More rides on the Langster

I have been able to get home in time to ride the last two days. On Monday I went out for about 20 miles. I did walk part of the first hill. It was more of a mental thing. Once I realized I could do it bailed on to a side street so that I could pick up steam. The picture above is taken from the top of the hill. In the background you can see the Atlantic Ocean, Lower Manhattan and Coney Island. Unfortunately, my camera does not really do the view justice. Also, I took the picture in the early winter. All you would see today is leaves.


I had a weird thing happen on the Monday ride. I cut through the Lucent (Bell Labs) Holmdel site. It is odd to see this building almost abandoned. I first came to New Jersey to work at this center. The roads on the complex grounds are still in good shape and it is an easy way to get from Holmdel Park to Middletown Road. As I was going out the back entrance I spotted a deer. I started talking to it tell it to stay where it was. I really did not want it cutting out in front of me. For some reason the deer decided to chase me. It was sort of like the dogs that used to chase me in Kirkville. As I sped up the deer sped up. Since this is a wild animal I was kind of concerned since deer usually run from humans. I think it was just playing with me. Maybe some of the other riders have feed it in the past. It did the dog thing in that it stopped chasing me when it got to the end of its territory. I really wish I had brought my camera.


The rest of monday's ride was uneventful. I have never really done a lot of riding in New Jersey so I was concerned about safety. I know that I have had some close calls running. So far it has not been too bad. Most of the cars are respectful. Not like they were in Charlotte.


Today's ride (Tuesday) was good and long. I zigzagged through Holmdel, into Middletown, through Red Bank, Little Silver and Rumson. I came back through Fairhaven and back through Red Bank. I was thinking of going over the Oceanic Bridge and then taking Kings Highway back. However, I remembered that Kings Highway had a narrow steep hill at the beginning in Atlantic Highlands so I decided to avoid it for now. Might be a good weekend route though.


I am not sure if I have mentioned this but I really like my Langster. This is very comfortable bike. It rides much better than the all carbon Fuji that I rented in San Francisco. There is no question that the Specialized bikes are much more massed produced than some of the other brands out there. However, they are also several hundred dollars cheaper so based on my current experience I would probably go with Specialized bike again. Of course things could change after I have put several hundred miles on my Langster.

Specialized is coming out with several versions of the Langster for 2008. According to the dealers I have spoken with they should be available sometime over the summer. Knapp Cyclery (http://knappscyclery.com/index.cfm) had the new catalog. The version of my Langster is going to be green with silver trim (I think. It could be white).

I found these pictures of some of the new models on web. I know there are going to be several other versions as well.