Hi Ho Silver, Awayyyyyyyy

I have a confession to make: I have never named my bike. This does not mean I don't love my bike (notice, I also do not refer to my bike as a "he" or a "she", though I do speak a smidge of Romance languages, my bike has no gender). I do love my bike, I love it a lot. I could live on my bike. My bike and I are welded at the hip. But it has no name. A recent spate of posts on Trifuel and various blogs have pointed out this deficiency of nomenclature to me, but I doubt I'll be giving my bike a moniker any time soon.

Once, when my daughter was about six and just starting into her ongoing horse obsession, she named all of our bikes with cute horsie names like "Blackie", "Big Red", and "Ginger". My tri bike became "HiHoSilver" on account of its titanium frame and lack of paint. But I am not about to start blogging about the adventures of me and HiHoSilver, trust me on that one. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I know that for vast numbers of tri-geeks out there, naming your bike is some sort of moral imperative, and though I can understand that, it's just not for me.

The other day I was waxing poetic about my wonderful bike and my good friend said that she could tell how much I loved my bike because it seemed like an extension of my body when I rode. Sometimes it feels more like an extension of my soul. I am frequently and inexplicably moved to tears when I ride. Like just in the middle of a ride I'll start crying just from the sheer joy of it. Sometimes it even happens going uphill (though much more likely on the downhill side). I have a favorite ride out into a little valley filled with vineyards that almost never fails to make me tear up. I may very rarely feel that fabled "runner's high", but the biker's high? I own it.

My bike and I will be heading up to the lake this weekend with the TNT team for our final brick. A nice long swim in the relatively balmy 60 degree water and then we'll head out along a bike trail that parallels the lake, also one of my favorite places to ride. Then we'll cap it off with a run, chat about transitions and they'll be ready to roll for next Saturday. Then I'll head back along another favorite ride. Just me and my unnamed, two-wheeled best friend.

Here's the other unnamed bikes in my life: My old, unrestored Schwinn tandem, my around-town Stumpjumper, my Bike Friday tandem with the tag-a-long, My old tri bike (Giant Cadex carbon with those great Scott DB bars), my hubby's yellow Bianchi that I rode for one season, and my awesome titanium tri bike, formerly known as HiHo Silver!