Bike shopping
Yellow Bike has spoiled me. I love riding the thing.
Despite putting serious miles on both bikes on my recent vacation, I’m having difficulty with giving up a road bike for a hybrid for all winter.
Yellow Bike does have fender mounts, so I suppose I could use it when there isn’t snow or ice on the ground, but that still puts me on the hybrid exclusively for weeks on end.
Dreaming up how a road bike might be equipped for winter riding, I came up with a few bullet points:
- Road style frame
- Drop bars with integrated brake/shift levers
- Room in the frame and fork for my snow tires
- Disc brakes
- Full fenders
- Rack mounts
- Triple chainrings with 175mm cranks
- Non-ferrous frame because steel rusts in the salt.
There are secondary considerations as well, but they’re negotiable. These aren’t.
Until recently, I was comfortable knowing that there isn’t a bike on the planet made to these specs, so there was no use worrying about it.
I decided that I’d make rollers and maybe a trainer my winter cycling investment. You put a regular bike in a trainer to make it into an indoor exercise bike, with resistance and all that.
Rollers are like a treadmill for bikes. You get the exercise, and you have to maintain your balance and a straight line or you ride off the rollers, fly across the floor and crash into a wall. Rollers keep your bike handling sharp.
Then along came a thread on BikeForums.net where the poster was asking opinions on a bike he was considering. The bike in question, the 2007 Schwinn World DBX hit every bullet point, and then some. It tips the scales at $1200 and Towner’s is a Schwinn dealer.
‘Lo, I walked into Towner’s a couple of weeks ago and there it was. The paint job looks on it is just stunning. Much better than the web photos, and better than on bikes twice the price. I talked with Lambert about it and took it for a spin around the parking lot. I think it’s a size too small for me and the brakes weren’t adjusted right, but despite that, boy it felt nice.
I’ve been scheming ever since on how I might acquire one.
Part of the scheme is trying to figure out which size I need since Towner’s has only the one in stock and their method of fitting a bike is limited to the decades-old standover height method. Standover does nothing to help determine if the bike fits when you’re actually riding it, and that’s how I wound up a size too small on Bike.
So last Wednesday I found myself out at Park Ave Bike Shop making an appointment for a fitting session. Park Ave is the local Serotta dealer and they have the Serotta fit bike in the fitting area. The fit bike isn’t really a bike at all, but rather an assemblage of pipes and clamps that have a handlebar, pedals and saddle mounted to them.
The pipes and clamps can all be adjusted in infinite combinations to find just the right size, geometry and fit for a customer before they order a custom fabricated Serotta bike. I could use the measurements from the fitting to help fit, or shop for, any bike, not just a Serotta.
While I was there, I also asked if they knew of any bike that matched my winter road bike bullet points. They sell Serotta, Cervélo, Guru, Cannondale, Redline, Specialized, Trek and Raleigh. Among all those brands, there wasn’t a single model the salesman could find that hit everything I wanted. I left with my appointment for this coming week.
I dropped in at Towner’s to see about their layaway plan and how it worked with ordering a bike. Then I rode over to Full Moon Vista Bike and Sport.
I like the people over at Full Moon Vista. I ride with them at least once a week. I know everyone on staff by name, and more importantly, they all know me by name. If I was going to buy a new bike, and it wasn’t from them, I wanted them to know it was a product specification thing, not a displeasure matter.
I ran down my list with Kyle. He thought a minute, then said, “This is want you want over here,” leading me to the bike showroom. There he pulled down a Trek Portland.
“Portlands come only in a compact double,” I protested.
“Originally, they did,” he agreed. “But later they switched to a triple. This one’s a triple.”
I drooled.
The Portland is a purpose-built road bike designed to be commute-ready with no modifications. Ride it off the showroom floor straight to work. Okay, it needs a rack and lights. And real fenders to replace the spiffy-looking but ineffective half-fenders. But still, it’s for road bike riders who want a commute-ready road bike.
We talked about it while. The phone rang, he went off to answer it. I threw a leg over the bike. Amazingly, it seemed to fit. Yellow Bike, a Trek 1000, is a 58 cm frame. The Portland was a 56 cm. Too small I figured, but why does it seem to almost fit?
“C’mon, lets put it on the trainer for a fitting,” Kyle suggested. At Full Moon Vista they don’t even let you test ride a bike without first fitting it to you. We raised the saddle, changed the stem, adjusted the saddle’s fore/aft position and suddenly, everything felt just right.
“But it’s a 56,” I protested.
“Yeah, but just like clothes, size is just a guideline”, Kyle explained. “Portlands fit a little differently than 1000s, especially older ones like yours. That fits beautifully, doesn’t it?”
I had to agree.
“So in a Portland, you need a 56. Wanna take it for a ride?”
I thought about it a bit, then answered, “No, not today. Next time. I have to think about this.”
See, the Portland is a $1700 bike, fully $500 more than the Schwinn I’m considering. There are some component differences—the Portland is slightly better equipped, it’s not $500 better equipped.
Still, this particular bike is a leftover 2006 model. The 06s were only $1650, and negotiations should get it to $1500 easily. But it’s still not $1200. And I’d have to replace the half-fenders with real ones.
So I’m in a quandary.
There’s no room in the budget for either bike plus rollers or a trainer.
The World DBX is a nice bike and I pass Towner’s nearly every day. They’ve been good to me too.
The Portland is a very nice bike. There’s the name cachet, but that also could make it a thief magnet. And in addition to a rack, I’ll also have to buy fenders for it. But, I like the people at Full Moon Vista and they treat me really well, even though I’ve spent very little money there.
I can’t afford a down payment until Thursday at the very earliest. I’m going to keep thinking about it.
