2022. I had gone 165 days between rides on the BMC. Yikes! I blame the long Wisconsin winter for most of that delay, but I can’t say enough good things about Tuesday and Wednesday. Both were bright and sunny. Tuesday was only 50-something but there was almost no wind. Wednesday had much more wind, but because it came from the southwest it brought the warmest temperatures we have seen this year. West Bend hit 66° late in the afternoon, making Wednesday our first 60° day since December 16.

Now we’re going to cool off for a few days—this is March in Wisconsin, when any nice weather is more than we had a right to expect—but I’m eyeing up Sunday. A sunny, 55° afternoon with light winds sounds like another date with the BMC.