Saturday 31 January 2015

Collection & First Ride!

So - Yesterday I collected my bike from the bike shop....

I called ahead of course and the guys in Ferris Wheel had the bike ready for me by the time I arrived. lights on, water bottle, pump and saddle pouch with spare tube all installed!

I hired up the saddle and away I walked out of the shop! Felling a bit nervous I put the helmet on and through the leg over the cross bar! I was off! I became "one of them" the up until now "other annoying road users"... To be honest I cycled the first km or so through a park to find my feet... but I soon ran out of park and had to face cycling on the big bad road!

Out of the park onto the road! I very quickly learned that nearly everything can hut you on the road and that you had to be reading what was going on well ahead of you and well in advance! Once I got used to this I gained a small bit of confidence and I started to pick up a bit of speed, felt great at times until another person on a bike would blast past me just when I though I was bombing along!

The saddle! do you ever get used to it?? EVER?? about km before I got home I could hardly sit on the damn thing! OK, I know I need padded cycling shorts but WOW I was sore! Still am today!

All in all I enjoyed my first ride home, 8.5km in 25 mins! I've a lot of learning ahead of me, road etiquette, gear selection, how to gracefully avoid large pot holes without veering into cars, that sort of thing. Looking forward to S getting her bike...

Tuesday 27 January 2015

All of a sudden we have bikes!

Before we knew it, we were in a bike shop called The Ferris Wheel in Blackrock, Dublin.

It kinda took us by surprise, all of a sudden we parked the car and had a look around the shop, humming and hawwing at all the different types, sizes & colours of bikes! Pretending we knew what we were looking at and secretly plucking up the courage to ask for help in choosing a bike...

Eventually after some touching around and mumbling to each other the guy in the store cam over and asked us if we need any help, at this stage we had both seen a few bikes that we liked. so he got them down for us, adjusted the saddles and told us to head out on them for a ride.. Which we did, we were out for a good 10 mins and when we came back he already had another two down for us to try, another racer and a hybrid for my wife to try. So out we went again, me on the racer (Trek 2.1) and Sharon on the Hybrid (Giant). The hybrid just wasn't even in the running. 

After we got back the second time we tried another two racers, My wife Sharon tried a low cost racer by Dawes and I tried a high end Giant racer. So when we returned we made our minds up. The Dawes and the hybrid were out of the race!

What we went for in the end was the Merida Race Lite 900 for S and the Trek 1.2 for me.

Delivery within the next week or so!! 

Next blog post will be about our first time on the bikes!!