Spring finally seems to have arrived and unfortunately my bike seems to have come pretty close to the end of its useful life, at least with someone as big as me riding it. It's fifteen years old and stuff keeps going wrong. In short, I decided it was time for a new one.
So, today, I headed up to Cycle Solutions on Parliament Street. They have a reputation for good service and not being pushy and so it proved. I explained my needs; city streets, bike trails, occasional off trail but not hardcore mountain biking. The service person produced a bike at the bottom end of my expected price range and suggested I take it for a spin. It was too upright and I found the front end hard to control on steep up grades so he suggested a bike with a less upright position. I took that for a test run too. It was much better but I could feel that something was flexing in either the crank set or the bottom bracket. This has been a longstanding problem on my current bike and I didn't want to have that all over again. Salesperson explained that a solution to that problem would definitely involve moving up a price point or two. I figured as much so wasn't shocked. I took more expensive bike for a spin and was sold almost immediately. So controllable, so smooth, so easy to handle on steep hills. All in all, lots more fun to ride.
This is what I bought. The one I test road had disk brakes which I don't need and the caliper brake model in my size was still in the box so I won't have it until tomorrow.
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