There comes a time when a blogger's readers are expected to humor her. And that time is now. This post is about bicycles. It's nice to live in the world's fourth-rated top city for bike-ability, after Amsterdam, Portland, and Copenhagen, according to a recent Virgin Vacations rating system. And I do commute by bike way more than car, including most grocery shopping. I'm spoiled by our nice trails which get snowplowed before the roads here. When a trip requires a car, it nearly makes me grouchy.
I took my 25-year old Cannondale in to get it tuned a couple of days ago. Naturally, we have many bike shops here, but the best is University Bicycles. They are awesome, no doubt one of the best in the world. The repairman there told me the bill on my old bike would be $$$. He called my bike a "tank". And then, he said that there would still be things wrong with it.
One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was test riding new bikes. I felt like I'd left the dark ages. They were marvelous. The ease, the smoothness of gear changing, the gear ratios for going up hills and last-but-not-least the gear ratios for going FAST were so superior to my "tank".
A girl picks her car or bike by the color, usually, and I fell in love with the very dark blue Bianchi but it was too small and they didn't have my size. My dream for some time has been to own a Bianchi, the turquoise one with the brown leather seat.
I ended up with a gold Trek FX 7.3, last year's model.
I switched my folding baskets over from the old bike to the new. Accessories added were just a drink holder and a kick-stand. I still need to add green slime to the tires or I might get caught in the Boonies somewhere with a flat.
My ride home was out-of-this-world. It was a beautiful, mild, overcast day here on February 3rd in Boulder so I rode without a coat. The bike trail was quiet, so I felt like I had the wide open Autobahn to test ride my new vehicle.
This bike should take care of me for my next 25 years. Yikes. I don't even want to think about that.