Pete is my bike. The etymology of the name “Pete” comes from delicious, rocky mountain brewed, Coors beer. When canned, Coors beer becomes reffered to as “The Silver Bullet”. When thinking of names for my bike, I thought of how it is fast, and silver. And being a beer drinker (not excessively of course), I thought of “the silver bullet”, but realized that sounded a bit to0 cliche. So I named it Pete, as in Pete Coors.
Now you know why my bike is named Pete. I feel this knowledge is necessary for understanding the rest of this blog, which as you can see by the title, is an ode to Pete.
Pete has brought me over 1,000 miles along the West Coast this summer. From the coastal Redwood Forests of Washington, to the mountains of Steven’s Pass, to the Golden Gate Bridge. Pete has been strong. Even when I subject Pete to the most rigorous of tests, like riding down from Mt. Tamalpais over horrendously pot-holed roads at 30 miles an hour, Pete never wavers.
Pete and Peter, Rippin'.
More impressively, Pete has never once complained about pulling Peter, my trailer. Peter is like Pete’s little brother, simply put, a 40-pound pain in the neck. Peter pulls on Pete’s frame, wanting to bend and break him from all the torque, especially during uphill climbs. Even worse, Peter tries to make Pete crash and burn during ripping descents, because as soon as Pete starts cruising over 35 mph, Peter starts to freak out and wobble from side to side. This scares Pete and makes him slow down, causing a loss of valuable speed.
As Pete whipped me down the road yesterday, I laughed and hollered, simply because I was having so much fun. The infamous tail winds pushed at our backs, propelling us effortlessly to 25 mph on flats.
Highway 1 looking towards Santa Cruz. A perfect day to ride.
The road curved along the absolutely gorgeous coastline of California, north of Santa Cruz and south of Half Moon Bay. It couldn’t have been a better day to roll with Pete, and the 55-mile ride went by quickly. I once again thanked Pete for delivering me safely out of the concrete mass of San Francisco, and into the wide open spaces of central California.
