My Steed

Meet Futo

When I started triathlons, I wasn’t sure how much I was going to like the sport, so I didn’t want to lay out big bucks for a bike. I found a used Trek Hilo 2000, which served me well as a novice. It didn’t take too long for me to realize, however, that a) I was serious and b) I had some major bike envy. It also turned out that the Trek was a little too big for me, which helped explain why I never got comfortable in the aero bars. One Black Friday sale at Tri Sports later, I was the proud owner of a 2012 Quintana Roo CD0.1 Ultegra model.

I’m the kind of person who likes to name my modes of transportation, so I knew that I had to come up with something. I was in a Japanese restaurant one day, sitting by a poster that showed all kinds of sushi along with their transliterative names and descriptions. Futomaki. Big Roll. My old bike, while larger, had smaller (650c) wheels and the new bike had the standard 700c size. It just seemed to fit (not to mention nice the highlight color on the frame was a lovely shade of wasabi green). A solid piece of machinery with a little pizazz. Now I just need to work on the engine…