Allen

Last weekend after the training shower, as Kevin called it, I took Mason into Cycle Solutions to book a tune up, and talk about some upgrades. Mason, of course, is my Giant Cypress ST. He's a hybrid, great bike for scooting around in the city, but I've noticed there are some things about him that aren't perfect.

I spent about an hour and a half at Cycle Solutions discussing options for upgrading, and looking at other bikes. The weather was still quite bad, so I arranged to come back on Tuesday to try out some of the other bikes. I tried out a Felt F80, a Giant OCR, one other bike I don't seem to recall properly, and a Specialized Allez Sport Double in the white / red colour option.

I headed back yesterday (Friday), decided that the Allez was to be my bike, and we proceeded to do some additional fitting. Overall, we didn't need much, the seat post was adjusted to suit me better, and we replaced the stem with a slightly shorter one. By the end of the evening, I was heading home with my new bike, Allen :-)

I did today's training ride on Allen, and was immediately amazed at the difference it made. It's my first time on a road bike, and the 46km ride was a breeze! There were only mild hills today, but I know they would have presented me with a small challenge on Mason. With Allen, it was easy to push ahead and keep my pace up. He's fitted with a Cat Eye Cordless 7 cyclocomputer, which of course seems to be missing from the Cat Eye website.

Regardless, I'm thrilled with my new purchase, and I'm sure that Mason won't mind having a sleeker faster brother around, so long as I keep taking him out for some of the trail rides.