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he traded his current road bike and the two unused mountain bikes for his new Cannondale carbon frame bike.

After his very first ride on his new carbon frame bike my husband started talking about getting me a new carbon frame bike. Apparently he noticed such a difference in the comfort of his ride by switching from an aluminum frame to a carbon frame bike that he felt guilty that I still had to ride on an aluminum frame bike. I had just switched from my clip less mountain bike pedals to clip less road pedals so I was doing just fine and didn't even ask for a new bike. But a few days later he went to our local bike shop and ordered me a new Cannondale Synapse 2 Feminine specific carbon frame road bike.

Speed Freak?
No one will ever mistake me for a hammerhead. My preferred speed is in the 18-20 MPH range, with occasional bursts up to 26 MPH. Initially I didn't seem to notice much of a difference but my first ride on the new bike was by myself without anyone to draft behind. I think I hit a nasty headwind on the second half of that ride and I struggled to make it home, barely getting above 15 MPH. But on our group rides with our fellow TNT members I noticed a huge difference in my riding. I was able to keep up with the fast group almost the entire way. Overall my ride seems much smoother and I'm finally starting to climb out of the saddle when we have to go over any hills, okay, just going up and over draw bridges, this is south Florida so there really aren't any hills down here. Our last TNT ride was 65 miles. I didn't really want to stop at the first rest stop. We had only gone 17 miles and I felt like I could ride a bit longer before having to stop to refuel.

Rude Drivers
One day I was enjoying a short road ride on my new bike. As I was heading back to my point of origin I was nearly run off the road by a really RUDE cement truck driver. Initially he beeped his horn a couple of times which at first I thought was a polite way to let me know he was behind me. But then he kept beeping, louder, and more frequently and started riding right on my heels. There was no place for me to go, this was just before the beach parking starts along A1A along Delray Beach. There wasn't a bike lane or shoulder for me to pull over to. He apparently thought I was going to sprout wings and fly away.

I finally gave him the one finger salute as we were heading towards a red light. While stopped at the light he practically ran over my toe - what an idiot. I proceeded to give him the Italian Kiss of Death and shot a multitude of mental evil-eye darts at him to no avail. It seemed that my Mojo just wasn't working that morning. When the light turned green he decided to start driving REALLY slow. I must have observed six or more patrol cars during my ride but of course none of them were around while this was happening. I just wanted to get in a couple of miles before having to pick the kids up from school. GEEEEZZZZZZ!

Learn more about this author, Lynn Smythe.
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