Pedal Strike

I can be such a bitch in the morning without coffee.

This isn’t news. Especially not to me. So I try to do the right thing and inject myself with caffeine before I really speak to anyone at work. That obviously doesn’t keep me from being a ranting maniac on the morning commute, but I figure that’ll keep me on my toes and somehow prevent me from getting run over. It makes a weird sort of convoluted sense [to me, at least].

So when I showed up at NYC Velo in the late afternoon last weekend and claimed I hadn’t had a sip of coffee all day, the bug-eyed suspicious look of incredulous amazement was to be expected. But oddly enough, I wasn’t on my typical caffeine withdrawal rampage. Because Andy had just offered to pull a shot of espresso from a chrome box sitting pretty on the counter.

Ah, finally. Finally we meet. Glittering invitingly in a space formerly occupied by a Brooks saddle display was the very limited edition Giotto Giro d’Italia espresso machine [number 62 of the 100 made]. On one of my very first visits to NYC Velo, the idea of purchasing one had been thrown around, gently pushed, and cleverly researched and pitched. With the names of every Giro winner engraved in the side, polished like a bright mirror, and the crowning touch of the pink dial, it belonged in a bike shop. It was just my luck that that bike shop was NYC Velo.

Sitting in my usual spot on the couch, I sipped a delicious shot of pure, thick espresso. Just strong enough to remind my blood to turn it up a notch, within seconds my caffeine-starved brain started to hum into a happy high. I instantly forgot about my cramped shoulder and that uncontrollable, animalistic need to bite someone’s – anyone’s – head off with some snarky i-totally-have-a-tree-up-my-ass comment.

Fully aware of this neatly averted disaster, it was the least I could do, the following day, to deliver half a dozen cupcakes from Pinisi to a bike shop that I’m starting to call my New York home. They were devoured in the typical style of starving bike mechanics, with Jared – the first Cat 1 racer I’ve ever met – even posing for pictures.

And this afternoon, the deal gets even sweeter. Because these guys are coming up to Boston, and I’ve been invited on their little excursion. Good [free] espresso might still be a few weekends away, but running around my city with new friends will probably be enough to keep the bitchery at bay.

…Probably.

Tags:   coffee · espresso · giotto · giro d'italia · nyc · nyc velo1 Comment