#93 – Buy a bicyle

In spring of 2006, I used some of my tax returns to purchase a pretty nice mountain bike. It was a Trek 4300 (click for a picture) and I loved it. I rode it all around for the summer and in the fall, I moved into a new apartment on East Mifflin St. Now anybody who is from Madison knows that that area isn’t exactly the nicest of places to live in town and needless to say, my sweet new two wheeler was taken from me. I tried getting it back but there wasn’t much that could be done. I foolishly didn’t register it with the city, so they didn’t really care that it was taken, plus the police have better things to do than to track down my stolen bike. Oh well…

I didn’t buy a new one in 2007 due to my finacial situation but fast forward to today and things are a bit different. Kathy and I took a strole down to Williamson Bicycle Works & Fitness this morning and talked with a cool guy named Ian. He showed me around their lot and we talked about mountain bikes. My first test ride was a Cannondale F6. It rode as expected but wasn’t anything that made me go “like woah”. The next bike I rode was a GT without any suspension what-so-ever. Apparently that trend is coming back. It had 29″ wheels instead of the standard 26″ which was a bit strange at first but the bike felt nice overall. I like having suspension though so I rode the Cannondale again just for kicks. When I got back, Ian had brought out another GT, this time the Avalanche 2.0. This one had front suspension but came with the ability to “lock” the suspension in place so it effectively became more of a road bike. On top of that, it had disc breaks, something Cannondale didn’t have (nor my old bike). This I liked and after a short test run, I could tell it was the bike I wanted to take home. Behold… my new mountain bike!

I will have to ride this bike quite a bit before I can give a real solid review but so far, it feels great. I’ve checked into some reviews online and a lot of people seem to recommend this model so I think I made a good choice. I can’t wait to hit the trails and do some general biking around Fitchburg. Oh and you can be sure I’m keeping this bad boy inside so some shmuck can’t walk off with my new ride.