Back in the Saddle

I still remember my bike I left in Manila. It was a 1999 GT Zaskar decked in full xt gear with a manitou fork and shimano 747 clipless pedals.

I really loved that bike and when I was handling the Petron gas station in Bulacan I managed to squeeze in 30kms or about two hours of biking in rough farm roads everyday.

The bike was my constant companion during the 2000 Bike for Life wherein a group of us raised funds and awareness of cancer by biking from Manila to Cebu.

Pity I can't bring it here to the US.

Recently I bought a replacement for my Zaskar, a measly Avalanche 2.0 decked in a mish mash of parts but with a terrific Marzochi Comp fork and Tektra Aquila mechanical disk brakes.

It's not as light as my Zaskar which probably weighed in at around 26 or 28lbs. This is probably around 30 or 32lbs.

I bought it in Santa Monica and as a test I biked from Santa Monica to Downtown, roughly the same distance I biked before. But, and a big but at that, I was so woefully out of shape and not even in the proper gear. Add the fact that it was also raining last Saturday and it truly was an interesting ride.

Long story short, my legs and specially my ass still hurts from sitting for 2+ hours on that damned bike. But what the hey, it was a glorius sort of pain borne about by exertion and sweat. A pain that I pretty much missed.

Its good to be back in the saddle again.