beware of falling squirrels

So the last time I posted, I mentioned getting a new bike; it arrived about a month ago, and I finally had a chance to get it out for a long, fast ride yesterday. Whee! I missed riding like this. Yes, I used to do it on my Nishiki (1984 Nishiki Bel-Air mountain bike), complete with fairly knobby tires, but it's really nice to do it on a bike designed for speed. And yes, some may remember that I had another road bike, a Bianchi Brava, but it never fit right, and I gave up on it a few years ago.

(In other news, I am still not fast enough for group rides, sigh. There is a dearth of rides that a) actually, honestly, state their speeds and b) go 13-15 mph on flat ground. I like riding with people, and being the slowest person in a group sucks. Even if the leader clearly didn't mind hanging back, some of the other folks clearly did.)

High points of the ride: I can climb the hills on Trapelo Road while tired without a granny gear, which means I'm not completely out of shape. Also that not having a granny gear on the new bike was not a horrible mistake. :D I've been riding a lot more lately, though I am still out of shape compared to when I was riding 10-20 miles a day. I need to commute more (though not on the new bike). Even if it's getting dark out there.

Low points: a squirrel fell out of a tree and hit me. Seriously. Something dark and heavy came flying down, too fast to swerve or do anything but hold my line, and bounced off my left wrist. The guy behind me said "that was a squirrel". WTF, squirrel. It was probably a low point in the squirrel's day, too.

And, since there were very few reviews of this bike out there when I went looking, I'll post mine (warning: super-long):

( click for pictures and not-so-mini-review )