At lunch today, Bill, Chris, and I walked over to Kozy's. The main purpose of the trip was to see if they would match a price Bill found on the internet for some new tires for his bike. The more insidious purpose of the trip was so Bill could talk me into buying a new road bike.
Some of you know that I have a 1990 Schwinn Woodlands mountain bike as my main summer ride. The bike has served me well over the years. Admittedly, there was very little mileage put on it between 1992-2000, but the past four years have more than made up for it.
This year, I am doing the MS150 ride between Waubonsee State College and NIU. That's 75 miles per day over the weekend of June 26-27. (Here is a link to my pledge site at the MS Society-- if any of you are so inclined-- and here is a link to our team's site.)
The idea is that my old Schwinn may not be up to the challenge, or moreso, that nothin's better than a new, lighweight toy to ride through the cornfields.
So in we walk to the bike shop, and the first thing I see are road bikes in the $1500-3000 range. Now, I can appreciate fine machinery as much as the next guy, but I have an issue paying more for a bike than several mortgage payments (hey, I got a good rate, what can I say?). You get my point, though.
The salesman led me to this bike, which actually seems pretty nice. I rode it around inside the store (it handles beautifully on oak flooring), almost knocking down a guy who was looking at a $3500 number. There's a discount for MS150 riders, plus they've got this six-month-no-interest thing happening, which makes it tempting.
So, we'll see what happens. I've got to make sure the priorities are set straight since I still have the painter scheduled for early June (I'm completely used to the splotches by now-- it'll be strange to have them gone) and there are some other things I wanna do.
Posted by jtl at May 4, 2004 04:08 PM