Today was finally the day. After years of dreaming, reading, planning, and everything else that goes into making a dream happen. Today was the day I took what felt like the first real step (eh, peddle stroke?) towards making it a reality. A few days ago I pulled my beautiful bicycle out of it’s box and put him together. Although saying I put him together is kind of misleading as I had a generous amount of help from my Dad. I got the dashing good looks in the family but almost none of the mechanical expertise :p . So a few hours later I had my shiny new bike sitting there waiting to be ridded. Unfortunately February’s in Oregon are not always conducive to pedaling around in skin tight lycra. But today. Today finally got lucky and had some excellent riding weather. 
I loaded my back panniers with pillows and junk to kinda simulate what I’ll experience once all my gear is in there and set off. Everything on the bike was feeling as smooth as butter with the exception of my pedals, I could get my cleats to lock in tight. I figured they just needed a bit more tension on them so I just flipped to the platform side and pedaled like a normal bike.
Fast forward about 30 minutes to where I’m halfway up this ugly hill outside of town. I push my foot down on my left pedal and it kinda just falls off! I stop and look at the threads on the crank and they have been stripped to smooth polished metal. Basically, fuck my life. Luckily my Dad was able to come pick me up and take me to the LBS where they were able to use their Bike Shop Wizardry and rethread it for 5 bucks. Turns out my Dad and I had put the pedals on the wrong sides o_O . 
Despite the setback I felt like it was an excellent first ride on the new bike. As soon as I get that god damned leather saddle broken in I think I’ll be golden. But that’s all for now. Tally-Ho, mates!