My Pinkalicious, Pinkatastic, Pinkarrific Bike and Birthday

Yes, I know it's PINK. Really pink! And I'm not usually a pink kinda gal, but all will be explained....You might've guessed from my last post that I was leaning towards buying the Quintana Roo CD01. I'm not kidding when I say this decision cost me several sleepless nights (as my husband can attest). I know a lot of people just pick a bike and are done with it, but I don't get to upgrade my bikes all that often (and with one kid starting college classes right now, I can foresee no new bikes in my immediate future), so I wanted to make sure it was absolutely the right decision.

In the end, it came down to fit (as it should in all bike-buying decisions). The CD01 is an extremely adjustable bike. The seatpost has a very clever adjustment system that lets me monkey with my seat angle to my heart's content, and a series of carbon spacers makes adjusting the handlebars just as smooth. So as we speak, I'm dialing in the fit on this fast flying machine. But why all the pink? Apparently, there's more than a few of last year's bikes left over in this paint scheme (this year's is a much more sedate black with purple striping) and I got a smokin' deal on it.

But as it turns out, pink is an auspicious color right now. My daughter Asa had just gotten the lead role in the musical "Pinkalicious" being produced locally. So she is constantly practicing lines and songs with lyrics such as "Pinkatastic, pinkarrific...life is a pinkatastic dream come true". When my mom visited last week, she showed up in a pinkarrific outfit of her own and they went off for a pinkatastic afternoon of lunch, shopping, and movies (aren't grandmas the greatest??) Thus, the bike has been dubbed "Pinkalicious" (though my hubby keeps referring to it as "Pepto Bismol", and my son commented on the pink camouflage color scheme: "the only place that thing would be camouflaged would be in a cupcake factory".

Still, I think it's the best thing that's happened to me on a birthday in many a long year. How can turning forty-six be bad when you have an awesome bike like that to ride? And ride it I have. Though I had the first triathlon of the season looming this weekend, and was supposed to be tapering, I couldn't resist taking it out for over an hour a day. It rides like a dream, and I have to tell you ladies, that Adamo saddle is just a wonderful thing. No more squishing of the girl bits.


 Luckily, the good weather also arrived just in time for my birthday weekend, and the pinkalicious fun continued with a run through paths of pink flowering trees in the glorious, wonderful sunshine! Hubby and the kids met me for a walk with the dogs and Asa picked a pink blossom for me to sport behind my ear. I am still trying to wrap my head around being forty-six. How come I still feel like I'm twenty-one? Oh yeah, because I TRI!!!

 And all that Tri-ing deserves some chocolate pudding, don't you think? My son Mackenzie, knowing that I am not really a cake person made up some of my grandma Minshall's famous 1-2-3 chocolate pudding recipe for celebrating with. He even wrote "46" in red frosting on it (being a 15 year old boy, he is automatically allergic to touching anything pink), but the frosting kind of bled into the pudding, making it look more like a zombie apocalypse kind of birthday (probably more to his liking anyways). But it tasted great, with an appropriate mountain of whipped cream on top. All in all, it was just a wonderful way to celebrate being on this planet for forty-six years. I know how lucky I am to have my family, my health, good friends, a beautiful place to live, and now a gorgeous pink speed rocket to ride around on.

So on this pink-a-tastic day, I'll leave you with my grandma's pudding recipe. You can make this up with coconut and almond milk, or regular old milk. Any way you make it, it's very tasty stuff. And my grandma lived a long and healthy life into her 90's, so there's got to be something said for chocolate pudding every now and then!

1 Tbsp Corn Starch
2 Tbsp Baking Cocoa
3 Tbsp Sugar (Mackenzie used a mixture of coconut sugar and xylitol from birth tree bark

Stir into:

1 Cup Milk

Microwave 2 minutes, then stir. Microwave 2 more minutes until pudding forms. Double the recipe for a hungry family of four!