My cell phone rings once a month. The exterminator calls to pitch us a package, $180 to keep bugs out of the house for the year. That’s a tish pricey in my book. You can win the lottery, but you still have to spend your money wisely right? Conversely, since we hit those six big numbers a few months back, $180 is exactly what I spend every single week for my bike butler.
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| Hola Coco! |
Meet Coco, my fantasy bike butler. I considered a cycling coach, but since I won the lottery a bike butler makes me much happier. Coco is half butler, half coach. Coco is a nickname, since my wife and I can’t pronounce his real name. It’s got a lot of rolly R sounds in it. My wife pictured a bronzed ex-pro who would wear tight slacks and sexy white open collar shirts. However, I was uncomfortable with that and hired Coco, who’s a bit flamboyant. In his mid 30’s, Coco dresses in nice slacks and a pressed dress shirt. However his has fluffy rainbow striped sleeves and a bow tie. His machismo bubbling through, he insists the rainbow colors are world champion stripes. I go along with it, knowing that’s probably not the reason. While it’s our ultimate fantasy that Coco resides in the spare room with the full bath upstairs, we’re still frugal enough to keep the bike butler part-time for now. Besides, as leader of a hot salsa band, Coco does well for himself and insists he’s married to an actress named Lucy. I Love Lucy, he says. Till we decide on the full-time thing, our bike butler visits once per day and is on call if we need him outside of that.
Every morning, Coco lets himself in just after we get up, brings us coffee and confers with us on our cycling or workout plans. He’s so sweet. He even asks if we had any mechanical issues with our ride the day before. Tonight, after she spends the day at Nordstrom and lunch with the girls, Coco’s workout plan has my wife going to do Pilates at Pendleton in Loveland. I’m doing hill repeats at Devou Park and riding from work. Yeah, I still work, but just for the insurance benefits now. He kindly reminds my wife to be careful with her bummish knee and for me to keep my heart rate at or just under 100% of lactate threshold. “You go hard. Backoff if over one hundred LT,” he says shaking his finger. Even with his sleeves flopping around when he gestures, he can be intimidating sometimes. Knowing that he’ll see my Powertap data, I nod to confirm.
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| My Wife And I Buying My New Truck After Lotto Win |
Coco then heads down to the laundry room and packs our gear bags. Yoga pants, other workout wear, a Sigg bottle, a granola bar, a Sweaty Band and a towel go in my wife’s bag. He instinctively tosses an instant freezie pack in her bag incase my wife’s knee gets inflamed. Coco packs my Northface backpack with my kit, shoes, helmet, IPod and heart rate monitor strap. He even pre-butters my chamois. He also packs a small cooler with a granola bar, a Gu, and three water bottles, two for on the bike, the third mixed with a recovery drink. He then heads into the garage man cave to give the bike a quick once over and pumps the tires. He then loads it all into our cars, her BMW and my Range Rover Sport, and hands us the keys as we leave.
Coco sticks around for about an hour after we head out for the day, prepping our other bikes and feeding the cats. Since we hit the Powerball we each have two identically set-up pro level bikes, for each discipline. Pretty sweet huh? While I’ll ride my #1 Kuota KOM tonight, Coco gives my 2nd KOM and my wife’s two IF Crown Jewel’s a thorough cleaning and overall. If something’s amiss, like a stretched out chain, he’ll pick up the part at Biowheels bike shop during the day and install it the next.
It’s a good life. If it goes well, maybe we’ll hire Coco full-time and buy a motor home for CX season. Coco still hasn’t shared the secret of how he keeps bike grease off his cool salsa shirt. We still haven’t won the lottery, but we can dream.
