Sat 12 May 2007
Since I quit the whole smoking thing, I discovered that I have boundless energy and strange youthful candor.
Or something.
So I bought a bicycle. A “less expensive hybrid”, specifically, given that it’s been a couple of years since I rode more than once a year and the fact that the hills around here are steeper than a Guantanamo Bay prison sentence.
By “less expensive”, I really mean, “less than my car”. I spent over $300 on the cheapest bike they had. This was my targeted price range, but I still had expected some stuff you know, underneath it.
For instance, my last bike was a Huffy, which is widely recognized as a toy. Well, at least the sprockets didn’t get worn down after a month and I never had problems with the dérailleur.
This one is mostly problems. I find this kind of strange… If a three hundred dollar bike has n crappiness, then how crappy is a thousand dollar bike? 3n?
It gets me around, I guess.
May 12th, 2007 at 11:45 am
Dylan,
I picked up a /very nice/ bike at CostCo for $150. /Very Nice/ means that it’s comfortable, it works. It’s not perfect–I had to replace the innertube on the front wheel about a year after I bought it, but that’s the way it goes.
Now, I don’t know if you have CostCo/Sams/someother-price-club-warehouse where you live, but it seems to me that if I can get a /very nice/ bike for under $200 then I’d think you could, too. However, if the hills are as steep as you claim, then perhaps demand for bicycles isn’t that high in your area, therefore, the number of dealers is significantly lower, which means that there’s not much competition.
But what would I know? I’m not an economics major. I’m a computer science major.
May 13th, 2007 at 1:27 am
That’s the strange thing… there are by far more “cyclists” here then in Denver. I think that there are more “commuters riding bikes” here, too, at least this time of year when it’s sunny.
And there of plenty of bike shops (I went to one in walking distance of my apartment).
That’s probably my problem; I bought a bike in Capitol Hill.
May 25th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
i remember that huffy. I remember the bikers at Speedy not thinking much of it…but they were always working on their bikes…