It seems all the bouncing and dust collected during STP (and especially the drive back along the coast) was not good for my bike. I went for a ride up Del Dios Highway and around Lake Hodges today, but I had a terrible time getting my bike to shift. I would click the button to shift and it would start making noises for about 10 seconds before finally shifting. Sometimes it would shift, then suddenly spin as if completely free, then shift around a few times before finally settling in on a gear. As you can imagine, that’s not the kind of response you want from your shifting, especially when trying to climb.

It wasn’t just the poor performance that concerned me, the sounds it was making were cause for concern as well. As I rode I considered my options. Maybe I would just be done with cycling, let Charmaine have my new wheels, etc. I’m just so frustrated with all the tinkering and tweaking that has to happen every single time I touch my bike. I don’t enjoy that part of cycling at all. I want my equipment to be reliable enough that it doesn’t need to be tuned every time I ride. Is my bike an Italian sports car now? Maybe it is. Maybe if I want less tuning I need to go back to a simple bike.

I thought through a lot of different scenarios as I rode. Before I committed myself to any of them I realized my bike was sounding a little better on the way back than it had on the way out. Maybe it was because the way back is mostly down hill, or maybe it was working something out and would start performing better.

I’ll give it another chance, but I am getting sick of all the tantrums.