Never satisfied with sucking at many things, I’m always eager to add to the suckage. I am a mediocre cyclist and snowboarder, and really lame at running, climbing and skiing. Fortunately enough at 43, I’m just happy to have fun doing these things with no ego requirements to be good at any of them.
This year, I’m adding mountain biking to the list. Where to start? Find a lesson. Last year I discovered the Trek Dirt Series too late, but this year, I had it diarised for Feb 1st when registration opened. I signed up for the clinic on May 14-15 in North Vancouver
Well hello? How can you take a clinic without a bike? So off to the bike shops I went. Bike shop A showed me a beautiful Giant Cypher in white with pretty blue designs. The nice man talked about components and shocks and travel .. blah blah blah .. but I was enamoured with the pretty blue designs. Sanity prevailed when I saw the $2,200 price tag, and off I went to bike shop B.
Enter the store and you’re met by a dog – a real dog, not a rat in a dog suit – who immediately started to sniff me inappropriately! Apparently I passed the sniff test, because he wandered off and went to lie down between the bikes. The store was busy on a Sunday afternoon and we waited and waited and waited. While we waited, I heard a whisper from the far wall where the road bikes dangled. I looked over and was sure I had imagined it, when I heard my name again.
“Psst, Moniera, over here”. No one else seemed to have heard it, so I ambled over non-chalantly to go take a closer look. Oh the temptation!!! Specialised and Trek beauties vied for my attention. The 2011 Madone had me wiping my chin. Mountain bike? What mountain bike?
A firm shake of my shoulder brought me out of my reverie, and my husband and the nice sales fellow with his arm in a cast looked at me a bit oddly. I gathered my composure and we started talking about what I needed versus what I wanted. He showed me a Specialised model with a hard tail and then last year’s model of a Trek Women Specific Design bike which had dual suspension and all these fancy components. I don’t actually know what’s fancy – I just take mental notes and then send frenzied text messages to my two researchers – who give me the yay or nay. Of course I left Bike Shop B completely smitten with the Trek Fuel Ex8 which seemed like a good fit.
A week later I went back for a test ride. I know full well that test riding a bike is like test driving a new car: of course you’ll love it, it’s brand new and the new bike smell is hard to resist. I saw a different sales guy, but he was happy to pull the bike down for me and spent 20 minutes fitting the bike so I could go for a ride. He changed the stem, adjusted the shocks, messed around with the seat height. I said “Are you sure that’s not too high”, he said “We should really go a bit higher” – we compromised. He offered me rain gear since it looked like it would rain any minute. I declined but accepted the helmet he offered me.
He showed me a muddy trail to go ride and told me how it connected to a gravel trail that I should test the bike on. He suggested some places to find loading docks to jump off.
“No really, I’ll just ride a curb today and see how that feels”. I said, “See you in 10 minutes”.
He said, “Take your time, get a feel for the bike. Don’t rush back.”
Of course the bike felt great. The curbs were so smooth to climb, I quickly got bolder. The steep back lanes offered some easy little drops off driveways and stairs. I climbed up the muddy trail and cruised back down it. I returned to the store with a huge grin on my face. We talked price, he made an offer, I choked back a sob and said that I had another bike I wanted to ride before I decided. He offered to hold the bike for me for the weekend.
Off I went to bike shop A, to ride the lovely Giant with the pretty blue designs. This time I spoke to a different sales guy, asked a bunch of questions, now that I had acquired a small knowledge base and had something to compare it to. The Trek was more bike for a little less money on account of being last year’s model. When I asked about taking her out for a spin, I was told that it would not be possible since it seemed like it was going to rain soon and a dirty bike is hard to sell. Well, alright then. He suggested I come back on a sunny day …. which in Vancouver
That pretty much finalised the decision about which bike to buy and which bike shop to deal with. Now it was just the reality of forking out an obscene amount of money for endless hours of riding pleasure. At the end of the day, can you even put a price on the “weeeeeeee” factor? I hesitated and stalled, and then thought about it some more. I slept on it and thought about it all day and for 4 more days. On day 5 I made the call. Yes the bike was still available, yes they would get it ready for me, no they didn’t need my credit card information because I could just pay for it when I picked I up. So technically I was still not committed. I thought about it some more, chewed my nails some more and fretted about it some more.
And then on Saturday I went to pick up my bike. I think they showed me something about the shocks and how to adjust the rebound speed and something else .. which I don’t remember because my head was filled with cherubs and harps and hearts and the most beautiful bike you’ve ever seen. Well except perhaps for that Madone, but next year’s model will be even more beautiful.
So now I wait for a dry day with respectable temperatures. It won’t be this weekend as I have a date with a mountain on Saturday and Sunday. Already the days seem longer, so spring is coming, and I’ll really get to make her acquaintance. In the meantime, I need to think of a name for her.
In case you're wondering, Bike Shop B is Obsession Bikes on Lonsdale.
In case you're wondering, Bike Shop B is Obsession Bikes on Lonsdale.
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