IT’S NOT (JUST) ABOUT THE BIKE My journey to a triathlon life By Kevin Willis
M
y high school classmates doodled pictures of electric guitars, or rockets, or scrawled the names of soccer teams in the margins of their textbooks. But I drew a thing of beauty and the object of my desire – the Campagnolo Rally long-cage rear derailleur. The money I earned as a teenager from delivering newspapers on my hand-me-down bike didn’t stretch to Campy components, so I wanted them all the more. n + 1, where n is the number you already have. Keep in mind that a carbon fiber tri bike is not just another bike. Though it’s irresistible to a gearaholic, it’s of little use for anything other than triathlons. And that was the problem. How could I justify the horrendous cost of buying one given that I could barely swim and hated running? But … The year before I had joined a local spinning group to prepare for the Vätternrundan, a 24-hour, 300-kilometre recreational bike ride in Sweden. The instructor, Julia Aimers
Yes, for as long as I can remember I’ve been a gearaholic. So the effect of seeing a carbon fiber triathlon "Ultraman Canada is in August in British bike Columbia's Okanagan desert, as hot as really Kona, with serious hills, dirt roads, and a jolted double marathon length" me. It was early in 2007 on a business of Team Triumph, was also a trip to San Francisco in a store swimming and triathlon coach. selling triathlon gear. By then, So after returning from San at age 46, I had a garage full of Francisco, with Julia’s help and bikes – commuter, mountain, driven by tri bike desire, I started road, even a tandem. And as swimming. any serious cyclist knows, the My first triathlon was in number of bikes that you need is Perth and it was great race for
newcomers – a 500-metre pool swim, 16-kilometre bike ride, and three-kilometre run followed by a potluck lunch. Now while the number of bikes you need is n + 1, the size of your collection is severely limited by “Factor S”: the spouse. It seemed incomprehensible to me, but I was told most definitively that I did not need a carbon tri bike for Perth. Following prolonged negotiations, the compromise was an aero-framed aluminum road bike along with two seats and posts so that my wife and I could swap saddles and share it. My tight-fitting tri top for the ride and run legs was a rookie mistake, as I wasted a good five minutes in transition struggling to get the top on my wet torso! I took a break to cycle across Canada in 2008, but over the next few years I accumulated experience and new gear in the Somersault series and other local triathlons, building from sprints through Olympics to halfirons. I pimped out the bike with aero bars and aero race wheels. It was starting to resemble a tri bike, but to justify a pro-level carbon bike, I knew I would need to step up to Ironman.
OTTAWA'S KEVIN WILLIS 2014 ULTRAMAN CANADA CHAMPION 60 I ottawaoutdoors
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