I’ve been riding Harvey’s Cannondale R800 for a while now. The frame is entirely too large for me and it hurts like shit to ride. Over the past few weeks I’ve been doing some 25+ mile rides around Boulder and finally stepped it up to hill climbing when I conquered Flagstaff Mountain during the tail end of a 26 mile jaunt this past Sunday.
After coming home I thought to myself why I didn’t own a road bike. I work 4 miles from my house, the gym is less than a mile away on the bike path and so many of my friends have road bikes that they ride all the time. I can run and swim like the wind, I ride a stationary trainer at the gym 5 days a week… Why don’t I own a road bike again?
Since Sunday I’ve been poking around on the internet, trying to find the right bike to fit my budget and ability level. I’ve got a cousin who insists on the finest gear on earth and owns a bike that is worth more than most cars that you will find on a college campus. While this is all well and good, it just isn’t for me. I’m no cyclist. I don’t own a pair of bike shorts, I’m borrowing a helmet and I’ve never clipped into a pair of pedals in my life. Spending the equivalent of the gross national product of a 3rd world country on something that doesn’t have a motor, power windows, air conditioning and four wheels just didn’t seem right to me.
As always with any major purchase, I did my online homework and found the best bike and deal I could muster. This lead me to Performance Cycle here in Boulder, they’ve been trying to blow out all the 2008 bikes and since no jackass except yours truly buys bikes in the end of September I was able to get a scorching deal. Thankfully, I’m a small in frame size and they had one of the bikes I was looking at online in stock and were blowing it out at nearly 50% off sticker.
Now, under normal circumstances I would have mulled a purchase like this for days. However, I’ve been working my ass off recently (70-80 hours a week) and pulled the trigger out of shear impulse.
“Fuck it, I deserve it.” I thought to myself.
I needed something non dork related to remind myself why the hell I make money in the first place. Sure, buying a 23″ Apple Cinema Display is cool and all, but that is work related. The bike, well, that is for having fun.
Oh fuck, I’m getting so Boulder. What’s next, I get a pan flute or a drum?
I need to head home soon so I can recharge myself on some good ol’ fashioned east coast-ness.
As for the color, I swear it was by chance. I was not looking for a bike that had the same colors as Freeskier.com and the Freeskier logo.