Easter Sunday 2009:
"Tornado Tom" Boonen won
Paris-Roubaix for the third time!
ON MY BICYCLE!
Read Brecht Decaluwé's complete account of the race for Cycling News.
Because it's versatile, equally perfect for my hard-core road workout, distance cruising, and commuting. It was designed for the daunting Paris-to-Roubaix (pronounced roo-BEH) endurance race, arguably the most bone-jarring professional road race in existence, all cobble-stones, all day.
This machine is way cool: all carbon everything, all Dura-Ace twenty-speed drivetrain, Ultegra brakes, and that über-comfortable Roubaix geometry--coupled with Zertz impact-dampening viscoelastic inserts in the seatstays, seatmast, and fork--designed to mitigate the punishment of the bike's namesake race.
Not only that, but the geniuses at Pulse Endurance Sports in Chula Vista executed a painstaking, three-hour fitting, in which every conceivable aspect of my cycling physiology (and a few thousand I had never imagined...) was measured and double-measured, triple-measured, assuring that my bike would be absolutely perfect. This perfection was palpably manifest the second I was in the saddle a week later, and every day since it becomes more so. Genuine American quality is alive and well at Pulse! Thanks, Mike and Liam.
So what? Hey, my bike makes me happy to ride every day. The big feature is commuting as often as I can from Chula Vista out to college in El Cajon. Sixteen miles each way is a relatively modest jaunt, sure, but these are brutally vertical miles. The other days? I ride for two hours, down to San Diego Bay and back to EastLake, a route I make sure is replete with murderous hills. I call this Chula Vista circle. Good for what ails you.
Once I was fat, destined for an early grave. Now thanks to my bike, I'm more fit by far in my fifties than I was at twenty. What's not to like?
Bicycling Magazine's review of the Specialized Roubaix 2009
Top Belgian cyclist Tom Boonen contributed significantly to the design of the Specialized Roubaix, then won the Paris-Roubaix race on it three times, in 2005, 2008, again this year. Here, let him talk about it:
"Pain: my enemy; this bike: my ally. Together our endurance is unmatched, our performance unstoppable. Any distance, any road. I am Tom Boonen. I am Specialized." (OK, OK, some marketing guy wrote that, but Boonen sounds so cool when he says it!)
Tom Boonen won Paris-Roubaix
for QuickStep three times on his Specialized Roubaix.
A bike just like mine!
My performance may be a joke next to Boonen's, my endurance laughable, but
I do love to ride my bicycle.
Just like he does!
The custom S-works Roubaix Tom Boonen
rode to win the 2009 Paris-Roubaix race.
It's much like the one I rode
to the bay
and back a few hours earlier,
with less panache than Boonen's, less prowess, but no less pleasure.
Gotta get me some of those wicked green tires!
The best
bike shop in the world:
1020 A-2 Tierra Del Rey, Chula Vista, CA 91910
619/656-5222
Ask for owners Mike Drury and Liam
Thier or
ace mechanic Atom.
You can't go wrong with these guys!