Re: Less-than-inspiring race re****ts

Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> In article <qRDUj.9182$iK6.7672@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
>  Bob Schwartz <bob.schwartz@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> joseph.santaniello@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:
>>> That story gave me a BIG smile. 16 miles is long for kids. How old is
>>> she? And just out of curiosity, what was the winning FM quotient?
>> She's 13. She has a cousin that is the same height and has
>> a road bike, we tired it out last summer and it was too
>> different from what she had grown up with. Also, she's been
>> in this freakish growth phase. I've been waiting for that
>> to level off a bit before dumping money into gear. Maybe
>> this summer she gets her first road bike.
> 
> With the caution that you'd be better off with her riding a bad bike she

> likes than a road bike she dislikes, you might consider a tiny CX bike, 
> if only for the top-mount brake levers.

That's a very cool bike.

At 13 my kid is well into adult sizes, she's as tall as her
mom. I didn't push road bikes with her cousin's bike because
her cousin is older and has stopped growing, so it wasn't
something she's going to grow out of. And at the time my
kid was doing this alien growth thing, so any bike she got
was not going to fit for long.

I am hoping that the growth curve is starting to level off.
I think a road bike will be like the aero bars in that it
won't take more than a few miles of cruising more easily
on pavement for her to 'get it'.

But we'll see. We've got a number of items on the toy list.
Like roller skis. I've been avoiding the issue of skate
boots because she's been changing sizes at an alarming rate
and because properties in a ski boot that are im****tant to
a 200 lb guy with low body fat tend not to be an issue for
a skinny kid that weighs nothing. But roller skis will make
that unavoidable.

Based on the reaction I got to the Gent 6 Day last fall I
think there is a fixed gear bike in her future. But that's
further out.

But at some point this summer a road bike will appear. It's
time, and she's ready.

Bob Schwartz