Bike transformation - part 1 (free subscriber bonus image) (Patreon)

Part 2 is available here.

The left pedal has this tiny click on the downstroke that’s been there since we turned onto Elm, but suddenly the bike feels all wrong under me. My balance just goes. It’s like someone moved my center of gravity an inch south while I was pedaling. The blue Lycra of my shorts, which was fine ten minutes ago, is pulling way too tight across my thighs and bunching up in the middle because there’s nothing there to fill the front out anymore. I shift my weight on the saddle to fix it and my hips just... slide. They feel broader, the bone catching the edge of the seat in a way that makes my legs splay out wider than they should.

Every crack in the asphalt is hitting different now. Before, it was just a bump, but now every pothole drives the narrow nose of the seat upward into soft tissue that’s incredibly sensitive. There's this localized, buzzing friction that doesn't have a category, a damp warmth spreading through unfamiliar folds whenever the road gets rough. It’s a heavy, pulsing sensation that makes my back arch instinctively, my knees brushing the top tube because my gait has completely changed mid-ride. I try to stand up on the pedals to get some relief, but my pelvis tilts forward with a weight I’m not used to, and I almost clip the frame.

Janet is about a bike length ahead, her black shirt damp with sweat in that one spot between her shoulder blades. She’s just grinding out the miles, totally oblivious to the fact that the guy behind her is literally falling apart. She calls something out about the headwind, but I can’t even answer her because I’m too busy trying to breathe through a jolt of static that just fired up my spine from a particularly bad patch of pavement. I just grip the drop bars until my knuckles go white, staring at her rear tire and praying she doesn't look back to see how the fabric is straining across hips that have no business being this wide.