MY NEW GF!

 

OH THE JOY! My new GIRLFRIEND (ER GARY FISHER) HAS ARRIVED! Cue to the celebratory music and me doing back flips!

For the last two years of my mountain biking fun, I had whooped my poor little 26 Cannondale F5 mountain bike. That bike had been good to me but after destroying many a rear derailers, (due to my sheer riding finesse falling off obstacles and banging it on everything) I (or rather my bike shop friends) had converted it to a single speed and it was to be strictly my park bike (complete with sweet flat pedals and HAWT pink tires). The master plan was to save some money over winter and get a new mountain bike.

I had pretty much got my heart set on getting a hard tail 29r. So on March 30th the time had come to hit the bike shop and pick out my new steed. I wanted to get the best bike in my budget and wanted to be sure I was getting a step up from the ole F5.

Upon looking through the catalogs and pricing stuff out, I was all set on either the Gary Fisher X Caliber or the Paragon. With a quick check of the shop computer, the bad news came. Both sold out for 2010. None available until maybe August. Booooo! I should have known this was going to be a problem as my friend, ET, who was also looking at bikes had said several of the bikes she was looking at were sold out and not available.

I am assuming after a slow year last year, manufacturers cut production back and everyone who waited to buy last year all bought early this year. I never would have expected this to be a problem in March!

I was sort of at a loss as to what to do. I looked at the Felts but the one I liked was a little out of my planned budget. Cannondale does not make a SM 29r (although I guess my current F5 is a medium so started looking at those later but all specs say I should ride a SM). After talking it over with the husband I decided to just get old bike fixed up to ride this year. I had resolved to deal with that but, yeah, that was sort of a bummer. I just did not want to wrap a bunch of money up on a mountain bike that I was not really excited about.

So dropped off old bike the next day to get fixed. Then the next day, I went back to pick it up. I got to talking with super awesome bike shop man MV about the Cannondale possibility and then was comparing them with the Gary Fishers I had liked. Checking out the Gary Fisher site, he stumpled upon this super awesome Gary Fisher HiFi Plus 29r in a SM.

You know that thing they say about love at first site...it was kind of like that! Needless to say, the bike was ordered on the spot on Thursday and just a few short days later, it had arrived! (More cartwheels!)

Now this bike is full suspension which is not what I was expecting but that was even an added bonus in my book! Oh my new Girlfriend is beautiful! Everything on it is sooo much better...forks, shifters, derailers, brakes...I could go on forever. I took it home last night and was rolling down the steps in my yard, going over anything I could find like it was nothing with that suspension! OH I LOVE IT! The only sad thing is that I have this sweet new bike and am not doing the Mohican 100K mountain bike this year. Nonethless, I will make up for it!

So I guess tonight it is time to hit the mountain bike trail! The husband brought me to work today so he could pick me up and we could head straight from work to the trail...YIPPPEEE! I can't wait to take this to Mohican to ride at the CTC training camp April 16-18, then down to AL when we are down there April 30-May 7 (I see Racoon Mountain in Chatanooga in my future...maybe a day trip to ride in Nashville??), then out to the Allegrippis Trails over memorial day weekend & the weekend of June 12, and ride it July 11 at Xterra One and to RIDE IT ALL THE TIME...You get the idea!