Karen writes: Official bike and helmet(s)

The bike has a sticker, it is officially an Ironman bike now.   The kind men at the bike shop also inspected and put a sticker on both of my helmets, the flash one with the non-approved safety label, and the grotty old one with the approved label (still playing email tag trying to sort that one out).

It was a bit of a trip down memory lane digging out the old Bell helmet.  My brother kindly gave it to me before that first ever triathlon, the Kellogg's Special K, for some reason he placed enough value on the contents of his sister's head to provide me with good quality protective headgear.  Back then I didn't have any of what I now consider necessary equipment...that was....mutter mutter...back in 2005, now I have a heap of the stuff, begged, borrowed and purchased, so much that I wonder what I will do with it all when I am no longer training twice a day and 6 days a week.  Anyway, this poor helmet had plenty of use in it's day, as is evidenced by the faded and curling straps and tacky stuff left behind from multiple stickers. I had to give it a good scrub before I was even going to let it in the house, it having lived in rather ignoble retirement in the shed.  The washing just made the grey gone to mottled yellow/grey more obvious, and evicted a few things with more than their reasonable share of legs.   So fingers crossed for good news about the other helmet, but apart from being ugly, I have no real excuse to spend money replacing the old Bell, no matter how tempting that cute one with the go-fast patterns and crazy number of vents in it.  One thing I have learned is that (at this level) you don't need the best of everything to do Ironman, and you don't need to spend heaps of money when the basic model, or second hand will do.