I've not done any cycling since the charity bike ride last June. Since then my bike had festered in the shed with a flat back tyre and a dodgy crank bearing. At the time I was driving to work (much too far to cycle) and didn't have the motivation to get the bike fixed up.
In February this year, we had a break in. Both of our bikes were stolen from the shed. Katherine quickly got a new bike from Halfords through the insurance company, but I decided to hold out as my workplace had recently started doing a ride2work scheme through Evans Cycles. The scheme means you pay for your bike out of your pre-tax pay if you promise to use it to get to work, thus saving around 50% on the price. I applied for a voucher in February and it took until last week (mid April) to arrive. A two month wait is frankly ridiculous, but asking around a few people it would appear this is normal.
Anyway, I headed down to the bike shop and after a quick test ride I settled on a Specialized Pitch Comp FSR. It improves over my old bike (a Saracen Vice - no longer produced) in pretty much every way. It's much lighter, has hydraulic disk brakes (brilliant in the rain!), and the suspension is a lot more advanced - it can be adjusted from rock hard for road use, to really soft for offroad. It feels much better when pedalling as it doesn't waste all your energy compressing the suspension rather than propelling the bike forward.
I was able to take the bike with me straight away as they had one in stock. I rode back home from the bike shop (about four miles) which took me about half an hour. Since then I've ridden to work and back all week (2.2 hilly miles each way) and done a few laps of Surrey Research Park (0.6 miles) in my lunch hours.
I hope to get rid of my beer belly soon!!!
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