Yea, I’m making up words. So shoot me.
A couple of years ago MsBoyink and I, having been bike-less for a couple of years, thought to try and get back into riding a bit. These moments are tough - do you spend a lot of money on a really nice bike hoping your investment will bring greater enjoyment (or greater guilt at potential non-use) and cause you to use it more? Or will your use be the same regardless of investment and thus spending less money makes more sense?
In this case, I went with the latter, reasoning that the best excuse to buy a nice mid-line bike at a true bike store would be a Wal-Mart cheapies that we had just plumb wore out. So off to Wal-Mart we went, each spending $88 on a “comfort bike”. A week later I ended up retrieving a nice road bike that I had bought at age 16, ridden for a couple years then stored in the parents shed so returned the my Wal-Mart bike in favor of that. MsBoyink remained saddled with her Wal-Mart special.
On this trip, however, we’ve been by mountain biking trails that I’ve wanted to do with Data. My skinny-tired road-bike doesn’t cut it, so I’ve just been grabbing MsBoyink’s bike instead. It’s not a great fit, but the thick tires are what I’ve needed.
This bike has been on trails in around 5 states and while I’m not exactly leaping off small cliffs with it, I haven’t exactly treated it nicely either. You see - the thinking now is once this thing dies we’ll replace it with a nicer mountain bike that MsBoyink and I can share, so I’m a bit motivated to speed its demise.
So, against all warnings to the contrary (and I’m sure to a few raised eyebrows in the parking lot) I pulled it off the truck for a run at the 2 mile Slickrock “practice loop” trail in Moab, UT. The trail is mostly on pure rock - pretty much like riding over rough and undulating concrete, with a few sand runs and puddles to mix things up. Being not hard-core bikers we took it slow with a few breaks, did a lot of pushing, but overall had a riot.
And didn’t break the bike.
Maybe I should have looked for a “Moab Tested” sticker. Nah - it’d cost 1/10 of the cost of the bike..;)
Yeah Mike, keep away from those small cliffs. They tend to cause large amounts of pain in my experience. Got to say the $88 bike did well in Va.
At least you weren’t that guy who was going the hard direction on the main loop, and came barreling towards us with his little bmx bike with the kickstand sticking out.
Heh…we did watch a guy on a high-dollar bike come by and when he saw what I was riding commented that the trail “wasn’t for beginners”...
I figured worse-case it was going to be a 2 mile walk…;)