Cycling in Bakersfield, CA
Last week I had to spend the week in Bakersfield, California for my company’s Channel Partner Kickoff event and our annual Christmas Party. Quite a few of my coworkers that live there are cyclists, so I thought I would capitalize on the time out there, borrow a bike and not miss any training miles. I blasted out an email to the guys and got a response from one of our developers, Carson said he had an extra bike I was welcome to use “but I break I buy.” Score!
The trip turned sucky as soon as we made it to Bakersfield. It was raining. Now, just to clarify, I’m not some chump who won’t ride in the rain. In fact I enjoy it, but not the hour long process of cleaning your bike when you get done. Anyway, I go to Carson’s house to get the bike and notice him finishing putting on some new bar tape on a sweet Trek Madone 5.9. He told me he was just about done with the bike. I commented about which bike am I riding?? Turns out he just purchased a new Madone 5.9 and hasn’t gotten around to selling his ‘old’ one yet. This takes bike envy to a whole new level folks. I’m about to mount up on a full carbon, full Dura-Ace beast for the week. It was still sprinkling, but we decide to go ahead and roll out so I could at least make it to the hotel. It was an enjoyable 11 miles or so on an incredible bike path that the city runs. This thing runs a total of 30 miles through the city, all paved! Anyway, it was cold and wet, so we call it good after 45 minutes. I spend the next hour cleaning the bike like a mad-man in the hotel room (see earlier note on dislike of this part.)
The rest of the week it proceeded to rain every day. I couldn’t muster up the strength to take out this gem of a bike on another rainy day. My luck turned better on Wednesday afternoon, when after we finished our sessions that I snuck back out for another 30-45 minutes. I’m still reeling from the fact that I had a perfect opportunity to ride a marvel of a bike, but ended up getting rained out all week. Keep in mind the city of Bakersfield only gets 3-4 inches a week. (it rained more last week)
Keeping 2 Wheels Down 
Yeah dude – bum luck. Just means you have to come out again soon!
Trek Madone P1 6.5 is the new beast to be exact 😉
Holy cow. I was so enamored with the beast I was riding I didn’t even notice the elitness of the new one! HA!
So anytime you want to donate the old one to me that’s cool. It’d be a good tax write-off for you!
LOL… best I can do is put you on a payment plan.