When you don't have to consult

26 years of loyal, service form my trusty unnamed Marin mountain bike bows out to Old Bob (OB) the Specialized Epic. Meet Bob, Old Bob to be precise. 

Old Bob and I are about to form what I hope will be a long and happy relationship. Old Bob used to belong to a mate of mine, but he has another bike called Eric and now OB is mine.

OB has just spent a few days at the bike shop having a little tart tune up. And because OB is new to me, he's allowed to have a sleep over inside tonight, parked at the bottom of the stairs. When you don't have to consult, your bike can live exactly where you want :-)

If the weather isn't completely awful tomorrow, OB and I will first real ride. Then OB will hang from his hook in the garage. 

A long and happy relationship with OB will involve me staying in the saddle. My days of drop offs and fancy moves on single tracks are over. I've told OB my bones are a little more brittle these days and he's not to throw me off. That's the theory anyway.

We'll start gently. We need to. My old bike didn't have a meaningful left brake and the right one was hardly a poem. OB has very responsive brakes and on my first test drive I nearly took an untimely fly over the handle bars. We won't dwell on that.

A soft tail too so my bum won't take a pounding ;-)