New Bike!

This will probably be of the most interest to Robin, but I'm posting it for all of you because I am soooo excited!

Tuesday night I'm on my way home from a college fair when Mitch calls to tell me about his day in Traverse City, where he was taking classes for work. He told me he had some time to kill, so he went to a bike shop there and started talking to a guy about bikes for me. See, my K2 is a good "starter bike," but I already had to replace the derailleur, the frame is heavy, etc. Since it's the end of the season, lots of places are having good sales, so Mitch has been all about doing a little (OK, a lot of) research.

Anyway, the bike he found was a Scott Contessa 20, which is a WSD (women specific design) bike with as good as or, in some cases, better components than his bike. He was certain I would like it, but I stuck to my practical guns and said I wanted to demo one before we bought one, even though the deal was incredible.

So Wednesday, as I only had one high school to visit, I spent the afternoon visiting the local bike shops in South Lyon and Brighton, talking about different kinds of bikes. One of the main things I was trying to determine was for what brands were the WSDs just smaller frames with different pait jobs, and for what brands were they actually geometrically different. If you're curious, Trek WSDs are essentially the same as the regular bikes, whereas Specialized bikes and Scotts are are pretty different.

One of the places I went was D&D in Brighton, where the salesguy was awesome and talked to me for about 30 minutes. He had great things to say about the Scotts and even said if I came back when their female salesperson was working, I oculd probably take her Scott out for a spin. He quoted me a couple of pretty good prices but said they would price match. He also told me the Scott Contessa 20 was not in stock there, but he could order me one.

At this point, I am not considering buying a bike. If I was, I would have taken the Scott they did have in the store out for a spin around the parking lot, even though it was raining. Anyway, I called Mitch and told him all about my adventures and the new knowledge I gained, and he said he went back to the Traverse bike shop to see about demos, but they had sold all of them. We also compared prices, and the Scott Contessa 20 in Traverse was over $100 cheaper than it was in Brighton. At this point, I am finally recongizing what an amazing deal this could be, but I'm still reluctant to spend $630 on a bike without test riding it. So I ask Mitch (I'm in the car driving to another college fair at this point) to call D&D and see if (1) they will in fact price-match and (2) I can ride the other Contessa they do have in stock the next day. So he does, and the good news was that they would match the price and let me test one, but the bad news was that the manuacturer doesn't have any more of these bikes! They are '06 models and they've stopped making them!

Decisions, decisions...in the end, I gave into the persuasive powers of my husband and my own desire for a better bike, so I am now the proud owner of this beauty. When you look at the picture, imagine it with a blue and silver paint job and no disc brakes. Then put clipless pedals on it and picture me on the seat! According to Mitch, he followed the golden rule of buying a bike for your wife and purchased me a better quality bike than he rides.

And now, it's time to wrap up my entry and take my old bike out for one last hurrah!