$1000 Bike and $10 Body
Does this sound familiar? We all know the guy who is constantly buying newer and lighter weight parts for his bike as if it was the Magic Elixir, but not doing any work on his own fitness or biomechanics. I know this from my own experience. Years ago, when my training was drinking beer and smoking cigars, I learned this lesson. I was living in the West Indies, and went out for morning rides in the hills by the ocean. I was feeling pretty bad assed on my nifty 18 speed bike (hot stuff in the 90s). At some point, I happened to look back and saw some local guy coming up the hill. So I thought, I will just shift away and leave him way back in the dust. So I started shifting and pumping, and looked back and WTF, he was getting closer. So I was now doing serious huffing and puffing and out of gears to shift and things are getting worse. Then it happened. The guy passed me while riding some basic 3 speed. BUT he had legs the size of tree trunks developed from years of riding up and down these hills on his simple bike. He waved and said good morning and I just weakly waved back. CRUSHED.
Moral of the story -- It ain’t the bike.
So make sure that you are putting the same time and money into making YOU a better athlete as you are putting into your bike.