Lotto-Intermarché is selling nearly 300 pro bikes, from this Tuesday until the end of November. The race bikes: power meter, electronic shifting, €11,000 list price, €4,995 now. The training bikes at €3,995. According to Kris De Nys, who runs the operation, the team stays with Orbea in 2027, but on new models.
I have four bikes in the garage. The car is outside. A fifth would have to hang from the ceiling, or the car would have to go. I did the sums on Sunday, at the café, after the twenty-past-nine ride.
Because I have the segment, me. The Kwaremont, the Tour of Flanders cobbled climb, with the backpack, with the red light in Oudenaarde, with the guy zigzagging in front. I know my time. But I never had the most obvious column: the bike. I always filed it under “miscellaneous”.
So I redo the subtraction. Take off the backpack. Take off the café. Take off the red light. And now take off the bike, and replace it with a bike used only in races and fully overhauled by the team’s mechanics, Kris De Nys says so. What excuse does that leave me? The wind. A headwind both ways, that doesn’t change.
And there is the power meter. That worries me. Today, at the café, I say I rode for fun. With a power meter, the fun would have a number. And the others would read it on my bike computer the way I read theirs.
You can’t even keep your chain clean as it is. Take the training one, mind you.
She’s not wrong. It’s first come, first served. Me, I’m a twenty-past-nine man. I’m not saying I’ll get one. I’m saying we can talk about it. At the café we argued till noon, and the bike was still for sale.
It’s true, we checked: DH Les Sports+.
