A couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to buying myself a new road bike. I’d sold my last one before we headed off to Canada two years ago, and my return to triathlons was going to be seriously undermined by the lack of a road bike.

In a bid for frugality, I decided to forego the heights I’d attained the last time and focus on something a little lower down the bicycling chain. Malvern Star are an Aussie brand, renowned for making kids bikes, who’d lost their way over the last few years when it came to road bikes. However, their new 2009 range has been getting rave reviews for putting decent frames together with good component packages at excellent prices. Just what I was after.

It took me a while to find a dealer stocking the road bikes, but once that was done, and $1100 later, I was back to being a cyclist again. A few hundred more for pedals and a decent helmet and I was ready to burn up the tarmac.

Imagine my surprise when I headed out at 6:30am one morning to find that, despite lots of running over the previous few months, and despite a resting heart rate hovering around 40bpm, my legs still felt shite on the bike. I guess that proves the specificity principle - that being fit in one sport doesn’t necessarily translate to being fit in another.

No doubt perseverance will prevail, as it almost always does, and as I slowly build my weekly mileage things will start feeling better. There’s a lot to be said for riding down to La Perouse in the early morning, though so far I’ve avoided travelling in the other direction to Watsons Bay. I still hate going uphill!