Well, she doesn't have one yet. Nor has she yet been set up with all of the proper pink accoutrement's that come with being a member of my bike fleet. You see, all of my other bikes were planned, saved, and slaved for over the course of months. This girl was more of a surprise, albeit a happy one.
I've been in "a new road bike would be nice" mode for maybe a year or so, but wasn't anywhere close to actually saving more or doing anything about it. Then about a week ago I saw Adam flipping through the new Giant catalog, and he pointed to a bike and asked if I liked he color. He was planning on buying an inexpensive bike for the frame and then building it up with the Sram Rival parts left over after he upgraded his "A" 'cross bike to Red. After a bit more discussion, we decided that the Avail Composite 2 might be a good choice, because it was carbon fiber, a nice color, and wouldn't require any parts swapped except for the ones Adam already had. I went to the shop on Monday to try out sizes and last night, my early birthday present arrived.
I used to not be a bike naming person, but it seems that this will be the only bike I have without a name. As is well documented, my 'cross bike is New New, and my old 'cross bike, now commuter is Jake. Although it is embarrassing to admit this publicly, last summer I was contemplating how the plot line of True Blood had so greatly diverged from that of The Southern Vampire Mysteries while knocking out some speedy laps on my 29er at French Lick. During this time, I decided that my tall, sexy, efficient bike must be called Eric. Along that vein, the squishy Anthem at home must be Bill.
Anyway, the new road bike won't have a name from the Sookieverse and probably will not have one from an obscure hip hop roller skating movie, but I'm thinking about other characters from books or movies that might be appropriate. Despite my ultra-geeky admittance above, I am in no way interested in the full pantheon of vampire literature, so if Charlaine Harris is not churning out anything new, you can just as easily find me reading about mysteries solved by 19th century Turkish eunuchs or Maine Coon cats instead of telepathic barmaids. I am considering the name Bhu Fan from the latter series, as both the bike and the character are tiny Asian princesses.
Regardless of what I decide to call her, I'm excited that she is here. I've actually had the Ohio Spring Race Series on my mind a bit lately, after realizing it is how many of my cyclocross competitors occupy their time in the "off season". (Ha ha, CX is supposed to be the off season, but we know that's not true.) My spring/ early summer goals for next year will still revolve around the Ouachita Challenge and trying to *finally* finish my first 100 mile mountain bike race at the Mohican 100, but other than that I think I'm a little over cross country racing. It seems that women's road racing might actually be reaching a critical mass in the region where the race becomes a peloton instead of a mass start time trial. And while being able to beat certain girls in 'cross doesn't mean that I will necessarily beat them on the road, looking over my recent results compared those of last spring's series makes me at least want to give it a shot. Now having a pretty new bike just begging for a public debut, I might just find the motivation to try something a little different in 2012.
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