Things that might be decidedly odd…

More Shopping

This morning I drove into work so that I could drive around afterwards to run some shopping errands.

First stop was at Sammamish Valley Cycle in Redmond, where I ended up buying a bike seat and a pair of gloves. The seat is a Terry Fly Molycro, which is apparently a heavier version (using a molybdenum-chrome alloy of steel instead of titanium) of their premium seat. It comes with a 30 day exchange guarantee in case it doesn’t work out, which sounds good. Their website claimed they were having a big sale, but not much actually seemed to be on sale so perhaps the site was out of date.

From there, I headed over to Redmond Cycle not far from the first place. I didn’t care for their selection of anything really, although they had a couple nice jerseys. Moreover, the guy helping me kept getting interrupted by other customers and I eventually just left.

Next was Sylvia’s in Bellevue to pick up a new pair of swim goggles. My current ones are starting to die and I need a new pair.

After that, I begrudgingly went over to Performance in Redmond. I did end find a jersey, a water bottle and a bike bag I liked, but the place had a strange vibe to it. It just doesn’t feel like a local bike shop. In fact, it’s kind of creepy. Cheap but creepy.

By this time, it was getting fairly late (about 8pm), so I went back over the bridge to Seattle to drop by Gregg’s Greenlake Cycles. I put a deposit down when I placed an order for a bike I ended up cancelling later. To get the deposit back, I needed to come in with my credit card. On the way out, I was looking through their shorts since I still need to get a new pair. The selection was very, very limited. Everything seemed expensive and poorly sorted. I thought there must be more stuff somewhere considering the size of their clothing section. I asked the salesman if it was just my imagination that pretty much everything seemed to be women’s clothing and if this one section on the rack was the only shorts they had for men in size medium. Once he said yes, I said thanks and that I was leaving. I don’t think I even waited for him to finish his sentence. I’m sorry, but at this point you just can’t help me if you don’t stock something as common as men’s bike shorts in medium!

You wouldn’t think shorts would be a hard thing to find, but apparently they are. Arg, I should just order online or something since nobody seems to sell them at any sort of discount when they sell them at all!

New Bike

This morning I got up early and headed over to Montlake Cycle to do some test rides. Robert and I had dropped by there the other week while shopping for bikes, but it was busy and we weren’t able to find a salesperson. First I rode a nice Cannondale (Aluminum frame, Carbon fork, Tiagra components) that was nice. It was $1150 though and it didn’t seem all that special for the price.

Next, the sales guy brought out an ‘05 Bianchi Imola. It’s actually one of their rentals, but they were willing to sell it to me. I loved the bike and bought it! It has the nicer Shimano 105 components along with a steel frame and carbon fork. The ride is smooth and it’s definitely a higher end bike than most of what I’ve been looking at. Two years ago new, the MSRP is $1400, but since it was used and older, I got it for $930. The bike shop said it was just recently added to their rental fleet and has only been rented out twice. It’s definitely been broken in and already has some dirt and wear on it, but it seemed like a good compromise to exchange shiny, brand new for something a bit higher end. All told, it was $1167 out the door after I added on clipless pedals (none were included), shoes and sales tax.

Equipment-wise, I’m mostly ready for STP now. I still need to get some more clothes like cool bike jerseys (UNC or Cal) for example. New hobbies are expensive, but fun!

Here’s some quick pictures I took with my cell phone: